How a Competitive Analysis Can Improve Your Brand’s Social Media

A brand’s social media marketing strategy can be crucial to raising awareness for a new product or service. While we may think about social media strategies as a way to illustrate the brand via social media platforms and track engagements and impressions, brands can take a step further and look outside their brand by performing a competitive analysis. Performing a competitive analysis on brands you may be competing against is extremely important and beneficial, and throughout, we will dive into why!

social media for brands

What is a Competitive Analysis? 

competitive analysis can be defined as conducting a research report where you identify your brand’s competitors within your industry, allowing your brand to place where they stand among competitors and in the industry. Additionally, a competitive analysis allows for a deeper understanding of competitors’ marketing strategies and helps your brand identify its strengths and weaknesses among competitors. By knowing your competitors, you can monitor which strategies are successful for them, be aware of new products that may be launched, monitor industry-wide trends, and ultimately bridge the gap between current and potential customers and your brand. 

How to Make a Competitive Analysis and Tailored Social Media Marketing?

The first and most significant step in creating a competitive analysis report is performing thorough research to understand your brand’s competitors. Brands must identify both their direct and indirect competitors: direct competitors can be accredited to companies that have a similar product or service and a similar target audience to you, and indirect can be attributed to companies that do not offer the same product or service as your brand but have a similar target audience. It is crucial to be conscious of where your brand stands in the market and how consumers view you and your competitors. One way to discover competitors can be through a Google search using keywords you may use to describe your brand. 

Once you know who your competitors are, it is essential to perform market research on competing brands. Your brand will acquire information about the company, target audiences, products, and strategies from this market research. While understanding the company, looking at its social media marketing strategies and content creation is also precious. For example, look at which social media platforms they use. Are they active on Instagram, X, and Facebook, or just Instagram? What is their tone of voice on these platforms, and how do they interact with their target audience? Are they more casual or formal? Do they run contests and giveaways, what keywords do they use, how frequently and consistently do they post, and what are they posting? Social media for brands is a vital piece in marketing products or services, so by studying their strategies you can see their success in connecting with target audiences and growing their brand on social media. 

A competitive analysis will be highly informational and beneficial for your brand. It not only allows you to see the potential holes in your marketing strategy, but you can also see what is successful for your brand compared to others. You can gain additional valuable information and adjust or improve your social media strategies by looking at fellow social media and content strategies.

social media for brands

How to Monitor Competitors? 

To see how you are performing among competitors, brands need to be able to monitor how successful your brands and competitor’s current strategies are. Various social media analytics and reporting tools can make this data accessible. 

One helpful tool that brands can use is Hootsuite. Hootsuite offers various services that allow you to compare your brand’s data to those of competitors or the industry. For example, Hootsuite provides a tool that will enable you to create a competitor watchlist to monitor differences in audience growth, published posts, total engagement, and more. If you have a list of competitors, this tool is handy when comparing your social media marketing strategies. If you do not have a list of your competitors or want to see how your brand compares to the industry, you can monitor metrics on platforms such as Facebook, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram. Hootsuite is a great tool to track, compare, and improve social media for brands.

Another valuable tool to use is Sprout Social. Sprout Social offers a competitive analysis tool that allows you to add competitors to compare your data. This tool can monitor data on X, Instagram, Facebook, etc… This service will enable you to see how many times your brand posts compared to competitors, engagement rates, and audience growth. Sprout Social has various other features crucial in monitoring how successful your brand’s social media marketing strategy is compared to competitors. 

It is no secret that social media for brands can be a significant factor in marketing a new product, creating connections with target audiences, and inherently growing your brand. By performing a competitive analysis, brands generate precious information that can permit them to improve their social media marketing strategies. When you want to perform a competitive analysis and need help with market research or content creation, remember that Bright Age is here to help! 

The Importance of Reporting & Social Data for Business Success

Social data is publicly shared information by users that display metadata including user’s location, searches, likes and dislikes, biographical data, shared links, and much more. Through this we are able to see how users engage, view, and share content. It is one of the key components that can change the trajectory of a business. This means that understanding how to utilize this data and report it is necessary for ultimate success and optimization.

