Companies currently live in a world that understands the importance of appearing in public through social media. It is interesting to see now in 2016 how most companies have a social media department within their business line. This shows how businesses nowadays are evolving and shifting the way to reach to their consumers in order to increase sales. In my previous blogs, I have discussed the importance of social media to businesses and how companies would not survive without it. In addition, I have went through different industries, such as news media, ground transportation, and airlines to analyze how different businesses use social media successfully to reach to their target goals, and how they are benefiting from the online appearance through social media. For example, the marketing team at Mozio are benefiting from posting their service that led to public awareness and sales increase. The IT team at the Newspaper industry are taking advantage of the social media to make a traffic to their website in order to increase the number of viewers. Finally, the human resource team at American Airlines are successfully incorporating their customer service strategies through social media.
(To view my recent blogs please visit this link Social Media and Businesses by Talal Al Tubayyeb).
Therefore, what is the next level for companies in the use of social media? What strategies do companies need to implement in order to maintain their success in social media? We all understand the statement that “nothing stays the same”, and especially when dealing with an evolving digital platform. For these reasons, companies basically need to analyze their social media activities in order to take the most and best out of these activities. I mean by this is that companies must look after Social Media Analytics. Please note that the main idea of this blog is not to dig deep into big analytics, but instead, discussing the benefits of social media analytics for companies that would allow them to analyze their social media activities.
Social media analytics is the process of gathering data from social media and analyzing those data in order to make sufficient business decisions. The advantages that social media analytics provide to companies are numerous. It can track a company’s social media activities progress and point out a company’s strengths and weaknesses point from those activities. Therefore, it is the ideal way to make the right process at the right time in order to reach at the right decisions. As I mentioned in previous blogs, social media is not only about having as much “followers” or “likes”; it is also about analyzing and pointing out the aspects that led a company to succeed in social media. any social media director at any organization would ask his team questions such as what are the most successful activities and strategies that had been done in social media? What are the least? What do social media data tells us about our customers? Therefore, it is the way for a company to organize their online practices and focus more on the successful strategies based on those data. In addition, companies could benefit from social media analytics by analyzing and comparing with their competitors. The data from social media is proven to be a gold tool that companies should not disregard in order to continue their success.
Another way to show the importance of social media analytics is a small-sized company called Ncrease based in Washington DC. Ncrease is a company that analyze data gathered from social media analytics in order to predict an individual next purchase before that individual makes any decisions. The company then sells these analysis to companies in order for those companies to find the right customers.
At he end, appearing in a social media platform is the first step for your company. Social marketing and engagements with customers through your company’s social media account is the next step. The final and important step is to analyze your company’s activities in social media to identify and focus on the strengths and point out areas to focus more that will lead at the end to achieve your company’s goal in social media and assist in your diction making.
I would like to conclude with a video by IBM that shares their experience with social media analytics: Make Better Decisions with Social Media Analytics
Link of articles:
Why Tracking your Social Media Analytics is Important