Tracking social media marketing campaigns in Google Analytics
Posted by: Shannon Anderson, Project Manager
Social media marketing (SMM) is becoming an increasingly critical tactic in driving website traffic and staying involved in the conversation that surrounds a company’s industry. As you implement a social media campaign, it is important to track these efforts to see which sources are paying off.
Google Analytics now allows webmasters to see how users are interacting with a company’s website through the following sites:
To view this data requires Analytics add-ons, but once gleaned, it’s valuable in understanding what social bookmarking websites people are using to get to your site. Using this information, you can evaluate the target audiences of these sites and consider new ways to reach them. On some sites like Digg.com, you can even click directly to the users’ profiles who have bookmarked your site.
Another way to track your social efforts is to implement trackable URLs on all of your social sites directing traffic to your landing page. Google Analytics reporting will show traffic generated from these links giving you an idea of the “hot spots” of your social site.
It is also important to track fans, followers, etc. over time to see how interest is growing. If users begin to drop off, you may need to focus on refreshing your content or pushing it out through new marketing tactics.
