2016

Social Media Analytics

AUTHOR NAME – STUDENT NUMBER
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Introduction – Social Media Analytics

The process of social media analytics normally involves the practices of collecting data
from social media websites and blogs in order to analyse and use the findings for business decisions.
Most commonly, social media analytics is used in order to understand the customer sentiments,
which will further support the marketing decisions. In addition to this, the findings and results of
analysis are used for the purpose of marketing, product development and customer services. The
process is typically initiated with an activity of setting the goals of social media analytics. This
step defines the ultimate objective and area to be improved through social media analytics. For
instance, the objective of social media analytics may aim to collect feedback from the consumers
in order to improve the process of product or service delivery (Sponder, 2011). Once the business
goals have been identified, the next step is to define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the
process. For instance, a KPI of previously defined objective can be the percentage of customer
complaints. Based on the objectives and performance indicators, the strategy of social media
analytics is finalised (Rouse, 2016). This step will involve the finalisation of tools and media to be
used for data collection and subsequent analysis. For media, there are several platforms that can
be used and it mainly depends on the availability of the relevant audience (Gartner, 2016). As far
as tools are concerned, a number of commercial and open-source software are available to
effectively analyse the data and conclude the findings, which can be used for decision making
process in the business organisations.

Mechanism of Social Media Analytics

As mentioned earlier, a number of media can be used for social media analytics. The
following are most commonly used platform for social media analytics along with the details of
performing social media analytics on these platforms;

Google +

The basic process of starting a social media analytics is similar for almost every platform,
which involves setting up the business pages in order to attract relevant audience. Further, the
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activities and interaction of the audience are analysed, and for this purpose, each platform offers a
range of tools. Specifically for Google+, this platform is offering two main tools for business
analytics. This includes Google+ My Business Analytics and Google+ Dashboard. By using these
tools, the background of the audience of a page along with the activities including clicks on the
posts, post shares, comments, website visits and keywords can be analysed in details. In addition
to this, for businesses, Google+ also offers a tool of product reviews, which can efficiently be
integrated with the social media analytics to improve product or service quality (Jostes, 2015).

Facebook

Facebook also provides a similar approach of setting up pages and advertisements for the
business. A built-in set of tools is provided by this platform which can be used in order to analyse
the background of the audience accessing the advertisements and pages. In addition to this, the
tools provided by Facebook can also be used to monitor the actions and activities of the audience.
For instance, the “Insight” tool provided by Facebook can be used to analyse the page likes, reach,
page and post views, and a general behaviour of the audience (Facebook, 2016). In addition, users
visiting the page can also rate a business based on their experience.

Twitter

Twitter also provides a powerful tool “Twitter Analytics” which can help businesses as
well as individuals to perform social media analytics. Twitter Analytics features a Tweet Activity
Dashboard, which provides an overview of the people connected with an account through tweets.
The user can compare tweets, regions of the user connected and other details. This analysis can
also be based on any specific timeline in order to check the engagements with any particular post
or product (Twitter, 2016). In addition, other tools and software can also be integrated in order to
have a deep insight of any activity based on the particular objectives of social media analytics.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is specifically developed as a professional networking platform and as far as

social analytics is concerned, it is particularly helpful for human resource departments of the
business organisations. With the help of LinkedIn analytics, organisations can check the
engagements, visitors’ traffic and background of the visitors (Burney, 2016). The analytics tool
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available on LinkedIn provides a graphical view of the numerical figures. Through this, the hidden
patterns of random data can effectively be evaluated, which can help in decision making.

Tools for Social Media Analytics

A range of commercial and open-source applications and tools are being utilised for an in-
depth social media analytics. Some of the tools are detailed below;

33Across

33 Across is based on a specific algorithm which is often termed as 33Across’s social DNA
by the company. This is a powerful tool which is quite helpful for the businesses as well as
consumers. Apart from an in-depth analysis of the social audience of an organisation, it helps to
find opportunities for better marketing. Based on the interests of the audience, this tool can help
to target any particular market for specific products. In a nutshell, this tool integrated with the
social media pages and websites can help in finding better opportunities for marketing (Hardwar,
2016).

