getting under the hood: what analytics and metrics can show you about your website and social media...

Getting Under the HoodWhat Analytics and Metrics Can Show You About Your Website and Social Media Efforts

Thanks for showing up early! And, for that, you get a special treat…

Use the chat to send me your answer…

The first 5 people to who get closest to the correct answerwill win a Google Analytics Book!

What percentage of websites* are using Google Analytics?

(*top one million websites)

Embolden is a full-service digital

communications group providing clients

with a tailored approach to online

strategy, web development, web design

and content management.

Thank you CommA!

Webinar controls

• *6 to mute

• *7 to unmute

• Have a question burning question? Jump in and ask!

• Please say your name and where you are from when asking

a question or making a comment.

• Click the “raise hand” button (located top left above the chat

box)

• Or type your question in the chat box – I can answer now or

after the class.

Have a question?

Who’s there & here?

Ann-Marie Donna

How many?

Today

• What good is data without great strategy?

10 mins

• Google Analytics

20 mins

• Social Media metrics

15 mins

• Q & A

15 mins

So, what good is data, metrics and analytics…

Without great strategy?

Aligned with outcomes…

think, feel, do

Think: “This foundation is credible, trustworthy & smart”

Feel: “I’m relieved and excited to have a vehicle for my giving”

Do: “I’ll setup a DA fund”

Traffic

&

Engagement

• They provide a way to measure results of your work/strategy over time.

• They help you make informed site & content improvements (innovation, usability, content and design).

• It’s a great way to see how you “measure up” with other foundation sites and channels.

Why use analytics & metrics?

• They tell us how readers & users interact with your website and other channels.

• They uncover which content is resonating most…and least.

• They give us some insight into how your readers think, feel and act.

Why use analytics & metrics?

Google Analytics

Why use Google Analytics?

It is one of the best methods for tracking and analyzing your online communications strategy over time.

Google Analytics is:

A FREE tool from Google that lets you track detailed statistics about:

1. who is visiting your website,

2. how they found you and

3. what they are doing when they get there.

The new version

Discontinuing old version January 2012

Recreate dashboards

Everything’s there! Some of it’s moved

PDF exporter and email scheduler

New and improved items

The New Version

Three key things to remember about Google Analytics data:

Who, how and what

Analytics Reports:An overview

• Audience (used to be Visitors): Who and how many are visiting?

• Traffic sources: How are they finding you?

• Content: What are they viewing / doing?

Who, how and what

Menus expanded

Report layout

Report layout

Visitor Flow

Timeline

1. Audience: Who and how many are

visiting?

Timeline

Annotations

Mobile

Pageviews, visits and visitors

• Pageviews: Every time someone looks at a page on your site, it counts as one pageview.

• Visits: Every time a user comes to your site, that counts as one visit, regardless of the number of pages the user viewed.

• Visitors: An individual who comes to your site is considered a visitor.

• Unique Visitors: A way to see how many unique users are visiting your site vs. returning visitors.

2. Traffic sources: How are they finding you?

Search, referral, direct traffic and campaigns

• Search: Through a search engine.

• Referral: By a link on another site.

• Direct traffic: From URL typed into a browser, from a link in an email, or from a bookmarked site.

• Campaigns: From an enewsletter campaign or Facebook post.

Campaigns

Campaigns

3. Content: What are they viewing /

doing?

The Dashboard

Quick view of your key metrics and reports.

Easily customized.

The Analytics Dashboard

Advanced & Fun Features!

• Conversions/Goals

• Onsite search

• Custom reports

• Advanced segments

• Intelligence

• Annotations

• New dashboard

• Keyword cloud!

• Visitor flow

• Social engagement

• Real-time data

• Site speed

• Easier site navigation

• Web master tools

• Event tracking

Goals

Onsite Search

Custom Reports

Advanced Segments

Intelligence

Keyword Cloud

Real-time data

Site Speed

Event tracking

Social media: Why use it?

• Sales, press, research, thought-leadership, customer service, activism, live news and events: Twitter

• Influentials, early adopters, entrepreneurs, journalists, activists, thought-leaders, government officials, etc.

• Relationships, community, awareness: Facebook, YouTube

• General appeal. 61% of Facebook users are 35 or older.

• YouTube appeals to all-ages, but skews younger than Facebook.

• Many users still keep Facebook for personal connections and use Twitter, LinkedIn, and others for professional use.

• Business networking, knowledge sharing, HR, resources: LinkedIn, Quora

• Business professionals, entrepreneurs, executives, venture capitalists.

Everything is social

Even traditional media and content sites include sharing options.

And soon many of our online activities will become even more social than is currently obvious…

Content that engages will be displayed

Highlighted stories will be at the top of the wall (posts to which users are more aligned by interests, connections, interactions).

