In last week’s post, we concentrated on the importance of using metrics to evaluate performance of social media efforts in the organization. Now, that we have established the importance of having metrics and regularly evaluating the successes of the organization with social media, we will spend this week’s post exploring analytical tools that can be used to evaluate social media efforts.
Free Measurement Tools
Below are a few examples of free tools that can be used. After the list and brief descriptions of each, I will provide some analysis on the advantages and disadvantages associated with these free tools as a whole.
Google Analytics
This is one I’ve heard a lot about in the past few years. It’s become a buzz word for organizations that are dipping into web analytics for the first time. The main advantage to Google Analytics is that it’s really easy to use, like most Google products themselves. It doesn’t require specialized software, training or personnel. Most often, the social media department can run reports on Google Analytics. The tool provides high level numbers at a glance that measure the amount of “foot traffic” your site is getting. Specifically, the tool will measure how often people visit your site, and how much time they spend on it. It will also provide demographics – where the site is being accessed from and the general characteristics of the person accessing the site.
Facebook Insights
This is another site specific site that is quite popular, especially given the sheer volume of organizations that are active on Facebook. The tool is not easy to read, however, Facebook provides free training, which will assist users in learning how to use the tool effectively to measure results. Facebook Insights will measure how “viral” a post is – how many people are interacting with it, whether by “liking”, sharing, or commenting on the post.
Social Mention
This tool, similar to Facebook Insights and Google Analytics, tracks high level statistics, but what’s different about it, is that it tracks this data from over a hundred different social media platforms and websites. This tool works in a manner similar to Google News Alerts, combining popular content from different sources that match your searches, and combining it into a single stream for ease of use.
Free Tools – When Should They Be Used?
The main advantage to free measurement tools is that, well, they’re free. For smaller organizations that don’t have a big budget, these tools will offer a very high level glimpse of their ROI with social media. However, these tools often don’t provide detailed analysis, and are limited to evaluating one, or a small number, of sites to gather intelligence regarding what the public is saying about your brand. They also don’t provide detailed analysis and statistics that you can utilize to make changes to brands and organizational practices.
Marshal Sponder discusses a very expensive, but extremely useful tool that can be used for in depth analysis and measurement of social media usage. Brandwatch goes beyond high level statistics, and sources over 200,000 sites to assess conversations about your brand, your competitors brand and general conversations, beyond popular topics. For example, a hotel chain discovered from sourcing its Trip Advisor comments that many clients were having issues with their keycards being demagnetized by their phones and corrected the issue.
Although using this tool will cost a pretty penny, it is a worthwhile investment to measure the viability of your social media program and gain intelligence that will translate to real business results and improve the bottom line.