Brandwatch

Brandwatch is known to be one of the best data gathering and parsing tools. It is claimed
to have a special algorithm cuts through social spams in order to find relevant conversations. It
can also be helpful for multinational organisations because of more than 25 language support
(Hardwar, 2016). This tool can monitor the conversations and comments of the visitors across all
social media platforms in order to find out the hidden patterns, which can be useful for decision
making, customer services, product design and sales as well.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most widely used tools for social analytics. This an open-
source tool and is not limited only to the social media websites. A business organisation can also
monitor the traffic coming to the website of the brand and a summarised view of the visitors can
be analysed for the purpose of decision making. An activity stream can also be checked, which
can provide a real time view of the conversations on social media platforms about any particular
brand (Hardwar, 2016).
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Hootsuit

Hootsuit is a convenient tool for social media analytics as it offers an integrated web-based
dashboard to analyse the social media analytics across all platforms, including Google+, Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media websites. In addition to the facility of scheduled posts
and other activities, this tool can also dig down into the social media data of the companies with
its efficient social analytics tools (Hardwar, 2016).

Scope of analysis – what could be analysed?

As mentioned earlier, social media analytics can help in various ways to perform analysis
on gathered data. This particular tool can be used in following ways;

Content analysis

Through social media analytics, the extent to which audience is responding to any
particular content can be analysed. This is an effective analysis, particularly for an overview of
products or service offered by the company (TechTarget, 2016). The visitors reaching to any
particular post can also be analysed in terms of their likes and dislikes, which can effectively help
an organisation to set the direction of its marketing strategy.

Business analysis

For analysis of business, social media analytics can help to evaluate the reputation and
popularity of a business or brand. By collecting and parsing the data, including conversation of the
social media users, social media analytics can communicate the perception of audience about a
brand. An insight can be gained about the response of people towards products or services offered
by any particular brand.

Audience analysis

An analysis of the social media users connected to a particular brand can help an
organisation to better set the directions of the business. It also provides the reaction of the audience
with respect to the social, cultural, religious or regional background of the users. It can also help
to identify the type of content preferred by the audience of a specific region, which will help in the
decision making process.
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Calculation of engagement

In most of social media platforms, engagement rate is calculated as the ratio of engagement
volume to the number of users or events triggering the action. The engagement rate normally
defines the quality or efficiency of the engagement of users in any particular social media content,
which is often termed as base volume. The engagement volume is defined as the impact or potential
for impact against any particular content. As a formula, this can be represented as;

𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒
𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑒 =
𝐵𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒

The base volume can be represented in terms of followers, impressions or reach towards
any particular content. In case of followers, it will define the audience having a direct exposure to
the content. The reach represents the number of users exposed to a post or page, while impressions
are a calculation of the number of visitors on a page (Yamaguchi, 2014).

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be argued that social media analytics is a powerful tool that can be
utilised to enhance the efficiency of various business operations including marketing, customer
services and overall decision making process. It provides a deep insight of the customers’ trends
by evaluating the available data on social media, which can subsequently be used for the purpose
of decision making. In addition to this, it also helps to find relevant content for any particular
audience in order to enhance the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and customer services.
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References
Burney, K. (2016, 8 4). An Introduction To LinkedIn Analytics. Retrieved from TrackMaven:

http://trackmaven.com/blog/2014/05/introduction-linkedin-analytics/

Facebook. (2016, 8 4). Facebook. Retrieved from Insights:

https://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=insights

Gartner. (2016, 8 4). Social Analytics. Retrieved from Gartner: http://www.gartner.com/it-

glossary/social-analytics

Hardwar, D. (2016, 8 4). Top 10 social media analytics tools: The VentureBeat index. Retrieved

from Venture Beat: http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/20/top-10-social-media-analytics-

tools-the-venturebeat-index/

Jostes, L. (2015, 3 11). How to Discover Analytics With the Google+ Dashboard. Retrieved from

Social Media Examinar : http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/analytics-with-google-

dashboard/

Rouse, M. (2016, 8 4). Social media analytics. Retrieved from Tech Targets - Search Business

Analytics : http://searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/definition/social-media-analytics

Sponder, M. (2011). Social Media Analytics: Effective Tools for Building, Interpreting, and Using

Metrics. London: McGraw Hill Professional. Retrieved from

https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=83AVmMiEiKAC&dq=Social+media+analytics&

source=gbs_navlinks_s

TechTarget. (2016, 8 4). Tapping the potential of social media analytics tools. Retrieved from

Search Business Analytics :

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http://searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/essentialguide/Tapping-the-potential-of-

social-media-analytics-tools

Twitter. (2016, 8 4). Twitter. Retrieved from Tweet activity dashboard:

https://support.twitter.com/articles/20171990

Yamaguchi, K. (2014, 9 23). How to Calculate Engagement Rate for Social Media Marketing.

Retrieved from Origami Logic: https://www.origamilogic.com/blog/how-to-calculate-

engagement-rate-for-social-media-marketing