Data Driven Social Media #semrushchat

Hello dear SEMrush blog readers!

This month we talked a lot about social media: I hope you had a chance to check out our recent Twitter chat guide and participate one of our webinars during Social Media Week.

This information flow is not about to end! Check out this insightful Twitter chat recap about data driven social media. Our special guests Lee Smallwood @leesmallwood, nod3x @nod3x and John Dietrich ‏@John_Dietrich1!

This is always a tricky question. Whenever we ask our participants to point out the five most important metrics, we receive dozens of different answers. This question was no exception. Before we can talk about measuring success, we need to understand which goals were set for the campaign.

A1- Really depends on the goals and type of campaign - brand awareness vs content promotion vs more bottom funnel type posts #SEMrushchat

— Miles Technologies (@milestech) September 23, 2015

Here is a list of metrics marketers can measure. Choose the ones that match your campaign goals.

Thanks to following participants for their tweets. Bill Slawski ‏@bill_slawski ,Chris Desadoy ‏@EliteYouTubePro, GML Team ‏@GMLConsulting, John Dietrich ‏@John_Dietrich1, Liz Da Ponte ‏@lizdaponte, Ryan Johnson ‏@rsj8000and Stephen'Bern' Banham ‏@Berngaming. First of all, it is essential to know your main sources of traffic. This will give you an understanding of which social media platforms work better and therefore deserve more attention. “Check the Acquisition-> Channels report to see what social networks bring you traffic,” as Olga Andrienko ‏@OlgaSEMrush suggests.

A2: Check acquisitions in GA to see where the referrals come from, analyse the audience, check which links get most engagement #semrushchat — GML Team (@GMLConsulting) September 23, 2015

Apart from knowing how many visitors are driven to your website via social media and which particular platforms show the best results, you may want to know how many visitors from your overall flow are converting.

A2: Use assisted conversion reports and make sure to learn attribution modeling to see how social assists your conversion rate #SEMRushChat

— Thom Craver (@thomcraver) September 23, 2015

John Dietrich ‏advises the following strategy.

#semrushchat A2: Create reports to view traffic by social media source, then understand user behavior relevant to that source. — John Dietrich (@John_Dietrich1) September 23, 2015

Using your UTM code, you can track your traffic from certain campaigns and measure those campaigns’ effectiveness.

A2) Acquisition reports - specifically Campaigns if you are using UTM tracking for social. #semrushchat

— Nathan Lattanzi (@NathanLattanzi) September 23, 2015

Another useful Google Analytics report is the Audience report, which offers in-depth information about users who visit your website – their age and gender, which countries they’re from, which type of device they’re using to access your website and so on. Audience reports “can help tailor your social campaigns to the right people,” according to Provoke Marketing ‏@ProvokeOnline.

A2: Like to look at the demographic data (of all visitors) & see how it compares to demo data of social. Same? Different? Why? #semrushchat — Thomas J. Armitage (@ThomasJArmitage) September 23, 2015

Buyer persona identification is a core marketing issue that a lot of marketers fail to care about. “It’s crazy how many companies conduct social media marketing (or marketing in general) without developing personas first” - Thomas J. Armitage ‏@ThomasJArmitage.

So if you don’t want to be among these unhappy companies, take a look at your social media data when creating and identifying your buyer persona. First of all, be sure that you use a variety of channels for comprehensive analysis.

A3: Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Groups, GA - analyse the data from all of these to find comparisons #semrushchat

— GML Team (@GMLConsulting) September 23, 2015

Start with the basics, such as demographic and geographic data. These data can be taken from various channels and social media, of course.

A3: create demographic data and geographic data from SM channels; ask them via quiz or some promotional games #semrushchat — Peter Nikolow (@PeterNikolow) September 23, 2015

Also, social media is a good source of direct data on your audience itself. Feedback from your users will not only help you identify your buyer persona, but adjust your strategy and approach.

A3 Create your buyer personas and then go do some social listening to make sure they are the ones you want to hear from. #SEMRushChat

— Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski) September 23, 2015

The most important thing that marketers should focus on would be engagement...

A3 Using engagement data, see what your audience is saying and how.. mimic and use their voice to create a matching persona #semrushchat — Julia McCoy (@JuliaEMcCoy) September 23, 2015

...also important is source of traffic and conversion rates; pay attention to pages that convert, and for pages that don’t work so well, keep an eye on bounce rates and time spent on page.

A3. The easiest way is to look at the user funnel and see what pages lead to purchase and which lead to bounce. #semrushchat

— Chris Desadoy (@EliteYouTubePro) September 23, 2015

Now let’s find out how you can get the most out of the data you receive from different social media platforms. Pay attention to where you see the most engagement and the highest conversion, as Liz Da Ponte ‏@lizdaponte advises. Define which social media platforms your targeted audience uses the most, and focus your efforts on these particular networks.

