Social Media Analytics

Social Media Analytics – Can They Be Measured and Tracked Accurately?

Since social media is one of the toughest things to justify in terms of ROI, current analytics simply are not well suited to measure this data accurately. There are many tools available that all propose to offer the most accurate results, better than any other tool available. This can create the notion that all you may need is the one wonderful tool. However, it is likely this sort of approach that has created inaccurate statistical results and other anomalies that prevents power users from building a proper foundation for analytics.

Some of the best ways to track you social media are:

• Try Mashable Digg Analysts Tools.
• Want to find out what people are talking about on Facebook? Soon to return should be Facebook Lexicon.
• Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard can be a helpful tool and the first line of defense in brand management.
• For those interested in mining social medias for hot and trending keywords should try buzz pocket mining tools.
• Keotag is great for tracking tag usage.

However, remember that at best even these tools are limited to minimal measurement of brand mentions and tracking.

Additionally, it is important to remember not only the number of friends or followers on your lists when making statistical calculations, you must also take into account how strong those relationships are, which is once again an immeasurable aspect.

One of the strongest reasons for why analytics aren’t always suited to measuring social media effects properly is that the logs or even JavaScript tags are recorded from each visitor, which is where the fancy analytical information comes from. The problem is, what it needs to be able to read is all of your friends and followers minds. Back to square one again when you consider it that way, and you will continue to end up back there over and again until mind or mood reading technology becomes available.

I suppose that may be a slight exaggeration, but truly it is not as far off or as far out as it sounds. The point is, is that what you want to measure, record and analyze is the actual network of friends and followers. So although there are tons of helpful tools available, many of which provide incredible analytics for many aspects of your social media projections, the main thing you really need seems to continually go back to basics, and those basics still require a human behind the wheel. So what are some of the ways you can encourage social media networking on your own sites?

• Send some business there way
• Link to them
• Answer questions they may ask
• Send them helpful messages, not spam
• Add them to your list or lists you support
• Link to or shared their profile with your own users
• Acknowledged accomplishments posted by them

I once posted about the blog statistics referring to 1000 visitors, in return I got questions like how many unique, how long did they stay, where did they come from, etc, etc  but none of these provided value for why I used the blog, after all if I have visits that I know are not mine, those visits consistently grow then the detail numbers are not as important as one would think. I found value in that if my blog had 100 page views today, that even if that was only 30 unique visitors, that those 30 unique visitors are stronger and more valuable than the 100 unique visitors with 110 page views that the next guy got. In this case my visitors where not brought to my blog on false pretences, my visitors found value in what was there. This is why they stayed and visited more than the page they landed on… this is success because I have caught their attention beyond the initial media that brought them here… now engaging them in comments, tweets and so on is another story.

So although once again, many of the social media tools have their purposes, the absolute best way to make sure your social media is effective for you and your business, is to build and measure relationships, their growth and their strengths. That is the best place you can focus on analyzing.

Sources:

• AIM Clear Blog: 20 Free Buzz Pocket Mining Tools
• AIM Clear Blog: How to Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard
• CMSWire: Social Media Analytics Tracking Campaigns in 4 easy steps
• Facebook Lexicon
• Keotag
• Mashable Digg Analysts
• Search Engine Journal: Creating a Social Media Analytics Action Plan
• Social Rain
• SysCommInternational