The less users interact with your content the less likely they are to see your content at all.

Users have the ability to unlike your page, but now they can also mark content as not valuable.

Social Media Metrics

Measurement tools abound!

There are hundreds of free and paid tools for measuring social media engagement.

Free is okay!

Begin by using inexpensive or free tools and looking for patterns over time.

Free is okay!

Many social networks have their own analytics built in. YouTube has recently added analytics for video publishers.

HootSuite

HootSuite – a very good, free social media publishing and management tool has built in analytics.

For a small monthly subscription fee, advanced analytics and custom reports are available.

HootSuite

Track multiple channels and create custom reports with customizable logo and automated reports delivery.

Image: via HootSuite blog

Paid tools are worth considerationIf you have a large and active social media presence and free tools are taking up too much time, consider paid dashboards like radian6, Sprout, and Simply Measured.

What are you measuring?The metrics you choose to monitor—as well as budget considerations--will inform the paid tool(s) you may select.

What are you measuring?Some tools are Facebook-focused, others include multiple channels but monitor sentiment, still others focus on blog metrics.

Create a baselineDo an auditBe strategic

Benchmark Your Metrics

• Benchmark metrics on your website and in existing social media accounts.

• Benchmark non-analytics metrics as well (FAQ, press mentions, speaking requests, etc.).

• Check current stats against benchmarks

Monitor Analytics

• Use Bit.ly or a tool with integrated URL shortening like HootSuite to track clicks of your shared content.

• Use Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, third party stats, even Excel spreadsheets to track engagement metrics.

• Track which kinds of content, posting times, channels, etc. receive the most interaction.

Keep it Simple

Paid tools can provide quick charts and graphs and can centralize your metrics, but a spreadsheet can often provide as much benefit if you track your own metrics on a regular schedule.

Social Engagement in Google Analytics

Social Engagement in Google Analytics

Social Engagement in Google Analytics

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights - Terminology

• Total Likes: # of unique people who Like your page.

• Friends of Fans: is what it sounds like. The number of unique people who are friends of your fans.

• People Talking About This: people who have interacted with your content (likes, comments, shares, tagging your page, mentions of your page, check-ins, etc.)

• Weekly Total Reach: # of unique people who have seen your content including Ads.

Facebook Insights - Terminology

• Posts: The number of updates you've posted to your page.

• Engaged users: # of people who have clicked your post.

• Virality: % of people who have taken an action on your content out of the total number of people who have seen it.

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights

• Find the posts with the most engagement and look for similarities.

• What characteristics make these posts successful?

LinkedIn Analytics

Linked In

For companies and organizations.

This info is available for administrators of your org’s profile.

Aggregators

Monitoring Across Chanels

While Swix is a paid service monitoring your analytics on dozens of channels, its free MentionBox site checks mentions across media and provides a easy signup for email alerts.

Social Mention—also free--provides similar functionality with basic metrics.

Social Mention

A way to gauge / benchmark your social reach / engagement around searched-for keywords.

Find who is saying what about these you / your topics. Follow / answer them.

Observe sentiment and trends. How can that help you adjust to meet users where they are and answer their needs?

Other monitoring tools

• Google Alerts: a handy feature that allows you to get an email every

morning (or as often as you indicate) with any new reference to a word,

phrase or URL. We recommend setting up Google Alerts to get a good idea

of who is saying what about you (and competitors).

http://www.google.com/alerts

• Bit.ly: aURL shortening account with bit.ly: http://bit.ly/ for ease of click-thru

tracking

• Facebook Hyper Alerts: notification on page activity for your own page as

well as any other page you’d like to track (including peers)

http://www.hyperalerts.no/

Additional tools

• Board Reader: search discussion forums across the web with this tool.• Technorati: blog directory and search. Includes a blog authority ranking.• Topsy: realtime search of social networks. Incudes a good search for

experts in specific areas. http://topsy.com/experts• NameCheck: It’s a good idea to keep your username/brand consistent

across networks. Search to see whether your username is available: http://namechk.com/ and http://knowem.com/

• TweetStats: http://TweetStats.com • Twitalyzer – success metrics for Twitter. Integrates with Google analytics:

http://www.twitalyzer.com• TwitterCounter – analytics: http://twittercounter.com • TwitterReach: search for terms to get a sense of the number of people

reached

Desktop and Mobile Software Clients

• HootSuite – one of the most popular and most powerful business-focused

tools allows updating to multiple social networks : http://hootsuite.com

• Seesmic – integration with multiple networks and numerous plugins

(including Salesforce)

• TweetDeck – the most popular desktop client (available for iPhone too),

manages multiple accounts: http://tweetdeck.com

Q & A

Thank you!

Contact Ann-Marie Harrington - 877.723.7720

amharrington@embolden.com