The goal of most brands and businesses is to increase customer loyalty and profits. Social media reporting is important because it allows companies to gain insight into competitor analysis, future trends, and consumer behaviors. Thus, brands will better understand what their customers want and stay relevant in the market. Here are a few ways you can utilize social data reports to increase overall business success!

social media reporting - consumer behaviors

  1. Understanding Consumer Behaviors

Social data allows for you to understand the needs and wants of your customers. By compiling data of their social engagements and content interactions, we are able to recognize what type of products they are looking for, their consumer buying behaviors, and so on. This can provide insight for companies to readjust their marketing strategies to align with consumer preferences. 

For example, if you were a potato chip company looking into the social media reports of your customers and saw that there is a large handful of buyers searching up dill pickles and dill pickle flavored products, then pitching the idea of a dill pickle potato chip flavor could be a successful idea. Furthermore, social data can help businesses with more than just product ideas. It allows for brands to be aware of whether people enjoy their packaging, see other consumer goods people are buying, and what patterns they have on social media in terms of liking and disliking content. 

social media reporting - competitor analysis

  1. Competitor Analysis

Being aware of your competitors is one of the most important factors that can determine the success of your business in this competitive market. Consumers aren’t always 100% loyal to a brand they buy from once or twice. From a customer’s viewpoint, they want the best product out there. For this reason it is necessary to constantly be analyzing competitors’ social media and their marketing strategies. This is where social data can come into play.

Social data allows for companies to understand how their customers view competitors and buy into their products. For example, social media reporting can let you see if customers are buying into competitors’ collaboration products. If you were a clothing company and your competitor just released a new line for the Barbie movie and reports saw a large engagement from customers, then this could help you understand a little bit more about what your customers are looking for!

  1. Future Trends

Trends eb and flow and there is always a hot new topic in the media. Social data can help in predicting these future trends and keep your company up to date. A great example of utilizing social data for trends was the clothing brand, Urban Outfitters. Social media data showed reports that corsets were coming back into style for 2021. Urban Outfitters understood this and produced different colors and styles of corsets right when the trend was circulating over social media. They have sold thousands of corsets and have profited immensely!

It is necessary to understand the market and predict trends so that you don’t fall behind competitors. Trends can be short lived and you do not want to miss the opportunity to market an up and coming product. Social data is the best way to predict these by looking into consumer preferences and see what content is slowly popping up on social media!

social media reporting - how to report

There are many ways in which social media reporting can aid the success of one’s business. It is understanding what to look for within the graphs and charts that will create the greatest optimization. Whether it be using the data to understand consumer behaviors, analyze competitors, or predict future trends, it is necessary for elevating and growing a brand’s presence in the market and on social media.

How to Report & Optimize Using Social Media KPIs

Social media has become one of the key components in successfully marketing and expanding your business. To be prosperous, it is important to understand what your business goals are for your social media platforms. A great way to make sure you are on track with your growth is to align your goals with social media key performance indicators (KPIs).

KPIs are metrics that allow you to see the effectiveness of your social media strategy. Reporting and optimizing your social media performance requires tracking and analyzing your specific KPIs. This helps evaluate whether or not your strategy is working.

social media KPIs - identifying KPIs

Before picking out your KPIs, it is necessary to set your social media goals. Depending on what growth stage your company is in, goals will differ whether it be growing an audience or driving sales performance.  After these are set, the next step is to recognize your KPIs. There are many different KPIs you can track including ones for engagement, reach, conversions, and customer loyalty. Picking the ones that align with your objectives will be of the most value.

Here are a few specific KPIs for each category: 

Reach:

Reach helps to see how many people are coming across your account and noticing your posts. These KPIs can be helpful for seeing if your platform and message are reaching an audience.

KPIs for reach can include –

  • Follower count
  • Impressions
  • Share of voice
  • Web traffic

Engagement:

Engagement is helpful in seeing if your audience is interacting with your posts. It is important to know if people are just scrolling past your feed or liking and sharing it with others. Good engagement is necessary to optimize and grow your platform.

