Tech Corner Post: Social Media Analytics

Written by Michelle Mercer

            For any individual or organization that wishes to stay afloat and in- the- know, social media is a crucial component to communication. However, if social media isn’t well kept track of or analyzed, many opportunities could be lost for communicating ideas, products, services, opinions and many other things. This is why social media analytics is so important.

            Social media analytics is essentially the methods and the tools used to track sentiment, demographics, trends, feedback, and influence. It also helps with promoting goodwill. Many applications and tools are now on the market or have been created and marketed for the purpose of discovering how social media affects an audience. These applications or tools can gather one or all of your social media components such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, YouTube, Blogger, Wordpress, Digg, etc. and place them into one convenient analytics spreadsheet.  This makes it easy for an individual or company to see the effect they have on the world. It is also possible to compare how a competitor is doing within your demographic or area of expertise.

            For PR, feedback and research is crucial for establishing a campaign or any PR related work. If a PR professional is unable to understand their audience or what it wants, there will be an unsuccessful campaign. Social media analytics has increasingly become more important due to the rise in social media outlets and their popularity.

Some analytics applications or tools can cost money, but there are free options. An example of purchasable analytics tools are Adobe SocialAnalytics software and the service offered by sproutsocial.com. Adobe’s product allows the user to track applications, identify key voices that relate to the product or topic of interest, and show the ideas or topics most frequently discussed. Sproutsocial.com allows the option for a user to operate premierely on a 30 day trial. The site allows for internet access to collected data, access to highly targeted customers as well as the ability to time and publish messages across social media components.

Social media analytics is a smart and efficient, easy-access way to manage social media outlets in order to gather data and communicate most effectively to the world.

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·         http://www.omniture.com/en/products/social-analytics

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