Social Media Analytics 2023: A Comprehensive Guide

Team Locowise posted on 9 October 2023

In the dynamic and ever-evolving digital landscape, social media analytics emerge as the compass guiding brands, influencers, and marketers through a sea of online interactions and engagements.

This powerful tool sifts through the vast expanses of social data, uncovering patterns, gauging user sentiment, and measuring the impact of online campaigns, ultimately sculpting strategies into their most effective forms.

Whether you’re a seasoned digital marketer aiming to optimize your campaigns or a budding entrepreneur stepping into the digital arena, understanding the nuances of social media analytics is key to navigating the intricate pathways of online success.

What is social media analytics?
Benefits of Analyzing Social Media Metrics
What does the data say?
What are the four types of social media analytics?
Analytics Across Multiple Social Channels
How to Use Social Media Analytics to Improve Performance
Getting the Most Out of Your Social Media Analytics: Top Tips

Social media analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing data from social media platforms to understand audience demographics, track performance over time, and identify trends and opportunities.

Social media analytics can be used to track a wide range of metrics, including:

Reach: The number of people who have seen your social media content.
Engagement: The number of people who have interacted with your content, such as by liking, commenting, or sharing it.
Website traffic: The number of people who have visited your website from social media.
Leads and sales: The number of leads and sales that you have generated from social media.

Social media analytics can also be used to track the performance of specific social media campaigns and initiatives. For example, you can use social media analytics to track the performance of a new social media ad campaign or to measure the impact of a social media contest.

Overall, social media analytics is a valuable tool that can help businesses of all sizes improve their social media strategy and achieve their social media goals.

Here are some examples of how businesses can use social media analytics:

A clothing retailer can use social media analytics to track the demographics of their audience and see which types of clothing are most popular.
A restaurant can use social media analytics to track the performance of their social media ads and see which ads are driving the most traffic to their website.
A software company can use social media analytics to track the impact of their social media marketing efforts on leads and sales.

No matter what industry you’re in, social media analytics can help you better understand your audience, track your performance, and improve your social media presence.

Social media analytics can help businesses of all sizes achieve their social media goals. It enables everyone from small business, to social agencies and large corporations to:

Understand your audience: Social media analytics can help you understand who your audience is, what they’re interested in, and how they’re interacting with your brand. This information can be used to create more targeted and effective social media campaigns.
Track your performance: Social media analytics can help you track your progress over time and identify areas where you can improve. For example, you can use social media analytics to track your reach, engagement, website traffic, and leads and sales.
Identify trends and opportunities: Social media analytics can help you identify trends and opportunities that you can capitalize on to grow your business. For example, you can use social media analytics to identify new markets, leverage customer sentiment analysis, and discover new products and services.

Improve customer service: Social media analytics can help you identify customer complaints and feedback. This information can be used to improve your customer service and resolve issues quickly.
Enhance your brand reputation: Social media analytics can help you track your brand perception and identify areas where you can improve. This information can be used to create a more positive and consistent brand image.
Measure the ROI of your social media marketing efforts: Social media analytics can help you measure the return on investment (ROI) of your social media marketing efforts. This information can be used to justify your social media budget and make informed decisions about your social media strategy.

Overall, social media analytics is a powerful tool that can help businesses of all sizes achieve their social media goals. If you’re not already using social media analytics, we encourage you to start today.

Taking it one step further, Locowise’s social media analytics tool also uses predictive and prescriptive analytics to predict things like future engagement, reach, and website traffic, to help you make more informed and impactful decisions about social media strategies. Try it free!

What does the data say?

It’s clear that social media analytics is important for marketers and businesses alike. Several pieces of industry research make it clear that the ability to track and analyze performance is critical:

81% of businesses use social media for marketing
61% of marketers say social media analytics is important to their success
78% of marketers use social media analytics to track the performance of their social media campaigns
63% of marketers use social media analytics to identify trends and opportunities
57% of marketers use social media analytics to measure the ROI of their social media campaigns

There are four main types of social media analytics:

Descriptive analytics
Diagnostic analytics
Predictive analytics
Prescriptive analytics

You can use all four types of social media analytics to improve their social media strategy. However, many businesses start with descriptive analytics. More advanced strategists such as large social media agencies will focus heavily on diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics to boost client performance.

Descriptive Analytics

Descriptive analytics is the most basic type of social media analytics. It involves collecting and analyzing social media data to understand what has already happened. For example, descriptive analytics can be used to track the number of likes, comments, and shares that a piece of content has received.

Diagnostic Analytics

Diagnostic analytics goes beyond descriptive analytics by trying to understand why things happened. For example, diagnostic analytics can be used to identify which types of content are resonating most with your audience and which social media platforms are driving the most traffic to your website.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics uses historical data to predict future outcomes. For example, predictive analytics can be used to predict how many people are likely to engage with a piece of content or how much traffic a social media campaign is likely to generate.

Prescriptive Analytics

Prescriptive analytics takes predictive analytics one step further by providing recommendations for how to improve performance. For example, prescriptive analytics can recommend which types of content you should post, when you should post it, and where you should post it to maximize engagement.

Analytics Across Multiple Social Channels

All social media channels provide some form of analytics, and some are more in-depth than others. Getting to know what data is available for each platform is an important part of any social media manager’s approach to social analytics.

Facebook Analytics

Facebook is a general-purpose social media platform with a wide range of users. Facebook analytics can be used to track a variety of metrics, including reach, engagement, website traffic, and ad performance. You can also use Facebook analytics to track the performance of your Facebook ads and to identify areas where you can improve your social media strategy.

