Chapter 4
Embracing Social Analytics
In This Chapter
- Understanding Social Analytics
- Putting goals into motion
- Assigning objectives to social media activity
- Developing Key Performance Indicators
Social Analytics is a relatively new doctrine that was born of necessity. Consumers forced brands to expand their interactions from traditional channels such as web sites and call centers to new and emerging social media ones. Upon entering this new realm of correspondence, which empowered consumers with unbridled free speech to a vast audience of attentive listeners, organizations and their brand managers desperately needed a method to understand emerging customers’ behaviors and a means to manage their interactions across these new channels. As such, Social Analytics was adapted from the established field of Web Analytics where web site owners quantified user behavior by monitoring their activity. This chapter defines Social Analytics and describes the components necessary to use this discipline as a definitive management tool.
Defining Social Analytics
When working to define Social Analytics, I set out to leverage the collective intellect of my own social network of Web Analytics and social media connections to crowd-source a widely acceptable definition.
I began with a blog post that drew comments from influential vendors, consultants, and practitioners from across industries. Word got out through Twitter and spread to other channels spawning a Facebook discussion (see “How do we ...
