Reaping what you sow: why social media analytics are crucial to the growth of your account
Caring for a plant takes more than just water and sunlight. Sometimes it takes as much as propagating, repotting, more water, less water, more sunlight, or no sunlight. This all depends on what you know about the plant, and how the plant responds to the care you give it. If you buy a cactus and try to treat it like a sunflower, you won’t yield the same successful results. If you buy a cactus and treat it like a cactus, you will be able to better pinpoint the ways in which you can improve its health and growth. The same applies to managing a social media account. If you don’t know the fundamental basics of your account, and don’t make adjustments for better growth, your account will not succeed.
Analytics are crucial to the success of a social media account. Analytics show you what’s working, or what’s not working. Is this hashtag helping or hurting your account? Did that photo align with the rest of your feed? Did posting that photo at that time get more or less likes than at the other time? Analytics help to answer these questions: giving a breakdown by the numbers of your account’s successes and pitfalls. With analytics, you can better assess the needs of your account, appeal to your audience, better allocate your budget, and bring you closer to your SMART goals.
Some analytics can be monitored daily, other analytics are more appropriate in the big picture to other people. On a daily basis, you might want to look at your engagement metrics, how your posts are doing compared to your baseline, compared to your competitors (competitor metrics). When delivering a weekly report to your boss, you would want to include awareness metrics, audience metrics, timing metrics, and listening metrics. These metrics provide a closer look to the big picture: how your content is performing throughout the week, and how your account is performing in conjunction with your content. When delivering a monthly report to your company’s management team, you want to include as little fluff as possible. Keep the metrics simple, and applicable. Goal & summary metrics are a good way to outline the main points of your monthly performance, highlighting the main objectives and results of your monthly campaigns, content, and postings.
Analytics and metrics are what allow you to appropriately manage your social media accounts, telling you exactly what your account needs to grow. Now go water your plants!
