Impact of Social Media Tools on the DM Industry

Long time marketing experts can often see the genuine correlation between the digital industry and established medium. In the famous words of Conrad Gessner “Word of mouth matters.” And for the most part, this is completely true. And today, with social media this is truer than ever.

In fact, in our post on the best examples of brand storytelling on social media, we noted similar examples of how strategies that are considered to be ground-breaking have their roots in ancestral advertising methods. It is common sense that no matter how much our means of communication change, we are still humans interacting with one another. While today you might use emojis and GIFs to better express yourself, the message is still the same.

We can also note that in marketing. A movie poster for Deadpool is no different than its social media campaign. The message is the same, but the means are rather different.

A huge part of what makes the latter campaign a more valuable advertising method comes with the valuable insights and reach provided by the big data analytics available on social media. With a simple click of a button, digital marketers can see detailed interactions and engagement data that other methods just can’t provide. Similar direct response could otherwise only be available through a detailed market research solely focused on the response of an audience in relation to a selected advertisement.

The story is good enough as it is. With the mobile generation going even stronger and internet audiences growing larger by the day, it is not surprising that digital marketing efforts are rapidly evolving to cater to the new changes in the industry.

The Case Against Social Media Data Analytics Tools

Social media platforms are also quickly adapting to the influx of customers they receive on a daily basis. Both Facebook and Twitter allow you to quickly check the latest insights and data related to each and every social media profile you run.

Not to mention, Facebook is constantly evolving their Facebook for Business platform, providing worldwide companies with detailed market analytics available at a whim. At this point, the bystander could easily ask the question of why data analytics tools for social media even exist.

When you have all the engagement and reach insights available directly through the social media platforms you use, why bother with third-party software?

More Than a Data Reporting Tool

When you visit the front page of Locowise, you’d see that our branding states “social media performance measurement tool.” And we stay by that definition. When thinking about social media data analytics and reporting tools, some might quickly disregard them as simple data extraction apps. Yet, while this is part of the process, it is far from what such a tool actually does.

To continue the example with what we do, Locowise allows you to create instant market reports, receive insights about the social media efforts of competitors and within and industry and this is just the start of the list.

While Facebook does give you valuable insights, Locowise goes a step further and crunches the numbers through a number of different measurement algorithms to provide with that much more detailed reports. Within a continuous and simplistic user interface, you are able to see the big picture provided by the social media data and just as easily dive deeper to examine even the smallest post-based analytics you can find available.

From reactions to word response word clouds and industry grade social audits at a whim, Locowise, among other helpful social media tools, provides you with data analytics that go above and beyond simple reporting.

Expanding the Expectations of Clients, Providing Simplicity for Marketers

No matter the methods you are using, a client wants to see results. Yet, with social media management the achieved milestones are not as straightforward. You can easily set goals related to the audience size, but post engagement is just as important.

In addition, providing the clients with intricate details, such as the specific number of reactions, retweets and an audience sentiment can add additional value. Of course, the benefits of digital marketing analytics reporting tools don’t stop there.

As explained in-depth in our reporting for multiple clients piece, the ease and simplicity of sharing detailed reports with your clients can have a huge positive impact on your digital marketing business. Saving time, money and resources, white-label social media reports go lengths in the proper communication of results.

While just a few years ago, it would have been enough for a business to have their social media managers run the number of “likes” or “retweets” of a post, today the industry standard is different. In the B2B world of communication, it has become the norm to send detailed visual infographics-like reports that your clients can easily go through and read to note the impact a social media campaign has had on their business.

In addition, for a client to make a proper decision on how and if to proceed with a social media strategy, they need the available data just as much as a digital marketing agency would. Of course, some businesses would still need more information on what “ER” actually is. Yet, most have a dedicated digital marketing expert or a team that is highly familiar with the intricate details related to social media analytics.

Improving the Digital Marketing Impact

Another way in which big data analytics reporting tools help digital marketing experts is via the expansion of the list of services these experts can provide. In the increasingly competitive world of digital marketing, it is becoming far more common for small startup teams and agencies, freelancers, and big agencies alike to need a competitive edge to stand out. And while creativity and quality is sometimes the biggest defining factor, having an even better defined selling point can further your digital marketing business.

Social media analytics tools help marketers realize the true potential of the data a social media page has. The new norm within the industry is that platforms are a valuable resource for market research. Being able to pull extensive reports on the social media performance of the competitive brands for a client is no longer only a means to strengthen a digital marketing campaign.

Instead, competitor analytics on social media also serve the purpose of industry oversight. By helping a client realize how impactful the data on the top platforms can be for the potential success of their business, marketers are gaining a competitive edge towards those who are just starting to use industry grade social media reporting.

A simple one-click market audit on the current social media performance of a brand and how it compares to its competition can easily win you a new client. Such a report not only shows your dedication towards a particular brand, but it also shows that your digital marketing agency is highly familiar with the newest trends in the social media management and reporting industries.

The New Age of Marketing

The digital marketing industry is changing as rapidly as the social media market itself and data analytics tools give a huge competitive advantage to marketers in gaining new clients. Just a simple benchmark that 26.8% of all reach on Facebook is paid, can quickly help a business realize that investing in social media advertising can actually have a huge impact. Yet, of course, this is an extremely small piece of the puzzle.

Recently, Locowise partnered with The Next Web and other big data brands including HootSuite and WeAreSocial in creating a report on how the web has changed over the years. The full 153 page report is filled with all sorts of stats on the latest digital trends is a good enough statement that even we can’t truly perceive to the full extent the global shift in internet usage that is happening today.

Yet, with the help of the very data we harness and analyze with our tools, we are able to have a glimpse in that exact global trend shift. How else would we be able to know that tablet internet use is down 13% to a mere 2% of the global internet use, while mobile continues to rise in popularity. Facebook is another example where mobile has overtaken desktop use by a huge margin.

And of course, what is true in the most major scale can also be noted in a smaller one. By having access to the social media data and stats for your industry, you will be able to paint a better picture of the trends shifts that are otherwise difficult to note. Digital marketers, with the power of social media data analytics tools, are able to see glimpses and get insights that truly can’t be measured in value. With that, it’s hard to ignore the sheer impact seemingly simple analytics tools have on the broader scale and the digital marketing industry today.

If you want to receive insights about your industry, you can use our free Leaderboards tool or click to sign up for a free 7-day trial of Locowise and experience the power of social media analytics first hand.