Considering the sheer amount of consumer data posted on social media daily, social listening tools have also become an integral component in competitive research, audience analysis, and product research.

At the core of social media analytics is the gathering and analyzing of audience data and marketing upon which business decisions will be based. It is also one of the best ways to access insights that can optimize both the product strategy and marketing efforts.

Social Media Analytics in a Nutshell

Just like eCommerce chatbots, the importance of social media analytics cannot be overstated. However, despite the peerless benefits of social media analytics, it is still heavily underutilized. Unfortunately, without measuring and analyzing your social media marketing’s performance, you won’t be able to improve your results.

For your social media marketing efforts to succeed, you will need a data-driven roadmap so you will know what to do and where to go. In essence, it’s what every social media analytics solution is designed to do. Ideally, a good analytics tool should be easy-to-use and intuitive, making marketing activities scalable and sustainable.

Apart from daily monitoring, tracking, and analyzing of data trends and metrics, the right analytics solution will also provide an overview of your social media performance. This is important so you can see where strategic opportunities exist, where you can nullify threats, and what adjustments you need to make.

The Importance of Social Media Analytics

Below are some of the most critical and universal use-cases of social media analytics solutions. These use cases also highlight the importance of social media analytics for brands. It’s safe to assume a good analytics platform will be designed and built with these use cases in mind.

Measure marketing impact and return on investment (ROI)

One great thing about analytics is that it provides instant feedback about how your brand is performing across various social media channels. From there, you can quickly assess if your current strategy is effective or not. Since you will have access to the performance KPIs, you will have better control of your social media campaigns.

If the current strategy is not working, the data analysis provided by your analytics can point you in the right direction. This means you can make the necessary tweaks before the performance of your campaign dips. You can also quickly fix any issues before your campaign goes south fast.

Make better business decisions

Robust social media analytics can provide insights and data to help marketing teams identify what’s working and what’s not in terms of their social media strategy. What’s even more impressive is social analytics can also provide the needed insights that can help you make strategic decisions outside of marketing.

This is especially true as the amount of data posted on social media has increased steadily, and the ability to extract relevant data has also improved. When it comes to your social media strategy, basing it on data is the best way to go. This will help you identify strategies that will have the most impact.

Compare your performance against your competitors

It’s futile to celebrate a seemingly good performance if you have no idea how it fares against the average industry performance. Context is vital. That said, the only way you can measure real success would be to compare your performance against that of your competitors.

Benchmarking can also provide essential insights and allow you to see how you stack up against your rivals. It can also help you see how your current campaign looks against the current industry average.

Track the efficiency of the marketing team

One key to running a robust marketing crew would be to streamline workflows. To achieve said objective, you need to know your marketing team’s velocity and efficiency so you can lead them in the right direction. As a general rule of thumb, it would be ideal to keep working at high velocity and ensure there are no bottlenecks.

This is especially true in specific areas such as online customer service and community management, where a great tool can help you measure vital community management KPIs such as audience sentiment and response time.

Micromanagement is now considered a thing of the past. With a good analytics solution, you can easily see granular and top-line data, trends that need to be looked into, and an overview of the current marketing operations. 

Final Thoughts

Undeniably, social media analytics is crucial to your social media marketing efforts. Your marketing efforts are futile if you don’t have the slightest idea whether you are doing well or not. The message is simple: measure, track, and analyze. More importantly, make sure you invest in a social media analytics tool that can do all three and then some.

The post Your Quick and Easy Guide to Social Media Analytics appeared first on SiteProNews.

Just how important is user experience? Nowadays, a whopping 88% of online consumers won’t revisit a site after a bad experience. Web development experts know several elements contribute to the creation of a superb user experience. There’s user interface, responsive web design, and usability, for starters.

In essence, an exceptional user experience is all about making the end-user happy. To achieve this objective, a brand needs to have a clear and thorough understanding of the needs and priorities of consumers.

Why User Experience Matters

To fully appreciate the significance of user experience, let us examine some interesting statistics:

• If site content is not optimized, a staggering 79% of visitors will leave the site and look for information elsewhere.
• At least 88% of online visitors won’t revisit a site after a bad experience.
• Superb UX design has been known to boost conversion by as much as 400%.
• A well-designed user interface can increase the conversion rate of a site by as much as 200%.
• Some studies also indicate that mobile users are five times more likely to leave a task unfinished if the website is not optimized.

Still not convinced? The experience of some of the world’s leading brands highlight the significant role user experience plays:

• According to Adobe, at least 39% of visitors will leave a site right away if the loading time is slow or the images won’t load.
• KoMarketing revealed that 51% of site visitors consider contact information as essential elements missing from most websites.
• The revenue of ESPN jumped by 35% after they implemented some of the homepage redesign suggestions provided by their community.

Also, since Google wants to provide a great experience each time people use their search engine, it is believed that UX is considered one of the main factors that affect search engine rankings.

Why You Should Care

If you don’t make user experience a priority, you put critical aspects of your business on the line, including sales, brand reputation, and customer loyalty.

Sales

If the primary purpose of your website is to drive online sales, user experience should rank high in your list of priorities. It is important to remember that websites that load slowly have cost retailers $2.6 billion in lost sales yearly. 

At least 60 percent of consumers cite lack of information, a small screen, and slow connection as some reasons for not buying. Next, check the conversion rate of your site. Is it good enough for you? If not, poor user experience can be the likely culprit.

Brand Reputation

When a website is not visually pleasing, visitors and consumers might take it against your brand. Here’s something not many people know about: some studies pointed out that 94 percent of first impressions are related to design.

At least 60% of site visitors also stated they wouldn’t recommend a brand that has a poorly designed website. Undoubtedly, user experience has a massive impact on the overall experience.

Customer Loyalty

At least 52% of site visitors revealed that they no longer want to engage with a brand after a bad mobile experience. What is even more alarming is 79% of visitors who don’t like what they find on a specific site will search for information on other sites.

Understandably, no visitor would stay long on a site that does not contain the information they want. For those struggling to retain and entice new customers, improving the user experience should be one of your top priorities.

Effective Ways to Improve User Experience

There is no shortage of powerful ways you can improve user experience. Some of the most effective include:

Auditing your site’s flow

Examine the structure of your site. Also known as sitemap, check if the structure of your site can help visitors find what they are looking for quickly and effortlessly. If multiple steps are required, consider redesigning your site’s structure and flow.

You can use a user testing tool to understand the site paths that are considered straightforward and complex by your visitors. Aside from a good site structure, ensuring that headings are used properly can make a world of difference.

Asking your visitors how you can improve

Each time a visitor purchases from your site, send a follow-up email and ask them about their experience navigating and interacting with your site. Ensure you also ask straightforward questions and not vague ones.

Although pop-ups are vastly used for surveys of this type, chat boxes are considered ideal as they won’t intrude with any activities visitors do on the site.

Testing your site

User testing is one of the most effective ways to assess if your site provides an exceptional user experience. Nowadays, there are countless tools online that you can use. Some tools are designed to ask visitors questions about design, functionality, and web content.

Final Thoughts

The importance of user experience cannot be overemphasized. Without it, websites will be impossible to navigate and a pain to use. It is crucial to keep in mind that user experience can significantly contribute to the success of your brand. That said, make sure you provide nothing but the best experience on every visit.

The post User Experience: What It Is and Why You Should Care appeared first on SiteProNews.