Social media analytics are a way to measure the success of your social media marketing campaigns and posts. The data collected from these analyses can be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of your posts. These analytics help determine which types of posts are best received by your customers. They also help you to know what content is most engaging on different platforms. This way, you can see the difference between your Facebook ads vs Instagram posts or Tweets. 

So, what are social media analytics?

Social media analytics or SMA refers to the data collected from social networks, blogs and other digital marketing campaigns. Social media analytics can look at both paid and unpaid campaigns. This process goes far deeper than just looking at the number of likes on a post.

What are some examples of social media analytics?

Social Media Analytics looks at the following:

The number of likes, shares and comments per post

Reach – how many people saw a post at least once

Impressions – the number of times a post was seen in total

Engagement rate – the percentage of people who interacted with a post

Audience behaviour – what days and times the people who saw/interacted with your post were online

Analytics can also look at the hashtags you use and determine which were the most popular. Sometimes social media analytics can also provide data regarding the age, gender and geographical demographics of followers.

Social media analytics can be generally be broken down into three categories.

The three main categories are:

• Social Media Traffic Analysis
• Content Performance Analysis
• Impression/Engagement Data.

Social Media Traffic Analytics: This type of analytics tells you how much traffic your website gets from social media sites. It shows the number and percentage breakdowns for each platform and a list ranking by most popular platforms on which visitors came to visit.

Content performance Analysis: This analysis tells us which posts have been most successful by looking into things such as likes per post ratio, shares percentage etc.

Impression/Engagement Data: This analysis compares the number of users who saw your content with the number who actually interacted with it. Interactions (engagements) consist of likes, comments, reactions, shares and clicks on any links contained within a post.

What is the importance of these analytics? 

Social media is essential for any business, whether big or small. These analytics provide data that you probably would not have been able to see in other ways, such as how many people saw and interacted with posts on specific days or times. This data allows you to predict when most potential customers are likely to see your future posts. This information is crucial as a business owner who wants their campaign content seen by more than just friends/family members who happen across it while scrolling through Facebook at home after dinner! It also provides insight into which type of messages resonate best with your desired audience.

How do I gather social media analytics? 

Several tools can be used to gather analytics. If you have an account with Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, then some data will automatically show up on your dashboard, and it is easy for anyone at any level to see what’s going well. 

However, the data provided by these platforms is limited. For a more in-depth understanding of follower behaviour, you will probably want software like Hootsuite or , which allows users to compare data across all social media platforms simultaneously. This will enable you to compare your posts’ popularity across different platforms; sometimes, a post might be really popular on Facebook but fall short on Twitter.

How often should I check my analytics? 

It is crucial to check your analytics regularly. We would recommend checking your social media analytics no less than once per month. The data will change over time, and it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the trends. This will allow you to prepare for any changes in follower behaviour or interest levels as they happen, rather than waiting until after something has happened before taking action. Software such as will automatically compare your requested data against the previous period and show, as a percentage, the rate of increase or decrease. 

It’s clear the see that social media analytics are an integral part of your online marketing efforts. There is no point in blindly posting content without monitoring its success and its impact on your followers and customers. If you still feel unsure about posting and monitoring your analytics, drop us a line, and we can help!