Don’t Miss Out on These 7 Ways to Use Your Social-Share Data

Don’t Miss Out on These 7 Ways to Use Your Social-Share Data

Almost every site incorporates these opportunities to encourage visitors to distribute the content. Here are seven ideas on what to do with your social-sharing data. You’ll see a list of all the pages visited by people who clicked on a link shared on a social platform. Identify what content your audience thinks is most relevant and appropriate for which platforms. Instead of spending a little on everything, you can spend more on the content pieces most likely to drive your desired results. Ask for links If your content team has the time to go deeper to connect your social-sharing data with your backlinking data, it should. If you find some of the same people on both lists, reach out and ask if they would consider including a link to your relevant content or brand website. Don’t forget in-content social promotion Make sure to analyze your in-content sharing promotions such as clicks to tweet or links to other relevant content (e.g., the Handpicked Related Content feature in CMI blog articles). Social sharing should be an integral part of many of the elements in your content marketing – from your social media program to your content development to your influencer marketing. You have the data, why not use it for the good of your overall content marketing program?

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They sit on the screen, often unobtrusively.

They appear as a single letter, or sometimes two. And almost always a bird and an envelope are included.

They go unnoticed unless the visitor feels moved to look for them.

And when that visitor is ready, the icons are ready to go into action with just a click.

Almost every site incorporates these opportunities to encourage visitors to distribute the content. (And some site visitors take it upon themselves to share the content without going through those icons, directly cutting and pasting links, adding a few words of intro (or not), in their social media posts.

But no matter how they begin, these social shares often get lost in the data shuffle. Are the numbers considered part of social media or website analytics? Without a proper home, the use of social-sharing data is rarely maximized.

To truly benefit from your social-sharing data, you need a strategic plan to incorporate those numbers into your analytics. Here are seven ideas on what to do with your social-sharing data.

1. Understand the impact of social shares on website traffic

Explore how social shares affect referral traffic to your website. You can learn which shared content prompts people to visit your site. And then understand those visitors’ behavior on your site — how long do they spend on the landing page, where else do they go on your site, etc.

First, in Google Analytics, go to Analytics > Acquisition > Social > Landing Pages.

You’ll see a list of all the pages visited by people who clicked on a link shared on a social platform. You can dig deeper by clicking the landing page URL. Then you can see the referring social platforms broken down by:

  • Traffic
  • Number of sessions
  • Total page views
  • Average session duration
  • Pages visited per session

2. Improve paid promotion

You know organic reach in social media is declining exponentially. Paid promotion is almost a must to get your content in the feeds of your audience.

Analyzing platform-specific social-sharing data is like having your own focus group. Identify what content your audience thinks is most relevant and appropriate for which platforms. Then use that information to make your paid promotion plans more effective.

With social-sharing data in hand, you can be more selective in choosing which content merits paid promotion. Instead of spending a little on everything, you can spend more on the content pieces most likely to drive your desired results.

3. Inform future content

In addition to helping identify where you should invest your promotion dollars, social-sharing data also helps you understand what type of content (e.g., topic, format, headline, length) will motivate your audience to actively promote it.

Using a spreadsheet, create columns from left to right and document:

  • Content title
  • Topic
  • Keywords
  • Format (e.g., blog, infographic, video), length (word count…

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