 KPIs for engagement include –

  • Clicks
  • Likes
  • Shares
  • Comments
  • Mentions

Conversions:

Conversions provide you with seeing if your viewers are becoming customers. It is essential that your audience is buying into your product or service. You want to overtime see who is valuable to your community and makes purchases.

KPIs for conversion include –

  • Lead conversion rate
  • Sales revenue
  • Non-revenue conversions

Customer Loyalty:

Customer loyalty KPIs aid in seeing who values and repurchases products from your brand. Loyal customers are the people who share your product online and through word of mouth. This is necessary for growing your audience and keeping a clean reputation.

KPIs for customer loyalty include –

After your initial social media KPIs are chosen, you can begin tracking them. Setting specific accounting periods is essential to compare data and make thoughtful analyses. Consistency in tracking periods plays an important role in optimizing a business. Depending on your specific KPIs, you can track weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

There are a multitude of social media management platforms that focus on watching your analytics and reporting back with detailed analysis. KPI reports are most commonly shown in the form of an interactive dashboard.  An interactive dashboard allows you to evaluate real-time and past-time data all in one screen with structured graphs and charts showcasing your KPI statistics.

Using the KPI reports, you can watch patterns and trends that consistently show throughout the metrics and draw conclusions as to if they are performing in the capacity you desire. Comparing them with past data and as well as competing businesses is essential in reassessing your social media KPIs for future growth.

The final step in optimizing your business using KPIs is to share findings with your team and adjust your goals to fill in the gaps where needed or make new goals if current ones are met. If you are tracking KPIs for engagement such as watching likes, comments, and shares and they are performing well over a set period, making new goals for conversions could be beneficial.

social media KPIs - communicating goals

Social media KPIs are essential for improving your social media strategy and platform overall. Knowing which KPIs to focus on is what will impact the optimization of your business. All KPIs are not perfect for one company, so make sure yours are in alignment with your specific needs and goals.

How Algorithms Affect your Social Media Engagement

Social media is a powerful tool that can help your brand reach higher engagement and awareness. But with the rise of posted social media content, your posts can get lost in the algorithms. To help you understand how social media algorithms affect your engagement here are some breakdowns of how algorithms on each platform affect your social media engagement. As well as a few posting tips to help your brand stand out against the social media algorithm.

What are Social Media Algorithms?

Algorithms help maintain order and assist in ranking content in search results for each user. They help sort the content on the user’s feed based on what they think the user might like. Social media algorithms are a way for each platform to prioritize content they think the user will like. Each social media platform has a unique algorithm that can be difficult to master if not understood properly. We are here to help your brand understand and work the algorithm to best suit your brand’s needs.

Social Media Algorithms - iMac

Types of Algorithms

There are different algorithms that focus on different pieces of your content for each platform. The main social media platforms are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Here is a look of each algorithm broken down for each platform.

Facebook

Facebook is a platform that’s based on consumer engagement. With its main purpose in building stronger relationships with family, friends, and local businesses. It’s broken down into four categories: popularity, content style, relationships, and most recency. Focusing your content on community engagement and building up trust and respect with your consumer will help your brand reach a higher engagement rate. Actively engaging with your audience by replying to your consumer in the comments will help your brand’s engagement.

Instagram

Instagram’s algorithm was based on chronically time posts. Now their algorithm is based on relationships with user’s, following and interests, posting time, and session time of the user. Carousel posts get three times more engagement than single posts. Instagram Reels are commonly boosted posts that help brand’s stand out in Instagram’s algorithm. Creating content that uses Instagram’s features like carousel images and Reels will help your brand stand out.

Twitter

When Twitter first came out, its algorithm was based on the day the content was posted. Now, its algorithm is based on the relevance of the content. This algorithm breaks down to: engagement with consumer, activity of brand, posting times, and type of media. Creating a posting schedule that optimizes your engagement will help your brand succeed on Twitter.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a platform dedicated for networking with your peers. Its algorithm is based on community connection and engagement. To optimize LinkedIn’s algorithm, use a few hashtags, video content, and actively comment and reply on posts. Another tip is to use analytics to help understand what content works best for your brand.

