Are you a Google Analytics-o-holic? I mean, if you’re in business, you should be. Google Analytics is the absolute best free way to monitor the activity on your website, whether you have a blog or a traditional website. I mean, this is a HUGE gift from Google, and if you’re not using, you’re nuts. Yep… Nuts.
A relatively new feature of Analytics now measures social interaction with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, HootSuite, and lots of other social sites. Heck, I even found a community or two that I never heard about, where my content is being shared. Pretty cool.
To use the Social Media Metrics in Analytics, you first have to set up a goal. So, when someone comes to your site, what is it that you want people to do? Is it to opt in, to buy something, or just click a link? Whatever that is, there’s a URL attached to it, and having people click through fro that URL to the desired action is your goal.
But your goal can be very specific, too. You can track more than just one metric. You can start with people opting in, then clicking a buy button or even a button to get to a site where they can buy a product, and then, another goal can be to complete the purchase. You can set up an entire marketing funnel, and it’s a very good idea to do that very thing. It’s not difficult, and takes only a few seconds, if you have all your ducks in a row.
So, gather the URLs, and then set up your funnel.
After you’ve done that, your Social Media Metrics will appear in the”Traffic” section, which you can find in the left-side nav panel:
You can learn which social media site sent you the traffic, which pages your visitors checked out, how many of them converted to the action you set up in Goals, tell you which buttons people clicked on your site and give you some indication of their engagement.
Plus, the report will tell you the flow. Did your customer complete the sale? Go to another page in your site? Take another action?
Pretty sweet, I’d say. Up to this point, there are some indicators you can use to figure out who’s clicking on what, but there’s not been a way to see how effective your social marketing is until now.
I just set mine up (Yeah, it’s been available since March, but I totally spaced on it, and realized I never did it today. Duh.), so I don’t really have any data to show you, but it’s another reason why Google is bomb. If you want to know more about the Social Media Metrics section at Google, you can read the developer’s post here: Social Interaction Analysis.
