Enhancing marketing strategy with social media analytics

Social media has become the place for businesses to tap into the “voice of the consumer.” With 65% of millennials revealing that they would consider buying a product or service recommended by a friend on social, there’s a tremendous opportunity for marketers to implement targeted marketing strategies by leveraging social media analytics. Here’s where social media analytics can help in.

For marketers, the opportunities to grow their business through social channels are endless. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram contain a wealth of consumer data that can help marketers figure out how they react and engage with brands. Tracking and analyzing this data can help businesses to chart out effective marketing strategies. Let’s have a look at some of the best ways through which a business can utilize social media analytics to help shape its digital marketing strategy.

Sentiment analysis

A sentiment analysis – the process of tapping into user-generated data to determine if the sentiment towards something is positive, negative, or neutral – can help marketers understand customer preferences and attitudes almost instantly. By performing a sentiment analysis on social media data, marketers can gain targeted customer insights to help them curate more effective campaigns and strategies. For instance, marketers can determine the sentiment toward a trending topic to craft their campaigns accordingly.

a. Early crisis detection

In the era of instantaneous communication, swift response to potential crises is paramount for safeguarding brand reputation. Social media analytics plays a pivotal role in this by enabling organizations to analyze data across multiple platforms, providing an early warning system.

Shockingly, a significant 57% of companies lack unified cross-platform analytics, rendering them vulnerable to unexpected PR challenges. Through constant monitoring and social media consumer sentiment analysis, businesses can contextualize crisis gravity, distinguishing between widespread negative sentiment and isolated instances of discontent.

b. Elevating brand health

Brand health is intricately linked to consumer experiences and perceptions, making its continuous monitoring and enhancement imperative through social media analytics. By regularly assessing metrics such as awareness, positioning, reputation, and brand equity, businesses gain profound insights into overall brand sentiment. Sentiment analysis serves as a vital tool, addressing critical questions about brand discussions, dominance in category conversations, and general audience perception.

This nuanced understanding derived from sentiment analysis empowers companies to identify and address product or service gaps, ensuring a conversion-driven, superior digital customer experience. The ability to decode consumer sentiment becomes a competitive advantage in shaping a brand’s narrative and fostering enduring customer relationships.

Competitive insight and content evaluation through media monitoring  

Staying abreast with what the closest competitors are doing in the social media space, is also a critical part of the marketing strategy. This can help marketers to be more aware of how other brands respond to fresh trends and ideas within a particular marketing domain.

To benchmark a marketing strategy against the ones undertaken by the competitors, marketers need to analyze social media metrics and determine what content or strategy resonates best with the audience. For instance, marketers can leverage media monitoring tools to evaluate the type of content that gets the most shares and the audience sharing it the most. This form of analysis helps a business to better understand what is working for the competitors, in what areas and why.

Moreover, it unveils the dynamics of competitor responses to emerging trends, offering a blueprint for marketers to refine their own strategies. By harnessing the power of media monitoring, businesses can proactively anticipate market shifts, identify content white spaces, and make informed decisions to elevate their social media presence. It becomes a continuous learning process, empowering marketers not just to keep pace with competitors but to strategically lead in the ever-evolving landscape.

Influencer marketing

Social media has long served as a hotbed for digital influencers who owe their popularity to millions of social followers. As consumers are naturally inclined to believe real people over brands, this new generation of influencers has become even more critical in the marketing space with their ability to persuade a growing audience with their opinions.

Social channels like Instagram and Facebook still reign as the ideal option for marketers looking to invest in influencer marketing. The challenge that they face, however, is to quantify the ROI and success of a campaign undertaken through such platforms. As a retort, businesses can consider leveraging social media analytics to explore how social influencers rank in such mediums or who are the ones that are best suited for the brand image. Moreover, analytics can also help marketers understand the audience outreach, posting frequency, and social popularity of influencers with more insights into their followers and social authority.

Related reading: Measuring influencer marketing ROI with social media intelligence

Quite often success hinges on precise data insights. Monitoring an influencer’s impact starts with tracking engagement metrics—posting frequency, impressions, and standardized engagement rates. Structuring this data in a dashboard format provides marketers with clear answers and informs strategic decisions for future campaigns. Beyond metrics, analyzing the relevance of an influencer’s content requires a nuanced approach, distinguishing between low, medium, and high-relevance engagements. Finally, quantifying influencer ROI demands a ranking methodology tied to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and considers an influencer’s activity across platforms, enabling marketers to optimize budgets and incentivize top performers for sustained success.

Being at the heart of any successful social media strategy, social media analytics helps a brand to track, quantify, and enhance the interactions that it makes with its consumers. It’s the ultimate weapon in a marketer’s inventory that has the potential to enhance bottom line when used correctly.

If you’re looking to create data-driven marketing strategies without the in-house technical investment, we can help. Netscribes provides a complete suite of social media management solutions, including listening, analytics, strategy, and content. To request a consultation, reach out to us.