To access Facebook analytics, you must be an admin of a Facebook Page. You can also access Facebook analytics if you have a role on someone else’s Page or professional profile in their Business Manager.

Twitter Analytics

Twitter, with its real-time conversation threads, is a powerhouse for brands. But, how do you measure the impact? Navigate to the ‘Analytics’ tab on your Twitter dashboard. Here, you’ll discover metrics like tweet impressions, engagements, and follower growth. How to check Twitter analytics? Simply log in, access your profile, and click on the ‘Analytics’ option.

Instagram Insights

As one of the most visually engaging platforms, Instagram offers ‘Insights’ for business profiles. These insights encompass follower demographics, social media post interactions, and even the best times to post. You can also use Instagram analytics to track the performance of your Instagram Stories and to identify trends in your audience behavior. To access Instagram analytics, you need to have a business or creator account.

TikTok Analytics

The newest player in the game, TikTok, provides comprehensive analytics for pro accounts. TikTok analytics provides insights into your TikTok account performance, including metrics such as views, likes, shares, and comments. You can also use TikTok analytics to track the performance of your TikTok ads and to identify trends in your audience behavior. Accessing your metrics is as simple as logging in and navigating to the top right hand corner of the desktop site or accessing Creator Tools in the main menu of your mobile app.

LinkedIn Analytics

For B2B marketers, LinkedIn is gold. Its analytics dashboard offers insights on post performance, follower demographics, and engagement metrics, vital for businesses targeting other businesses. To see your LinkedIn insights, go to your business page. As long as you have an admin role on the page, you’ll be able to select the “Analytics” tab on the left hand panel.

How to Use Social Media Analytics to Improve Performance

Social media analytics can be a powerful tool for improving your social media strategy. By tracking the right metrics and analyzing your data, you can gain valuable insights into your audience, your content, and your competitors. This information can then be used to make informed decisions about your social media strategy, improve your results and stay ahead of the competition.

Whether you’re a small business owner or a social media marketer working with multiple, high-ticket clients, an objective and systematic approach to analytics is crucial for success.

1. Set Objective Goals

What do you want to achieve with your social media marketing efforts? Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or generate leads and sales? Once you know your goals, you can start to identify the metrics that you need to track.

2. Track Relevant Metrics

Track metrics. There are a variety of social media metrics that you can track, depending on your goals. Some common metrics include reach, engagement, website traffic, and leads and sales. You can use social media analytics tools to track these metrics and to generate reports that show how your performance is changing over time.

3. Analyze Data

Once you have collected some data, you need to start analyzing it to identify trends and patterns. This will help you to understand what is working well and what is not. For example, you might find that a certain type of content is generating more engagement than others, or that a particular social media platform is driving more traffic to your website.

4. Take Action

Based on your analysis, you can start to make changes to your social media strategy. For example, you might start posting more of the type of content that is generating more engagement, or you might focus your efforts on the social media platforms that are driving more traffic to your website.

5. Pay Close Attention to Competitors

Social media analytics can help you to identify areas where you need to improve based on what is working well for competitors.

For example, you can use social media analytics to compare your reach, engagement, and other metrics along with what type of content they are posting, how often they are posting it, and which social media platforms they are using.

Tracking this across multiple channels and social media accounts quickly becomes very manual, time consuming and difficult to track. So a tool for social media competitor tracking is essential.

6. Track User Interests and Behavior

Tracking user interests and behavior on social media is important for a number of reasons. First, it can help you to better understand your target audience. What are they interested in? What kind of content do they engage with? When and where are they most active? This information can be used to create more targeted and effective social media campaigns.

Second, tracking user interests and behavior can help you to identify trends and opportunities. For example, you might notice that a certain hashtag is trending, or that its popularity peaks and troughs at specific times.

Third, tracking user interests and behavior can help you to measure the success of your social media marketing efforts. For example, you can track the number of people who are using your branded hashtags or who are visiting your website from social media.

Getting the Most Out of Your Social Media Analytics: Top Tips

Social media analysis can be a powerful tool for improving your social media strategy, but it is important to know how to use it effectively. Here are some tips for getting the most out of social media analytics:

Use custom reports: Most social media analytics tools allow you to create custom reports. This is a great way to track the metrics that are most important to you and to get a more granular view of your data.
Create benchmarks: Once you have been tracking your social media metrics for a while, you can start to create benchmarks. Benchmarks are target metrics that you want to achieve. By creating benchmarks, you can track your progress over time and see how you are stacking up against your competitors.
Segment your audience: Not all of your followers are the same. Some people may be more interested in your products or services than others. By segmenting your audience, you can create more targeted and effective social media campaigns.
Use social media listening tools: Social listening tools can help you to track conversations about your brand and your industry on social media. This information can be used to identify user interests and behavior, as well as to identify new opportunities and to address any potential problems.
Compare your performance to your competitors: Social media analytics tools can help you to compare your performance to that of your competitors. This information can help you to identify areas where you need to improve and to see what is working well for them.
Use data visualization tools: Data visualization tools can help you to make your social media analytics data more visually appealing and easier to understand.
Share your findings with your marketing team: Once you have analyzed your social media analytics data, share your findings with your team. This will help everyone to understand how your social media strategy is performing and to make informed decisions about future campaigns.
Regularly review your social media analytics data: Your social media analytics data is constantly changing. It is important to regularly review your data to ensure that your social media strategy is still on track.

Get Social Media Analytics to Analyze, Predict and Perform

With Locowise, you can do everything from audit existing social media performance to tracking competitors and hashtags in one spot. From predictive analytics and automated insights to extensive client reporting, social media analytics have never been more simple. Check it out for free!

Social Media Analytics 2023: A Comprehensive Guide