Social Media Algorithms - Clock

Optimize your posting to maximize engagement

Timing is a huge factor in how much engagement your brand will get. Posting when your audience is most likely active will help your content be seen. This will help with maximizing impressions and increasing engagement. The best times to post on social media will vary from each platform so strategically planning with a social media team will help your brand reach a high engagement rate with each platform.

Bright Age is a creative agency that specializes in social media. Request a consultation today! To stay up to date with what we are doing follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

How to Use Social Media Data to Develop Creative Content

These days it is essential for businesses to have a social media presence. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter allow businesses to market their services and connect with their target audience. In fact, 90% of people end up buying from businesses they follow on social media platforms.

Marketing on social media does create exposure for a business, but there is a catch. Because of the oversaturation of businesses using social media, it can be difficult to become recognized by the algorithm if the business is not posting creative, eye-catching content.

As a leading social media content agency, our job is to help clients overcome the obstacle of worrying about what to post. Our agency specializes in designing content and increasing user engagement across all social media platforms.

Each social media platform has their own set of features that a brand can use to post attention-grabbing content. From Instagram stories to Twitter polls, marketing on social media is the best way to gain brand loyalty and personally connect with your target audience.

Instagram

Consistency is key when it comes to developing a brand image, and Instagram is the perfect place to create a theme for your business. By posting content that is aesthetically pleasing, more people will be drawn to the Instagram page.

social media content agency using iphone to view instagram

There are multiple features a business can use to become recognized on Instagram, but one of the best ways is by posting a story. Instagram stories are used by over 400 million people daily and are a perfect way to personally connect with your followers.

social media content agency screenshot of instagram stories icon

Businesses can post questions and polls to their stories, allowing followers the opportunity to interact and share their opinions on the business. The data collected from these stories can be extremely valuable because it provides insight on exactly who is responding to the stories. This is a great way to help understand your target audience—the demographics of your customers or potential customers.

As a social media content agency, we understand the importance of tracking engagement on social media platforms. We have expertise in examining the analytics of social media posts by looking into the demographics of people who are interacting with a business online.

Twitter

Twitter is a great platform to share information and connect with brand followers. Currently, there are over 145 million monetizable daily active users on the platform. These users are constantly being exposed to brands they interact with, making Twitter one of the best ways to market your business to your target audience.

social media content agency image of iphone using Twitter

Businesses can market their services on Twitter by posting tweets, polls, and as of November 2020—fleets. Fleets can be used just like Instagram stories as they disappear after a few seconds. Businesses can use each of these features to connect with their brand followers and in return, Twitter provides valuable data that can be used to understand who is interacting the posts.

On a tweet, users have the ability to see what demographics of people are retweeting, commenting, and/or liking the content. Also, with polls and fleets, businesses can use information such as the people viewing their fleets and the responses they get on their polls to further tailor their content toward the interests of their target audience.

Facebook

Using Facebook to market a business is one of the best-known ways to gain brand recognition online. According to data gathered for Statista in 2020, there are over 2.7 billion monthly active users on the platform—making the opportunities of marketing on Facebook almost endless!

Facebook has many similar features compared to Instagram and Twitter, but expanding your business by creating multiple social media platforms allows for potential consumers to become familiar with your brand.

Businesses can use Facebook to post on their timeline, create stories, and even go live to personally connect with their followers in real-time! Data can then be collected about the demographics of people who are liking, commenting, and interacting with the Facebook page. Based on the types of content that people seem to interact with the most, the business can then tailor their posts to exactly what the target audience wants to see. By doing so, the business will gain traction in the Facebook algorithm, ultimately boosting the page for more and more people to see.

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How to Leverage the Difference Between Owned, Paid, and Earned Media

Whether you realize it or not, your digital strategy is likely comprised of three main types of media: owned, paid, and earned. Understanding what each of these are will allow you to leverage their differences and create an effective digital strategy. Here are a few tips on how you can use owned, paid, and earned media to your brand’s advantage.

