written by
Ivan Leong

How to Utilize Social Media Analytics to Scale Your Content Marketing

Social Media Analytics & Reporting 8 min read

Would you like to scale your content marketing efforts and build an effective strategy that can help you reach a broader audience, all while saving money and resources? If so, using social media analytics is one of the most beneficial and advantageous things you can do for your content marketing strategy.

Social media analytics can give you a better idea of what you're doing right and what you need to improve on to achieve better outcomes. From performance metrics to analytics on your audience and the competition you would like to get ahead of, you can start to collect valuable data and gain insights that will help you build and scale your content marketing in no time.

1. Define Your Goals to Focus on Metrics That Matter Most to You

Before using social media analytics tools to your advantage, focus on defining your content marketing goals, which may include:

  • Boosting Web Traffic: Receiving more traffic to your website directly from social media can help you increase sales.
  • Generating New Leads: In a specific industry, such as real estate, you may want to scale your content marketing to generate new leads.
  • Increasing Brand Awareness: Building awareness for your brand via social media is an excellent way to make a name for yourself and begin competing with other brands selling similar products or services.

Once you've defined those specific content marketing goals, you can focus on monitoring the most important metrics, keeping track of insightful information that enables you to make improvements where you see fit.

2. Identify Your Current Key Performance Indicators

(Source: Hubspot)

KPIs, otherwise known as key performance indicators, make it possible for you to measure the overall success of your current content marketing efforts. For example, some KPIs include revenue earned, the number of new customers gained daily, customer satisfaction, and your ability to gain and retain clients.

Focus on the KPIs most relevant to the goals you would like to achieve for your business or your client’s business, such as boosting overall engagement and broadening your reach. Most marketers agree that companies and individuals looking to scale content marketing efforts should tie their KPIs to broader business goals to achieve the best results.

The key to tying your KPIs to broader goals is knowing which metrics will help you measure progress to achieve what you would like to accomplish. For instance, if your primary goal is to increase sales, the metric you may want to focus on could be revenue or the overall number of units sold.

Take the time to evaluate the relevance of each metric, with some holding more value than others, to focus on what can benefit your business and its long-term goals in regard to scaling your content marketing.

3. Use Social Media Analytics Tools to Your Advantage

Plenty of social media analytics tools are available, so use them to your advantage to scale your content marketing faster and more effectively. Storychief is a popular tool, and with good reason. Widely recognized as a trustworthy tool for content planning and social media analytics, it will enable you to monitor metrics and gain insights from various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to name a few.

You want to have this valuable information to get a feel for what is and isn't working across different platforms. What works on one social media platform may not be as well-received or reciprocated on another, so keep that in mind while you work on strengthening your digital footprint, building awareness for your brand, and ultimately gaining new followers.

Other social media analytics tools are available, allowing you to use what you prefer, such as Google Analytics, Zoho Social, or Sprout Social. Don't hesitate to rely on multiple tools to gain access to the most accurate, up-to-date social media analytics data that will help you plan a strategy that truly works in your favor.

Using a combination of social media analytic tools, you can quickly begin collecting, measuring, and analyzing data across different social media platforms. With the information you're collecting, it becomes easier for you to monitor a brand's reputation, identifying positive and negative things others say about it. Staying on top of potential issues is the key to maintaining a positive reputation online.

4. Collect Data on Your Social Media Performance and Make Changes When Necessary

Once you have selected your social media analytics tools, use them regularly to gather data on your social media performance. You can get audience demographics, engagement rates, and overall content performance details, which will help you learn what types of changes you will need to make.

For example, refining your content marketing strategy may be necessary if you notice that you're not getting much engagement or are having difficulty reaching your target audience.

Use any insights from your selected social media analytics to refine and improve your content marketing strategy. The adjustments you need to make may include revisiting the current content you post, posting more frequently, or even trying out different platforms instead of putting all your time and effort into ones that aren't producing your ideal results.

By adjusting the content produced and displayed across various social platforms, you can build a better connection with your audience, creating custom-tailored messages that resonate with them more — and when you start building stronger connections with your audience, you gain their trust and loyalty to your brand.

Last but not least, you can also make use of social media analytics to identify and reach out to people who are more likely to purchase from you. For example, if your company is selling baby products, it would be much more effective to reach out to parents. Pick your best prospects out of the crowd!

5. Monitor the Competition with Social Media Analytics Tools

Although focusing on metrics is important, you also need to know what the competition is doing. By monitoring what the competition does and how they make progress, you can improve your content marketing strategy and get ahead.

It isn't about copying what you see the competition doing – it's about seeing what works best for them and figuring out how you can implement some of those techniques. You will discover what they're doing to outperform you in different ways and can then use that knowledge to your benefit to make effective changes.

Taking the time to monitor the competition can work in your favor for several reasons. For example, you can identify market trends and any possible opportunities they may have missed.

This will help you make well-informed decisions about the marketing strategies you should implement to achieve better results. Tracking the competition will also enable you to better understand the industry, including the key players, specific market-related dynamics, and challenges you must overcome to get ahead.

If you aim to gain an edge over the competition and excel at customer service, this is how to do it. Many business owners learn what to do and what not to do from their competition, ultimately making it possible for them to strengthen the customer experience and leave customers feeling satisfied with their decision to buy from that brand.

6. Apply A/B Testing to Your Social Media Strategy to Determine Which Option Works Best for a Specific Business

(Source: FasterCapital)

As you gain insights from social media analytics tools, consider applying A/B testing to your content marketing strategy. With this strategy, you are testing different types of content on various social media platforms to determine which performs best by getting the most engagement and helping you reach specific goals, such as more traffic to your website.

You can use the data and insights from A/B testing to do more of what works for your business or your client’s business.

Some of the advantages of A/B testing include the following:

  • Improved Conversion Rates: A/B testing allows you to determine which version of a social media post or advertisement generates the most leads and conversions. By identifying the highest-performing version, it becomes easier to improve conversion rates, leading to increased sales.
  • Increased Revenue: If you're using this method to test what works and what doesn't, you can eventually optimize your marketing efforts and drastically improve conversion rates, leading to an increase in revenue.
  • Fully Enhanced User Experience: A/B testing is effective at helping you create better experiences for users by providing them with a layout or design that they like best. If you can improve the user experience, you can quickly boost customer satisfaction in the process.
  • Competitive advantage: A/B testing can also give your business a competitive advantage. By conducting this method, you can better understand your audience's behaviors and preferences, allowing you to create content that resonates better with them than your competitors.

Wrapping Up - Utilize Social Media Analytics to Scale Your Content Marketing

In conclusion, utilizing social media analytics is crucial for scaling your content marketing efforts. The best part is, many of these tools are available for free and can benefit you greatly by providing you with more significant insights into what does and doesn't work for any business, whether it’s your own or a client seeking assistance from you as a content marketer.

With access to such valuable information, you will soon discover the steps you should take to reach specific social media marketing goals. Whether it is gaining new followers, getting more web traffic, or reaching your targeted audience, you can leverage the power of social media analytics to drive meaningful results for your content marketing campaigns.