Web analytics with social media

Currently, social media such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs are attracting attention in the web marketing arena. Types of Social Media S...


Types of Social Media

Social media is bidirectional; analyzing PVs, the number of comments and the number of unique users is important as the information may spark new ad campaigns that were not possible before.

Social media sites can be classified by the type of information they focus. A flow-type social medium provides real-time information and a stock-type medium provides stock of information and allows users to browse past data at any time. For example, Twitter belongs to the flow type and YouTube and summary sites belong to the stock type.

Social media can also be classified by their communication methods. One method is based on human relationships and is called the social graph. Another method is based on interests and is called the interest graph.

Social media can further be classified by the scope of exposure it gets, for example, open media types such as Twitter and closed media types such as Facebook and mixi where exchanges are kept between friends or chosen interests.

Improving and renovating the brand image

One of the affects you can expect from using social media is the improvement of your brand image. The brand image can be improved by communicating directly with customers regarding a current product or service, interacting with customers, and sharing the views of the company. You can also try to introduce a character or catchy tune or phrase that will get new customers interested in your product.

Enhancing user loyalty

Social media can be used to enhance user loyalty for the brand or company.

By asking each existing user for information on how they are utilizing products and by explaining how to use things to inexperienced users, existing customers satisfaction rate can be improved. Also, a secondary sales effect can be expected by making existing customers introduce the product to prospective customers.

Ways of enhancing loyalty depends on the company, the service and the people in charge. There are various ways to enhance loyalty. For example, by talking about the product or service quality and details, or by making the people who own or work at the company more approachable with photos, comments or backstories.

No matter which way is used, social media must lead to an action enhancing engagement with the user. To achieve this goal, bidirectional communication with users is necessary.

SNS, Social Media Websites

Social network sites or services allow individuals to create a public profile, connect with friends, like profiles created by interests, and view and cross their connections within the system. Businesses use their profiles to help gather data on user activities, marketing, sales, support, reactions to products, etc. The most popular social media websites include Facebook, Mixi, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Hatena Bookmark, LINE, and LinkedIn.

Social media venues are excellent sources that companies can use to promote their company, their products and services, and interact with current and prospective customers. Utilizing social media is a trend that is increasing over time and, therefore, performing access Analysis on said social media websites is essential to success.

Social media is very different than traditional media. One of the biggest differences is the way social media sites disseminate information. The idea can be visualized on social graphs:

Social media is based upon the idea that a single user can be a source of information and that their network of connections are all included when they post the info they want to share. That single source can be a customer or a company and they have the ability to communicate with each other through posts.

This second social graph shows the differences between traditional media sources that share information and the way that social media works.

Web analytics with social media

Why is it called social media? Well, because communication between entities is the reason for its existence. Social media allows friends to stay in touch, encourages collaboration with followers, and allows for business/customer engagement. Followers, engaged with properly, will become fans, fans will, in turn tell their friends. If you have engaged and active followers, you will also make sales.

Be aware that social media can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, you can gain huge profits from followers and fans, on the other, the same followers might dislike something you do. If they dislike a product, service or even post an image of something that went wrong, you may lose a huge amount of money and loyalty.

Social media analysis

In order to understand how successful your company is, analyze data you can get from social media websites and implement any necessary improvements. There are three main ways that companies use social media to interact with customers:

  • Connect: Look at how many followers you have.
  • Reach: How far has the transmitted information reached?
  • Engage: How many likes, comments, and shares have your posts generated?
As there are a number of different factors you can analyze, we are going to look at some of the different social media sites and which factors should be analyzed on each. Use what we teach you and common-sense to decide which will be best for your specific situation.

Some things to note:

Actions posted to LINE are measured visually.
When trying to count the valid number of friends you have on LINE:
You will need to subtract the number of users you are blocking from the number of friends you have.
Instagram does not provide an official analysis tool.

Negative feedback

If the number of followers decreases unexpectedly, try to figure out why so you can fix the problem quickly. Is it because of negative feedback?

Engagement index

Is the content you are posting engaging followers? If not, modify your approach.

The engagement rate

The engagement rate is calculated by dividing follower actions on a post by the total number of followers your profile has.

Engagement Rate = Actions attached to posts (likes, comments, shares) / Followers

The same equation can be used to find the Reach Engagement Rate.

Data from Social Media

Recently, social media is being used by an ever increasing number of people. Just measuring inflow from social media sites is not sufficient, you need to also understand user behavior on social media sites in order to track how they ended up on your site. You should be careful however, because managing and measuring social media sites takes labor and time when posting and checking customer posts.

Quantitative analysis

Quantitative analysis measures values or figures. You can record the number of “Likes or retweets (RTs), the number of members, the number of subscribers, the number of followers and the number of footprints to measure effects.

Note that when posting an article including a link, add a parameter to the URL. This allows you to capture which post worked.

Qualitative analysis

Qualitative analysis measures the quality data which cannot be represented by figures. You can see the quality of responses to an article or post from the comments to it. Even if you see increases in the number of shares or comments in the quantitative analysis, it is not known whether you can get your desired responses. In some cases, responses may be completely negative. These cannot be measured as figures, but knowing the quality of responses to each posting is indispensable to enhance user interest.

Some social media analysis programs automatically judge user comments to be positive or negative using text mining and other techniques.

Using Social Media

Listen closely: Social listening

Social listening allows a company to gain extra feedback. This approach picks up tweets and posts that include product names or address particular needs and then reflects them on sales promotions and product development.

Possible indices include: the number of postings including observed keywords, the number of postings including product names of the client company and competitors, as well as the negative or positive connotations of the words posted.

Sending messages: Viral marketing

Viral marketing is a method used to gain sympathy from users via reviews. Note that information like sales promotions cannot gain interest from the users. Clarify the basic position you are taking and share that information clearly and concisely.

Share information beneficial to users in order to increase sales and enhance feelings of trust. Some corporations use a “mascot account” (sometimes imaginary) to send information and enhance familiarity.

Possible indices include the number of users who expressed the desire to know details of the company’s information (e.g., number of followers or friends), the number of views, responses (e.g., “Like!”), shares and retweets of posts and the number of users and views of shared and retweeted posts.

Communication: Active support

This method tries to actively talk with users who posted positive or negative comments even if the company is not required to answer to enhance feelings of trust. This is important in order to improve user satisfaction. Be careful that transmitting a unilateral opinion of the company or an adverse opinion against the misunderstandings of the users may cause flaming on the user side.

Possible indices include the number of users communicated with, the number of communications, changes from negative to positive postures (whether or not it is due to conversations) and the types and numbers of questions from users per category.

Social media advertising

Advertising on social media sites is a good supplement to your other advertising efforts. You will be able to take advantage of users’ demographic information, target users with specific interests, and share promotional information with your followers. Budget accordingly, as most social media advertising is just as expensive as other types of advertising.


As they are handed demographic information, likes, hobbies, music taste, etc. on a proverbial platter, Facebook has been able to develop targeting technology that allows advertisements to be tailored to the user. They can also display ads targeted at users that have recently made purchases. As there are currently over 1 billion registered users on Facebook, their reach is enormous.


Twitter has over 2.7 million active users to date. They employ advertising that is more along the lines of PPC advertising. They use keywords to display ads to users that have searched or tweeted about specific things. The users themselves often retweet ads that they like, making the reach even larger. They are characterized by flexible and speedy ad delivery.



Digital Leadership Marketing Strategy
Thought Leadership Zen: Web analytics with social media
Web analytics with social media
Thought Leadership Zen