 

Image of people working on laptop to visualize a social media advertising agency

Owned Media

Owned media refers to any media that your business owns and fully controls. The clearest examples of owned media include a brand’s website and owned social media profiles. Owned media is where your company pushes its message using branding and content marketing. The goal of owned media is to educate the leads you have generated. It is important to know how well your owned media is performing and how to boost its success. Using analytics helps you can track this success and better understand the traffic viewing your owned media. These analytics help determine if your content matches your target audience. You can boost your website’s performance once you are confident that your content is a good fit. You can do this organically through Search Engine Optimized (SEO) blog posts relating to your brand.

Picture of blog post to visualize what a social media advertising agency can do with owned media

Above is an example of a blog post from The OCI Group, a company that helps you build your financial department. The blog features information relevant to their brand and appeals to their clients. As a result, these blogs increase organic search performance. You may consider using a social media advertising agency, like Bright Age, to ensure you get the most from your owned platforms.

Paid Media

Paid media is any content your business pays to promote your brand and gain exposure. This includes both traditional forms of advertising and digital strategies like promoting posts on social media, Pay Per Click (PPC) ads, and more. The goal of paid media is to generate leads and drive consumers to your owned media. It is also a strong means of sparking earned media, which will be explained later. Your business should consider a variety of options when paying for media space. This is why it is common to consult a social media advertising agency for help when determining which paid platforms will best reach your target audience. Agencies can also help decide what content will engage your target audience and help you put this strategy into action.

Social media analytics reflecting how a social media advertising agency uses paid media

Earned Media

Earned media is the most unique of this trio. It includes any conversation regarding your brand, product, or service created by someone outside of your organization. This conversation must take place on an account not owned by your business. Earned media includes social media mentions, shares, reviews, press, and more. Conversation surrounding your brand implies credibility and increases social media engagement. As opposed to the previous two, earned media is entirely out of your control. However, this means it is extremely important to monitor and respond to. Paid media is a great way to spark earned media, or to get consumers talking about your brand.

Image of GoodRX's twitter feed to show how a social media advertising agency can use earned media

Above is an example of GoodRx’s earned media and how they responded to it. A consumer responded to someone’s tweet promoting GoodRx because of her positive experience. Social media advertising agencies offer services that monitor the conversation around your business, respond to consumers, and manage your brand’s reputation.

Overall, it is essential to understand the difference between these media types to effectively distribute your company’s resources. It’s a great idea to utilize a social media advertising agency, like Bright Age. This would be a smart means of ensuring that you get the most of each media form.

How to Use Analytics & Reporting to Drive Your Social Media Strategy

Have you been consistently posting aesthetically pleasing content and applying all of the steps of a strong social media strategy, yet it seems your brand’s engagement rate is at a standstill? While posting at the right time and including interesting captions does retain consumers, it is crucial to a company’s survival to understand the data analytics from your social and reports that track your social media data. Once that information is received and understood, then you can figure out a strategy to grow your brand on a larger scale.

Understanding KPIs

KPIs, (Key Performance Indicators) include likes, clicks, shares, comments, mentions, and much more, which gives you evidence of how well your business is performing. Examining these numbers informs you which aspects of your social media are falling short compared to the rest. Additionally, each social media platform has its own KPIs. For example, Facebook includes paid likes and post reach whereas Instagram contains profile visits and total reach. Each social media platform comes with its own terminology and aspects of documented social media data. Depending on your business and what you want most out of your social media presence, you can determine which platforms and metrics take the majority of your focus.
Key Performance Indicators icon on working laptop at sunset to show example of reporting

Reach and Impressions

Two metrics to consider closely are reach and impressions. Reach is the amount of people that see your content, and impressions are the amount of times your content is shown, whether it was clicked or not. Because of the different algorithms Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook use, not everyone will always see your content. Posting content that will captivate your target audience and entice them to engage should always be your primary goal. Shares and comments let more people see your material, which in turn increases your reach and impressions. Moreover, the metrics you are most interested in will be catered differently to each social media platform, so it is crucial to optimize your core KPIs on each platform.
Instagram Performance summary to show how analytics and reporting can drive a social media strategy

