In our last post we discussed our “VERY” method and how by using analytics you’ll be able to determine what type of content resonates the most with your audience. Through effective analysis, you’ll not only find out the best day of the week to post, but the best time of day as well.
Don’t just get hung up on the number of followers you land instead of the actual conversion of those followers into true fans and customers. Instead dig deeper to find out the true nature of your fan base. You’ll want this beneficial information when tailoring landing pages, website content, and overall marketing messages to your potential clients. Having demographic data about your followers allows you to connect with your target audience a whole lot more deeply and you will begin to understand them on a whole new level.
Our VERY method includes analytics to determine four measurements: volume, engagement, reach, and yield. We’ll do a quick refresh on each of those, and then we’ll discuss a few other important measurements and indicators which you should also track.
Volume
Volume measures the growth of your fan base. Celebrate anything positive, but set yourself a strong stretch goal to steadily exceed 10% growth each month. Watch for the spikes in fan growth and try to identify what contributes to those spikes to determine what really attracts people to your brand.
Engagement
By knowing the frequency of fan interactions on each of your posts, you can determine which discussions hold the most interest to your fans. Watch for unusual spikes or drops in this number as well. Increase the number of posts on topics that engage the most of your fans and decrease the posts around topics that fail to garner a strong response.
Reach
Reach measures the spread of a social media or other online conversation. It measures everyone, including friends of your friends, for whom your post showed up on their timeline or main page. The more fans you can get engaging on your page, the more people will see your posts, and the greater your reach will extend.
Yield
Yield measures how many of your social media followers convert to established sales relationships. Out of all of the people who follow you, this reflects how many actually purchased your service or product.
Here are other measurements you should pay attention to and track as well:
Demographics
Demographic analysis will reveal statistics such as the gender of your fans, their ages and where they live. This data has incredible value and use no matter your objectives. Find out who listens and target your message to them.
Mentions
Every time someone tags you, your fan page will appear on their “wall” or home feed. Chances are much higher that a person will click on a link that they see there to learn more about you than to search for your fan page manually. Increase the frequency of being mentioned by mentioning other people. It’s simple – thank other people for their help, and when the time comes, they’ll pay you back by thanking you.
Unlikes
Unfortunately, you will always have some unsubscribers, no mater how great your engagement. Your message will not resonate with everyone and that’s ok. You want to make sure you connect with your true target market – individuals who share the same values you do. Don’t take it personally when someone leaves, just know that you’ll make a better connection elsewhere. Watch out for spikes, however. If you see them, try and correlate them with the activity on your page and understand why people left. If you see an unusually high spike, you will usually have a pretty good idea why.
Referrers
This informs you where the traffic to your page originates. Your message resonates the most on the sites that bring you the most traffic. Focus your marketing on those incoming links.
Page views
This metric identifies the number of your returned fans. If you take the number of page views and subtract the number of unique page views, you will see how many of your fans not just stopped by, but actually returned to your page.
Impressions
Impressions reflect the number of times users view your post or it loads on someone’s home feed. Bear in mind that since the tool counts each page refresh as a viewing the measurement may not reflect a true value, but it can still provide a general indicator of how many times your fans have seen your post.
Tab Views
If you have multiple tabs on your page, this metric will indicate what percentage of traffic each tab receives. These results will help you decide whether you should adjust or even remove some of your tabs. Facebook allows only have six tabs visible on your page at one time so this data will help you prioritize accordingly.
Some of these metrics may require manual calculation and deeper analysis, which may not sound too enticing to those uncomfortable with their math skills. However, by gaining even a passing familiarity with the above metrics, you will begin to make much wiser decisions regarding your social media strategy and gain the ability to make far more effective and engaging interactions with your fan base.