Google Analytics and Social Media
Social Media, it’s something you either love or hate right? Well if you are someone who hates it then you need to ask yourself why? As part of a sound internet marketing strategy social media campaigns can benefit your bottom line and Google will prove it to you through Google Analytics.
Many business owners won’t use social media because there isn’t an effective way of measuring what effect it has however, now Google have rolled out new reports within Google Analytics which will help to measure social media activity both on and off your website through sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
The Google Analytics will be fantastic in regards to social network activity and your web design:
- Identification of the value of the traffic which is coming from social sites
- Measurements of whether or not traffic from social sites lead to direct conversions or if they assist in future conversions
- Understand social activities happening both on and off the site in order to help search engine optimisation, user engagement and also increase social key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Help people to make more beneficial, efficient and data-driven decisions with regards to social media marketing
The Google Analytics allows for the user to define specific goals to measure such as the visits that you want to encourage to your site because they result in the visitor purchasing a product or service.
There is a conversion report which will show the conversion rates of each social network which you are using as well as the monetary value which they drive to your business. You can see what is working and what isn’t so say maybe you spend equal time on Facebook and Twitter keeping them maintained but in reality it is only Facebook which is providing results then you could distribute time, effort and money differently.
Another report from Google Analytics is known as Social Sources and this will show the user how people interact with the content on your social media sites. In turn it will then show whether that engagement will show up in the results which you have outlined as a goal. Say for instance you promote very specific products through social media then Google will be able to show you whether visitors from say Facebook or Twitter entered your site through the product pages and whether they looked at other pages.
All this information which will be available through Google Analytics is going to prove invaluable and will help users to make better use and fully exploit their social networking opportunities. There will be strengthened social media messages and so as a user you will be in the best position to be able to make a decision on future marketing strategies and to tailor content around topics which are liked most by your followers.