Today, almost all businesses use multiple social media platforms. Are you using one for your business? Are you looking for ways where you can improve your social media presence?
Google Analytics will help you uncover valuable data about your audience. You can determine which social media channels are driving the most traffic to your website.
Let’s know more about your audience through this article:
- Why Understanding Audience Matters?
- Reasons Social Media Marketers Should Use Google Analytics
- How to Know More About Your Audience?
- Set Up Audience Report
Why Understanding Audience Matters?
As most businesses are using the digital platform and social media to create brand awareness and boost their sales, it is important to understand their audience through Google Analytics.
Whether you are managing a small or large business, knowing the audience is critical information for your digital activity. Understanding the audience through Google Analytics is the best part, it is free to use and quick to set up.
If you are new to the platform, the Google Analytics interface could be overwhelming, and not all marketers can easily understand the data given in each section. So, it is better to know the Analytics basics first to set the goal and decide which data you should focus on.
But, if you want to evaluate the effectiveness of your social media marketing, you have to pay attention to the audience and acquisition.
Following these areas will give you an accurate assessment of the three critical aspects of your social media marketing.
You would know:
- If you are on the right social media channel.
- Effectiveness of ads and voice tone on social media channels
- If the social media targeting aligns with the site visitors.
Reasons Social Media Marketers Should Use Google Analytics
Social media marketers know that they are using a massive platform to attract audiences, build brand awareness, and connect with their prospects and customers. Here are the three major reasons why it is important to use Google Analytics to put a nail to your business goals:
Understand Audience Makeup
Go over the audience section to determine the information of your website visitors. You will know their age, gender, location, the device they use, and how they were driven to your website.
Focus on the demographics and geo (location), these are the most important areas of audience makeup.
Demographics: Age and Gender
When you know the average age of your audience, you will know which social media channels to prioritize. It is discovered that the best indicator of where your audience spends most of their time is through their age. According to ComScore, the most popular social media channel for ages 18 to 24 is Snapchat.
How to know the age of your website viewers? Click on the drop-down menu to the left side of demographics, you will see the age section. At the top of the frame, you can change the time frame.
If you analyze the age of your audience, you would know which platforms they prefer and the content they are interested in. You will have more opportunities by creating the content they like.
Audience gender plays a significant role in how they communicate and interact online. Determine the gender percentage of your visitors by clicking gender under the demographics section.
If you know who most of your visitors are, you will know the appropriate tone to use for your content and ads. Use the audience gender to create ads and content that you will post on your social media and website.
Geo: Location Data
Assess the location of your web visitors. Geographic target is crucial to saving time and money on paid ad campaigns. You know which countries, cities, or states your website viewers are located.
You can access the data in the location section under geo. You can set the time frame on the view pane. Scroll to see the country results, click on the country to see which location drives the most traffic.
If your business is not in a top city, consider shifting your social strategy and target the geographic area you are most close to.
Determine Where Most Web Traffic Comes
If you go to the Acquisition section in Google Analytics, you will know where your site visitors are coming from. For social media marketers who want to know which social media channel drives the most traffic, they should focus on social referral traffic.
Click on all traffic and on the drop-down menu, click on channels. Analytics will provide data for traffic referrals from your social media platforms.
At the top of the screen, there is an option where you can specify the time or dates you want to analyze. As you scroll down, you will see the results.
Click on social to have the results for each social media channel. By there, you know which channel drives more traffic.
As you determine the traffic referrals, it will help you assess the effectiveness of your current strategy. Check the social media referral traffic of your website on a monthly basis. It would be best to record the results on a spreadsheet.
Adjust Strategy for Specific Platforms
If you have an idea of your audience demographics and the top traffic sources, you can use the insights to determine which platforms you should focus on and adjust your marketing strategy. It is best to try new strategies and prioritize new platforms.
Let’s have this example:
You noticed that images with links will drive more clicks, and you want to increase the traffic from Twitter. So, you pair each link with an image for a month. After a month, check the analytics to see if the strategy generated more clicks from Twitter.
If the result is not impressive, then you can shift your focus to another different platform. Remember, do not shift your entire social media strategy at once. Focus on one platform for a month. Do it one at a time.
Doing it one at a time could help you determine which strategy and platform are effective in driving referrals. Drop what doesn’t work and focus on those strategies that drive more clicks.
Once you have implemented the new strategy for a month, check the traffic in the social channels. Determine whether it increased the list of referral sources.
You may also want to read:
How to Know More About Your Audience?
Now, you get a hold of why knowing your audience is important, here are some of the ways how you could know more about your audience:
Language
You might overlook the power of language in your messages and ads. You might assume that most of your audience can understand or speak in American English. However, you will be surprised to know that there’s a percentage of your audience who speak in Korean.
If you are offering your products or services internationally, then it would be best to add another language to your website. Ensure that you are offering authentic and well-translated ads or messages to acknowledge and respect their culture.
Browser Type
It is important to determine what device and which browser your audience is using. Knowing about it would help you improve your web design and user experience. Also, the browser your audience is using would let you know how technically literate they are.
Advanced Custom Reports
If you want to dig deeper into the technical report, you can create advanced custom reports. You can combine several types of metrics to understand your customers more.
You have to install the tracking code on every web page on your website that you want to track. The code will help Google Analytics to measure and report the activities on your website. But, you have to remember, the tracking code installation will depend on the type of website and CMS platform you have.
Meanwhile, if your website is built with HTML files, you can easily install the tracking code to the source code on every page of the website. Use an online HTML editor program such as TextEdit for Mac and Notepad on Windows. Add the tracking code before the tag on the web page you want to track.
Set Up Audience Report
As audiences play a critical role in every paid media strategy, you have to hit them using the indicators. So, set up your Audience Report in Google Analytics by:
- Enabling demographic report.
- Create audiences.
- Share audiences with Google Analytics accounts.
- Choose 20 audiences to report on Google Analytics. You may create more than 20 audiences, yet only 20 are accessible for reports. Choose wisely.
In Summary
You will know more about your audiences in Analytics since you group them together based on their attributes that are essential for your business. Analytics consider audiences who are current shoppers, they include those visitors who have no product views but exclude those who do not have 0 purchases. But, you can modify the attributes of your audiences to have a more detailed report.
Google Analytics will tell you four different metrics– acquisition, behavior, conversions, and audience response.
Make use of the data Google Analytics provide– it will offer you concrete insights that could help you maximize your business further.