Key Factors for a Better Strategy

To develop a better strategy for your social media plan, there are a few factors that should be taken into consideration.  First off, examining your company’s social media data helps you understand your target audience. It will show you when your followers/consumers are active online and who you are reaching. Second, as previously mentioned, knowing your KPIs will distinguish which social networks your content will thrive most on. Lastly, numbers don’t lie. The reports you read will help show you which of your content performed best, and knowing these facts can help you alter your content for the future. Maybe the three minute video you posted did not receive the engagement you thought it would. Because you can analyze the number of clicks or shares the video received, it will better equip you to know what to change for the future. Galaxy Theatres Social Media Platforms to show various social media platforms for reporting

Collecting data will not only provide concrete evidence as to what is truly happening behind your social media strategy but will help you optimize your strategy to make it the best it can be. At times posting intriguing material with entertaining captions can be an extensive task, so let a social media agency like Bright Age handle the analytics behind your top-notch content!

How to Get the Most ROI from Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Obtaining an ROI from social media is incredibly important for any business investing time and money into their social media presence. When a company or business invests in social media they are hoping to create a pay off in doing so. In order to do this; however, there are certain tactics more equip to assist in growth than others. Read on to discover how to get the most ROI from your social media campaign.

KPI

Establishing what your key performance indicators (KPI) are is essential to maximizing ROI for your business. These indicators highlight what is working in your social media campaigns and what is hindering them. As a business, you want to produce results, but unless you know your KPI there is virtually no way to distinguish these metrics.

Understanding your Insights

No matter what platform you choose to launch a social media campaign on, you must first understand how each social network performs. For example, Facebook insights are very different than Instagram ones. In order to cater to your brand’s audience, you must choose the platform that suits your campaign the best. For instance, Facebook metrics include engagement, impressions, organic likes, page likes, paid likes, post reach, reactions, and unlikes. On the other hand, Instagram focuses on impressions, reach, website clicks, profile visits, post likes, post comments, posts saved, and follows. If your brand was attempting to promote a shirt, for instance, since it is a visual-based campaign it should be done on Instagram. However, if the campaign is about a sale or deal, it would most likely do better on Facebook.

Define what is Important

Defining what is important to your brand, on social media, is crucial for boosting your ROI for your targeted audience. The reasoning behind this is that if you determine what your brand is focused on, you can better serve your customers. For instance, if your brand is predominantly concentrated on customer service, you may want to focus on mentions and response times. By raising your brand’s awareness on social media, you can also maximize the number of followers you gain and the engagement you receive.

Creating ROI from social media is essential for any brand putting time, and money, towards their social media presence. There are many ways to create ROI. However, the bottom line is, know your brand, know your audience, and research your insights. If all of these things are done thoroughly, your brand should be able to see improvement.

How To Effectively Use Hashtags on Facebook for Your Business

Although it’s more common on Instagram and Twitter, it is very important not to disregard Facebook Hashtags. Hashtags were introduced to Facebook in early 2015, but no details were touched on. Hashtags on Facebook are very open-ended, and here we’re going to help figure out the most effective uses of Facebook hashtagging.

What Works

Studies have been done to show what helps with engagement versus what hurts engagement numbers. When using hashtags in Facebook posts, it’s always important to note that, unlike Instagram or Twitter, more hashtags does not mean more engagement. Quality over quantity is key to using hashtags on Facebook. A post truly only needs one or two hashtags that are relevant to the post. For example, if a business were to post for National Dance Day, they could use the hashtags #NationalDanceDay and #dance, and that would be perfectly fine. Very long or too many hashtags can often be very distracting, so it’s in a business’ best interest to keep it simple.

Facebook As Another Marketing Platform

Many businesses, brands, and companies underestimate Facebook as a marketing platform. Facebook has over two billion active users on it, making it the best one to market on. With that many people on one platform, companies can gain a greater target audience. They can use photos, emojis, tags, locations, and hashtags to help with gaining more of an audience. Using Facebook, it’s 2 billion potential audience members, and its hashtags will ultimately help a business rather than hurt it.