#semrushchat A4: Be active where your audience is active, use tools to discover where they are and what they're talking about. — John Dietrich (@John_Dietrich1) September 23, 2015

Find out what type of content and which topics drive the most engagement. Do your followers prefer written content or infographics? Are they more willing to share in-depth technical posts or case studies? You can easily learn this information by simply counting your number of shares and likes.

A4. identify posts, articles, pics, etc that engage audiences the most. everything is about DATA DATA DATA! #semrushchat

— SEO Locale (@SeoLocale) September 23, 2015

Knowing where you failed is as essential as knowing where you’ve succeeded. Analyze your statistics, ask your audience, identify your problems, and then fix them!

A4. Identify weak spots, if you are part of the community like you should be, ask where you are faulty, then fix it. #semrushchat — Chris Desadoy (@EliteYouTubePro) September 23, 2015

Analyze your visitors’ behavior by paying attention to bounce rates and repeat visits:

A4: Notice bounce visitors vs. repeat visits from new blog post shares. Do they come every time you post? Convert them! #semrushchat

— Thom Craver (@thomcraver) September 23, 2015

Define which followers are most active on your social media networks and collaborate with them. Social media is all about communication and building relationships

A4 Idenitfy your top interactors, see how you can incorporate them into your social strategy. #semrushchat pic.twitter.com/Veime4Xrqy — Direct Online Mktg (@directom) September 23, 2015

There’s no universal strategy; the only way to discover your own path to success is to try new techniques and analyze your results. And never miss the chance to use a good idea from your successful competitors.

A4: Using some tools for SM statistics and then play games as probe-error to see what's work and doesn't; also watch BIG brands #semrushchat

— Peter Nikolow (@PeterNikolow) September 23, 2015

Measuring social media ROI can be the one of the toughest marketing metrics, as well as measuring the ROI of public relations. Although this is tough, it’s not impossible. When you use social media as part of a marketing campaign, don’t just measure social media results alone, consider the whole picture. “Always include social media in your marketing campaigns, and measure the effectiveness of the whole campaign” - Olga Andrienko.

A5: Get away from last-touch and move to a real attribution model that includes assisted conversions. How does social assist? #semrushchat — Thom Craver (@thomcraver) September 23, 2015

A great way to get correct results for a campaign is to use a unique hashtag, which will help you in a future data analysis.

#semrushchat A5: Use unique hashtags to track engagement with tools, then follow the data :)

— John Dietrich (@John_Dietrich1) September 23, 2015

Always look at your referral traffic from social media. Carrie Morgan ‏@morgancarrie - "One of my favorite metrics are website referrer traffic - which social channel is driving traffic? Is it converting?" Remember that your entire audience will not convert.

A5: and you can't convert all of them. Example - Me i'm fan of @Porsche but i didn't own 911 or anything from them. Just FAN. #semrushchat — Peter Nikolow (@PeterNikolow) September 23, 2015

And that's why it’s still important pay attention to engagement.

A5 How does one measure the ROI of marketing? It's not sales or conversions; instead engagement & conversations. #SEMRushChat

— Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski) September 23, 2015

The list of must-have toolkits proposed by our chat participants is headed by Google Analytics. Apart from providing information on traffic and its sources, this tool provides conversion data.

A6) Never one tool for anything, but IME you can get a large chunk of what you want from GA for almost anything #semrushchat

— Writing For SEO (@writingforseo) September 23, 2015

Here are some other toolkits that our participants consider worth using for social media analysis.

A6: GA, @sumall, @RivalIQ, @SproutSocial and the @semrush social media tool! :) #semrushchat — Olga Andrienko (@OlgaSEMrush) September 23, 2015

A6: #GoogleAnalytics, Twitter Analytics, & Facebook Insights are the basics. However, there are gaps in each of these tools. #semrushchat — Perfect Search Media (@Perfect_Search) September 23, 2015

Every social media marketer can combine different tools and create their own perfect toolkit, depending on which features they find useful and the kinds of reports they want.

A6: I prefer @SproutSocial for scheduling and some reporting. I like @simplymeasured for more detailed reports. #semrushchat

— Thomas J. Armitage (@ThomasJArmitage) September 23, 2015

Thom Craver provides more useful advice concerning the best tools: 

A6: Good data sources. Know how to segment by social channels. Inbound marketing tagging tools for proper measurement. #semrushchat — Thom Craver (@thomcraver) September 23, 2015

Tools are indispensable for collecting and visualizing data, but no tool can analyze results and draw conclusions like a human can. So first use tools to get information, then use your brain to make the most of it.

Q6. I've never found the perfect "single tool" to measure data - always end up manually combining reports, then interpreting. #semrushchat

— Carrie Morgan (@morgancarrie) September 23, 2015

This is it for today. We hope to see you this Wednesday as usual. Use #semrushchat to join!