How-To Analyse Your Social Media Audience (And What To Do)

DID YOU KNOW: 60% OF MARKETERS IDENTIFY “MEASURING ROI” AS ONE OF THEIR TOP THREE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CHALLENGES?

I know first hand how difficult it can be to anaylse your social media audience as a small business. The difficulties of exactly how to do this is what stops many small businesses from truly understanding what their target audience needs from them.

Over the last 8 years I have been measuring the engagement of my social media audience and how this translates to my website but only recently have I found a perfect, and simple step-by-step process which can be applied to any small business.

If you want to analyse your website data to truly understand what your online audience wants to see from you as a business, keep reading.

GETTING SET UP

The first thing you want to do is to get everything set up so that you can analyse your data. Here are two simple steps to help you with this.

1. SIGN UP TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Google Analytics is by far the most successful analytical tool for measuring data on your website. It is free of charge to use, and will give you information that will give you an SEO (search engine optimisation) advantage over your competitor once you know how to use it.

2. LINK GOOGLE ANALYTICS TO GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE

Now that you have created a Google Analytics account, you can now link Google Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools) to it, when using the same Google account. Here is how you can add your website to Google Search Console, so that you can link it with Google Analytics.

After taking the above two steps, you will now be able to analyse your data and export it as an excel spreadsheet. This is what you are going to use for the next main step through this how-to analyse your social media audience article.

ANALYSING YOUR DATA

The next step is to look at your excel spreadsheet and analyse this data to understand what pieces of information on your website have received the most views. As I post two blogs a week, every week and have done this for the last two years, my “most viewed” pieces of content were my blogs.

Yes, there is a lot of information you will need to crawl through but that isn’t what this is about. You need to find a common denominator so that you can categorise what your audience are reading on your website. To give you an example of this, here are the top 5 “needs” of my audience from the data I received from Google.

1. HOW-TO ARTICLES

This was regular appearance for the “needs” of my audience. This type of content is informative, easy to follow and step-by-step based. Articles of mine that fit this criteria include “How To Find An Email Address In 60 Seconds”, “How To Write The Perfect Headline For A Blog”, and “How To Design A Digital Marketing Plan As A Small Business”.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA BASED ARTICLES (WITH THE KEY PHRASE “SOCIAL MEDIA” IN THE TITLE)

The second most common criteria I found when looking through the research document was the key phrase “Social Media” being in the title of my articles. I know from my 8 years in the world of Social Media that I am a thought leader so when I talk about this topic, it will always see engagement, e.g. “Demographics Of Social Media Users”, “Best Times To Post On Social Media”, “The Science Behind Social Media Engagement”, and “The Science Behind Social Media Decision Making”.

3. TWITTER ARTICLES

I was quite surprised to find that Twitter was a hot topic, and was one of the most common topics showing up on my extensive list of “favourite content”. There is a slight crossover between my most popular Twitter articles, as they are also “how-to” articles. Articles of mine that fit this criteria include “How To Run A Poll In Twitter”, “The Power Of Building A List In Twitter”, and “How To Send Direct Messages On Twitter.“

4. THE NUMBER FIVE, AND THE NUMBER SEVEN

My audience love articles that either start with the number five, or the number seven. Most small businesses are time poor, which means they don’t want to read an article that has more than “7 ways” or “7 tips”. I found that the numbers five and seven appeared more frequently than any other number e.g. “5 Ways To Nurture And Win New Customers”, and “7 Tips To Writing Perfect Content”.

5. TOOLS, TACTICS AND TRENDING TOPIC BASED ARTICLES

This may seem like quite a big category, but I know my audience loves topical articles e.g. “Why Pokemon Go Is Great For Small Businesses”, tactical articles e.g. “Digital Marketing Tactics To Grow Your Business” and tools e.g. “Secret Twitter Features You Should Be Using”.

HOW I USE THIS DATA

It’s all well and good knowing the above, but how can you take this data, and use it to improve the way you market, as a small business, to your target audience online? Here are 5 ways I will use this tactic to drive targeted traffic and engagement to my website, from my social media audience.

1. MAKE SURE THE BLOG TITLE HAS A KEY PHRASE TO GIVE ME THE BEST OPEN RATE

The best way to describe this, is for you to look at the title of this article. I have included both “how-to” and “social media” in the title of this article. I know my audience will read, engage and share this piece of content.

2. USE THE “NEEDS” IN YOUR ARTICLES

You will see in this article that I’ve mentioned 5 ways you can use this tactic to drive traffic and engagement to my website, from my social media audience. How many of the above 5 key phrases have I mentioned in that sentence? I used the number five, the word “tactic” as well as the key phrase “Social Media”. I also know from my data that my target audience are looking to drive traffic and engagement as two of their key “needs” when using social media.

3. GIVE THE ANSWER, BUT ALSO SHOW THEM HOW TO DO IT

You will notice I give step-by-step plans with all the information you will need to complete the task at hand, but I won’t do it for you. I will spoon feed you the content but you need to take the action yourself.

4. SYNDICATION

Every article I write will go through a syndication process where it becomes it’s own, stand-alone article onFacebook Notes, LinkedIn Pulse and the likes of Business2Community.

5. AMPLIFY CONTENT ACROSS ALL YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA USING HOOTSUITE

The final step I will take after I have written a piece of content is to share it across all my social networks (not just Facebook Notes or LinkedIn Pulse). To share to all of my social networks in a matter of seconds, I useHootsuite which is a social media management tool.

BONUS

Understanding where your Social Media traffic is coming from is crucial. I use a social media dashboard that integrates with my Google Analytics. As you can see on the visual below, Facebook drives the most traffic to my website, but Pinterest and Instagram give me the lowest bounce rate (meaning they explore the website after clicking to the article).

I hope the above will help you analyse your social media audience so that you can meet the “needs” of your target audience.

How do you analyse your Social Media audience?