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You decided to do it. You decided to take the plunge and give social media a try. Either you made the investment to pay someone else to manage your company’s social media or you’ve been giving it go. Either way, as a business owner you now need to evaluate if last year’s effort was really worth the cost. Did it even move the needle for your business?

Social Media Analytics

“Social Media Analytics refers to the approach of collecting data from social media sites and blogs and evaluating that data to make business decisions. This process goes beyond the usual monitoring or a basic analysis of retweets or “likes” to develop an in-depth idea of the social consumer” (techopedia)

Social media analytics is the best way, currently, to evaluate the performance of your social media networks, see how it moved your business or brand, and identify what worked and what needs to be improved upon the following year.

But how do you do that? How do you take everything that has happened in the last year and review it in a way that makes sense, not only for yourself but for your staff, company, and board members?

The Most Important Social Media Analytics

From the analytics provided by social networks to third-party tools, it’s not surprising that you get overwhelmed by the amount of numbers and graphs out there. However, if you focus on the most important analytics, you will be able to build a foundation to give you a sense of how your social media is performing.

Here is our list of the most important analytics to look at and evaluate when reviewing your social media efforts:

Profiles: The social media networks that your business/brand has active (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.)

Followers: The total number of followers across all of your business/brand’s social media networks at the end of year. (i.e. Twitter: 2,000 + Facebook: 5,000 + Pinterest 500 = 7,500 followers)

Impressions: The total number of times a post showed up in somebody’s news feed/timeline (the number of times people had the potential of seeing a post) across all social media networks for the entire year. 

Reach: The total number of people who viewed a post across all social media networks for the entire year.

Post Count: The total number of posts published to all social media networks throughout the entire year.

Engagement: The total number of times people interacted with posts (i.e. liked, commented, shared, reacted, etc.) across all social media networks for the entire year.

Engagement Rate: The level of engagement posts are receiving from your social media following. Calculated by: 

(Engagement / Followers) / 12 = Average Monthly Engagement Rate

Clicks: The number of times people click on the post, photo, video, or link across all social media networks for the entire year.

Audience Demographic: The followers demographics broken down by gender and age group.

Putting it Together

After you collect the above numbers and begin to review them, ask yourself the following questions:

Did your follower count increase over the year?

Did your impressions and reach increase from the previous year? If this is your first year of social media, does the total number of people that saw your company’s posts seem impressive to you? 

Does the post count feel like you consistently posted throughout the year? Or did your efforts fall short?

Were people engaging with your posts?

Is your average monthly engagement rate between or higher than 1%-3.5%?

* 1%-3.5% is an average/good engagement rate

Were people clicking on your content, and heading to your company’s website? 

Does the audience demographic fall within your company’s target audience profiles? 

Did you reach your goals set at the beginning of the year?

Don’t have a social media goal for the year, and don’t know how to establish one? Read ‘Your No Fail, 5 Steps to Strategic Social Media’.

*Advanced Note
If you have Google Analytics set up on your website or another website analytics tracking software, you have the ability to gain deeper insight into the performance of your social media. By logging into your website analytics tool and locating traffic acquisition, you can view a breakdown of where your website traffic was originating from. Take a look at the social media category. Here you can see the level of web traffic social media was bringing in as well as which social network brought in the most.

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Still not sure how your social media stacks up? Numbers are great and all, but you’re looking for more concrete ideas on how to improve your social media heading into 2020. Then take a look at our FREE B2B Social Media Audit and request one today!

New moms are one of the most lucrative markets in the world—and moms in general are the largest demographic group online today. In 2016, the online mommy market reached over $1.7 trillion in spending. Yes, TRILLION!

This means many brands that aren’t spending the time to understand and actively court this market online are likely leaving money on the table.

Who are millennial moms?

Women today are working more, starting families later, traveling more often and sometimes living in cities far away from their families. Many young moms are no longer able to rely on their mothers, grandmothers, neighbors and community for help. As a result, they’re learning to adapt with changing times as they raise their children. Their new source of support? The Internet.

According to Maria Bailey and Bonnie Ulman, authors of Trillion-Dollar Moms: Marketing to a new generation of mothers, “Eighty-eight percent of moms rely on the Internet for their parental guidance, advice, and ideas for raising children…If they face a challenge or need product information or validation, they go to the Internet.”

This means moms have found their place online, and as a result, they’re launching their own blogs, websites, Facebook support groups, Instagram accounts, Pinterest boards and YouTube channels. They’re literally flooding the Internet with their ideas, support, knowledge, experience and wit.

What are they looking for?

