Establishing robust and impactful social media profiles is a pivotal strategy for engaging with your intended audience. Through these channels, you can disseminate promotions, provide business updates, and, most crucially, foster connections that enhance brand loyalty.However, determining the effectiveness of your social media profiles in driving engagement can be challenging. The most reliable method to ascertain this is through a comprehensive social media marketing analysis.Without a social media analysis report, it becomes arduous to gauge whether your social media presence is genuinely contributing to your business objectives. To delve deeper into the advantages of a social media analysis, continue reading. We will also discuss the significance of social media analytics and how to conduct one for your social platforms.Should you wish to consult with a specialist regarding our social media marketing services, please reach out to us online or call us at 888-601-5359!Why is conducting a social media analysis essential, you may ask?Isn’t the health of your social profile evident through likes and retweets? The truth is, it requires more than just examining follower interactions with your posts. A thorough examination is necessary to ascertain if your social platforms are truly delivering results for your company.That’s where a social media marketing analysis comes into play. By analyzing your social media accounts, you can review metrics such as:
New followers
Unfollows
Post engagements
Reach
Mentions
And more
This type of information enables you to comprehend how your audience interacts with your social platforms — and if the results are unsatisfactory, you can implement necessary adjustments. Over time, you can make incremental changes to post frequency and content, based on the metrics you aim to enhance. Typically, conducting a social media analysis monthly is most beneficial, as it allows you to identify which adjustments are yielding positive outcomes and which are not.After several months of compiling social media analysis reports for your company’s social presence, you will gain a profound understanding of your audience’s preferences, follower demographics, and more. The importance of social media analytics can be summarized as follows:
Understanding the content your audience engages with
Identifying the demographics of your target audience
Recognizing the social platforms your target audience utilizes
And more
This information is invaluable to your social media marketing efforts.Looking to prepare your own social media analysis report? This section is tailored for you.Before initiating your social media analysis report, you must first determine the platforms you are active on and which you plan to assess. Create a separate spreadsheet for each platform you wish to analyze, which will serve as a central repository for your social media data, enabling you to compare it over time.Most social media platforms offer their own built-in analytics tools. For instance, Facebook’s proprietary analytics platform is called Facebook Insights, providing metrics such as page actions, views, and previews, among others.
Similarly, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn allow you to retrieve analytics for your accounts. To observe your performance over time, gather reports from the past few months.This step involves several smaller ones. Let’s break it down! Create tabs for each month As you pull each report, create month tabs in the corresponding spreadsheet. For example, I’ve established a spreadsheet for my Facebook analytics over time, labeling each sheet with a different month.Click the “plus” button in the lower left corner to create new sheets, which will appear as tabs at the bottom.
I’ve included past months to ensure I have a place for previous data. Create metrics columns Next, establish columns that correspond with the most important metrics.I typically utilize all the metrics an analytics report offers. Having an abundance of data is never a bad thing!
These categories were sourced directly from Facebook Insights! Fill in data from reports From there, you can input your metrics directly from your reports!In the GIF below, you can observe my spreadsheet and Facebook Insights side by side. I am simply transferring the numbers from my report into my spreadsheet.
Determine positive or negative trends Once you’ve input your data, assess whether each metric has improved or worsened since the previous month. I prefer to highlight improved metrics in green and worsened ones in red.This provides a comprehensive overview of your channels’ performance. In this example, two metrics are highlighted in red, indicating a decrease since the previous month. The others are in green, signifying improvement.
After completing your spreadsheets for each past month, it’s time to review your data and interpret it. Although the analysis may seem daunting at first, tackle one platform at a time! Your social media analysis is a meticulous process, but it can ultimately shape the future of your social media strategy. Let’s explore how to analyze social media data.As you examine each month’s metrics, assign a grade to your sheet based on the number of metrics that improved out of the total. For instance, my Facebook Insights example would receive a grade of 9/11 for May 2024, with nine metrics increasing out of 11. I also like to highlight my score with the color of the most metrics. In this case, I had more increases than decreases, so my score is green. Conversely, if only two metrics increased out of 11, I would use red.
Keep in mind that this is a hypothetical scale, meant to provide a general picture of each month’s performance.After assigning scores to each platform for every month, it’s time to conduct a detailed analysis of each platform individually to identify which metrics typically decrease. This step can be overwhelming, so ensure you approach it one platform at a time! For instance, if you start with Facebook, review data from every month you have on record.Ask yourself questions such as:
What metrics remain consistent?
Which metrics typically decrease?
Which metrics haven’t increased throughout the campaign?
Which metrics increase and then decrease month after month?
By answering these questions, you’ll be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your campaign.When we mention “bucketing” like metrics, we mean categorizing metrics that typically behave similarly. After examining all the months of data you’ve compiled for a single platform and asking yourself the aforementioned questions, you’ll be able to categorize metrics into groups such as “typically improves,” “typically decreases,” or “typically stays the same.” Once you’ve completed this part of your social media analysis, it’s time to develop an action plan.Examine the metrics in your social media analysis that are consistently low.Before crafting an action plan to improve those metrics, consider any campaign changes you may have made during that time. For example, if you notice a significant decrease in post impressions during a particular month, look back and see if you reduced your ad spend, for instance.From there, create a list of the metrics that are most frequently decreasing or remaining stagnant and consider what steps you can take to enhance your numbers in that area. For instance, if your post impressions are consistently low, consider allocating more budget to sponsored posts. If you observe a consistent decrease in followers, consider using verbiage that encourages users to share your posts with their friends — potentially increasing your follower count.Repeat this step for each of your social media platforms to establish a comprehensive strategy for improving metrics across the board.In case you’re still uncertain about how to create your own social media analysis report, feel free to contact the experts at WebFX! With over two decades of experience, we understand the intricacies of crafting a social media campaign that resonates across diverse platforms and locations worldwide, from our Baltimore social media agency office to our Toronto office. Contact us online for a free quote or call us at 888-601-5359!