 

Search Using Hashtags

Using hashtags to search for things on Facebook is another way to use them for your company’s benefit. Searching for something by its hashtag could help find different content and more users interested in that specific hashtag. The most effective way to search for a hashtag on Facebook, surprisingly, is not in the Facebook search bar, but through the Google search bar. Let’s say you want to search #dogs, searching facebook.com/hashtag/dogs will give you the most relevant posts towards your hashtag.


Other Helpful Hints

There are many other little tips and tricks to help you make the most of Facebook Hashtagging. Using websites such as Facebook Analytics for reports and analytics and hashtagify.me for finding the most popular and beneficial hashtags could, even in the slightest bit, help with engagements and interactions. Scheduling and fine-tuning every single post will help your posts, and hashtags, look cleaner, more organized, and well thought out.

Facebook hashtags have always been around, and so many people overlook them. Using hashtags on Facebook could assist in taking a company’s profile to the next level regarding more consumers, engagement, and getting their name out there.

 

 

Importance of Reporting and Analytics on a Social Media and Digital Marketing Campaign

People often ask why brands or businesses spend a significant amount of time looking over the analytics and reportings they receive from their digital and social media marketing campaigns. Individuals assume they are there to show how many likes, views, and interactions your business gets on social media platforms. While that is true, reporting and analytics can show much more information that a brand, business, company, or their digital marketing agency could use to grow.

Knowing Your Target Audience

Reports and analytics are one of the most beneficial ways a business, social media marketing agency, or digital marketing agency can learn about who their service or good is attracting. Using tools like Google Analytics and AdWords can tell you statistics ranging from how many people viewed your page, to what city it was viewed from. It can even suggest what mobile operating system was used to view it. Knowing even the smallest of details such as age, gender, and what language viewers communicate in can strengthen a business. It can do so by giving ideas on how to continue to attract the current audience of the brand or service as well as how to attract new clients. Knowing all about the target audience ultimately provides more information on how a company or its marketing team can customize posts, messages, advertisements, emails, etc. to continue to attract their certain audience.

Knowing the Best Times to Interact on Social Media

Digital marketing reports and analytics can provide copious amounts of information on when, what time, and how many people are interacting with your social and digital media platforms. These reports and analytics make it easier for a business or their agency to know when the best social media interaction times for them are. Using Sprout Social, for example, will show exactly how many engagements your posts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) or advertisements gets. By using the information given you may or may not be able to see a pattern develop that shows your business when the best interaction times are based on previous posts and engagements. It’s not always about how many likes or views the post gets, but about what information you can get out of it.

Knowing How to Interact on Social Media

Knowing how to interact with social media is equally as important as knowing the best interaction times. One could post something at a prime posting time and still not get as many likes as possible of because of the content. Although reports and analytics do not specifically show how to maximize your use of social media, looking deeper into these reports can give you a sense of what works for your company and what does not. Locations, hashtags, captions, and tags are just a few things that can help take a company’s engagements, and posts, to the next level. Utilizing what your audience likes to see can help attract customers to your product, page, and business. Having an aesthetically pleasing profile, pictures, website, Instagram, Facebook, etc. also adds to the number of views and engagements a company’s social media platforms can get. The little things in social media, quite honestly, matter almost as much as the big things.

Networking

One important way that reporting and analytics can improve a company’s platform is through networking or getting its name out there. People, brands, and businesses ultimately use social media platforms to connect with others. Businesses use these platforms to connect with clients, whether they be current or future, and other businesses/people that are in the same or very similar fields. This gives businesses a chance to collaborate, gain new customers from their followers, get new ideas, and learn from the mistakes of others. Posting content, keeping everything up-to-date, and being active online through social media, email advertisements, and pop-up advertisements could also improve a business’ search engine ranking. The better the SER, the more page visits a website could potentially get since their page will be closer to the top when their content is searched.

Ultimately, reporting and analytics are there to provide a business or their digital and social media marketing agencies with the tools necessary for their success. They were made as the stepping stones for a business’ social and digital media campaigns improvement. Today, social media is a necessity for any business, brand, or person to get their word out. It’s a huge part of our daily lives and can be a powerful factor in whether a business will be mediocre or taken to the next level.