 So why are moms flocking to digital and social media platforms more than any other demographic? There are 3 basic reasons:

1. Support & Community
   This is a time of transition in which many mothers sometimes feel isolated and alone, especially if they find themselves without family nearby or a local support community. Online communities help facilitate an atmosphere in which new moms can engage with other moms and ask questions, exchange information, experiences and even frustrations. The Internet offers them a way to connect 24/7 with others amidst their busy lifestyle. And it has become a means in which they’re able to find community and support.
2. Identity
   When a female discovers she’s pregnant, she begins the greatest transition of her life. In the process of becoming a new mom, her sense of identity changes. It’s a time of great adjustment, and in the midst of inevitable insecurities around parenting, she begins to search for information and resources to help along her journey. Getting involved in online virtual communities, social media sites and blogs allows her to share her new life, fears and failures with others. It’s an authentic space that allows her to learn and grow and identify with other moms around the world.
   
3. Social change
   Not only is the online mommy market an economic powerhouse, it’s also a driving force in social change. Moms are using digital media to improve the status of women, amplify their visibility, and advocate for change, according to FW Song, author of the article The Serious Business of Mommy Bloggers. Social media and blogs have given moms a powerful voice in our culture and they’re becoming strong advocates for change with enormous followings.

Bottom line: you can’t afford to ignore the online mommy market

This market offers brands today the perfect opportunity to connect with moms who not only might need, want or enjoy their products and services, but also be willing to use their influence and connections to help promote them. Smart companies will look for ways to learn more about and leverage the powerful influence this market wields. Whether you’re looking to sell to or service new moms, the best way to reach them is where they are at. And they are online.

We’ve all seen advertising in action:

An advertising agency persuasively promotes a product or service, showing how it brings value to our lives.

We see the ad and often instinctively believe we need that product or service.

We decide to purchase it.

This isn’t new news to any of us. In fact, advertisers have been manipulating supply and demand curves and increasing sales for businesses since the mid 19^th Century.

The Internet: an advertising game changer

With the introduction of online advertising in 1994, the game began to change. The incredible growth of the Internet and social media platforms since then ushered in a new era in which online advertising began overtaking the importance of traditional marketing.

In fact, according to the Journal of Creative Communications, social media advertising now consists of 56% of business advertising efforts.

This is because social media advertising incorporates elements that traditional can’t: allowing businesses to specifically target their audience and engage with a product or service—all in real time.

As social media advertising has shown itself to be effective in manipulating the supply and demand curve (just like traditional marketing), it has emerged as a powerful driving force for our economy. It’s doing this in 3 key ways:

Shifting the demand curve

Advertising raises the level of demand for products, which results in an increased number of products or services sold. A unique element of social media is its ability to create a longer lasting demand shift by capitalizing on the importance of word-of-mouth and opinions of friends in consumer decisions. Pepsi’s Refresh Project campaign is one example. Rather than spending millions on a one-time Super Bowl ad in 2010, Pepsi put its money in a social media campaign that lasted an entire year. This project allowed consumers to apply for grants each month as well as share and vote for the winning projects themselves, which created the potential for a viral spread to outlive any one-time, paid-for ad.

Rotating the demand curve

When advertising rotates the demand curve, it creates an inelasticity for a product or service. When this happens, a consumer is willing to pay the current price for a product or service, allowing the business to grow demand while increasing supply without lowering prices. And because social media advertising is so effective in encouraging ongoing connections with consumers, it naturally helps a brand build its reputation and credibility, which helps ensure this curve rotation. As consumers become more connected with and trust a brand, they are less sensitive to prices.

Creating a direct network effect

Social media has a phenomenal ability to leverage the word-of-mouth networking that occurs by users recommending and sharing products. For example, research shows that when someone recommends a product to a friend, the chance of them purchasing that product increases. As more people purchase a specific product, its value becomes directly linked to the number of consumers consuming that good. Many product trends can be traced back to word-of-mouth advertising that spreads through sharing and recommending products or services via social media. In this way, social media plays a role in creating direct network effects.

Social media advertising is proving itself to be a powerful driver of today’s economy. For this reason, it’s important for marketers and businesses to take note of social media’s effectiveness in shifting the demand curve, rotating the demand curve and creating a direct network effect.

Have you considered ways you can leverage social media advertising to build your business? I’d be happy to talk with you about the best platforms to increase your sales.

When it comes to the workplace, we’ve all heard the conversations: there’s not much that baby boomers, GenXers and millennials have in common. And the same is true about their preferences for online content.

For business owners, the need to market (and sell) your product requires a deep understanding of your customers and their needs. That’s why when it comes providing online and social content, it’s important to understand how generations consume it differently.

The right channel + the right content = more sales

In order to reach specific generations, it’s important to grasp what each loves to consume online. Because it varies. Sometimes greatly.

By understanding generational differences, you can create an optimal mix of social media marketing tactics and content for any brand. Map your business social network presence based on what each customer segment needs, and tailor the type of content you promote across those channels. Choosing the right channels and types of content to share will fuel your customer interactions. Ignoring the differences can mean wasted money and lost sales.

Content that connects across generations

“The Generational Content Gap,” a joint study by Fractl and BuzzStream, surveyed more than 1,200 people about digital content consumption and then charted the major findings into this massive infographic.

From the study, we can see there are a few things all generations have in common:

• Everyone loves Facebook. By far, all generations prefer Facebook as their content sharing platform.
• We all read blogs. All 3 groups identified blogs as the form of content they most like to consume. And they all agreed the shorter the better when it comes to length: 300 words is optimal, although GenXers are also more likely to hang in there and read blogs of 500+ words in length.
• Webinars, SlideShares and white papers get little love. All generations agree these are the least liked content formats.
• Make it visual. Everyone loves sharing images, memes and videos, so if you can mix in these content forms with your posts, you’ll likely get more interaction and it will help lead to brand loyalty.
• We all have preferred times to consume content. Nearly 35 percent of millennials and GenXers prefer the window between 8 p.m. and midnight. Meanwhile, baby boomers are best reached in the morning between 9 a.m. and noon. 

Generational differences

Beyond these similarities, generational preference for content genres varies dramatically. So if you’re developing content for a specific niche, consider which generation might be your target audience and be strategic about marketing to their differences.

Connecting with millennials (born 1977-1995)

How millennials think and what they want:

Millennials are the defining social generation. They make their buying choices based on what is trending, and what their friends and family (or even bloggers and peers) recommend. They like the novelty of buying online with apps and new payment options, and they love when brands dive deep and give them a reason to join in a movement or change.

You can gain traction when you find ways to cut through the traditional marketing tactics (which don’t work with millennials) and be innovative. Use social to encourage their sharing of an opinion or a purchase with family and friends or by offering a discount for a review. Millennials respond if they’ve been given some insider access to VIP discounts through a social interaction. If you aren’t already, find a way to produce high-quality images and video. Studies have shown millennials respond best to visual content—think video, memes and images—which gets 94% more views than text-based content.

Bottom line:

Keep it genuine and connect with millennials on a personal level that makes them feel special. The more you’re able to personalize, the more loyal millennials will be to your brand, and the more they’ll recommend you to their friends. This group is going to have enormous buying power very soon, so don’t overlook their influence in changing the landscape for marketers.

Gaining trust from GenX (born 1965-1976)

 How GenXers think and what they want:

GenX is more of an information-seeking generation. They have conservative spending habits and are always concerned with getting the best deal. Use this to your advantage and change your marketing tone when targeting this group. This generation was raised without the Internet, so they appreciate an in-store experience, but they are open to researching and welcome buying online, especially if it makes their lives easier (think subscription meal services like Blue Apron). Because of this, they respond well to email marketing and exclusive coupons and discounts. You are best served if you target GenX by using product comparisons, buying guides and credible product reviews that describe the quality and value of your brand.

Bottom line:

If you can be unique and showcase how your business will help GenX save time or money, you’ll go far in providing the value and trust that this generation desires. Most of their buying decisions are based on price, so use that to your advantage when you carefully curate your marketing language.

Finding baby boomers online (born 1946-1964)

How baby boomers think and what they want:

Most baby boomers are using the Internet to find content about world news, entertainment and politics, and they’re doing it more often than either millennials or GenXers. Can you engage those on social media about current events and connect that to your business? Brainstorm some creative ideas. Boomers are more likely to find content on their laptop or tablet versus a smartphone. And don’t count this group out of the social media arena. Surveys show 34 percent of baby boomers are now on YouTube, 31 percent are on Twitter, and more than half of all online consumers over 65 are active on Facebook.

Bottom line:

Baby boomers are more likely to splurge on themselves during retirement, so feel free to market your premium services or products. Also, try the traditional direct marketing sales tactics and help them engage with a real person—which remains their comfort zone.

Keeping your content smart

You don’t need to focus exclusively on one of these generations for your target market. You just need to be sure to pick your channels wisely, tailor the messaging to the generation, and use the conversion strategy that resonates with that particular set.