What does it take to make analytics actionable, easy to understand and absolutely accurate? The people over at Buffer have solved this issue easily with their recent announcement which makes social analytics a breeze.
When we share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks, Buffer found that there is the following loop going on: It starts with finding the best content on the web that you want to post for your friends, fans and followers. That’s why they built the browser extensions and lots of app integrations. Right there, when you find it, there needs to be a convenient way for you to share that particular piece of content. That’s why they have the Buffer queue.
Now the missing link is of course to understand, whether your finding of content and sharing it actually has any impact. Buffer thought, that clearly the answer is to have an amazing insight into analytics on what is going on. Being able to easily glance through and seeing how well your Tweets, Facebook updates and LinkedIn posts have performed is key we found.
With today’s update, Buffer has given all of their analytics features an extensive facelift, better performance, better tracking and more. Here is how this now works:
Twitter analytics: See all clicks, Retweets, mentions, reach and favorites
The first big change that they have made is that our Twitter analytics have received a very powerful upgrade. Now, instead of just clicks and retweets, all clicks, retweets, mentions, reach and favorites that you will receive, will be tracked for you for free.
At the same time, we have also made it so that they now update in real time, when there used to be a delay. So whenever you hit the “Analytics” tab on the top right, you will receive a fully up to date view of your analytics for your Tweets.
So, whenever you glance through your Twitter analytics you will get a great idea of how much interaction each of your updates has received:
Whenever you click into any of your updates you will get an immediate overview who the people are that interact with you the most. The best part here is that you can thank them, follow them or continue the conversation right there:
Personally the way I like to approach the Buffer analytics is like this. I hop in there every few days and briefly glance through the list, without taking too much notice of each update. Whenever there is one that has particularly many avatars, I take a moment. I try to understand why that particular update has done so much better than the others, study the title, the length of the update and try to internalize that this has worked well:
“Why did this update do better than others?”
Facebook analytics: Track your likes, comments, clicks, reach and shares
As their most recent feature addition, Buffer has added to Buffer in this new release are Facebook analytics. This means that every update you post will always be remembered in your Buffer history together with the exact number of likes, shares, comments, clicks and reach.
The most powerful aspect with this I’ve found is that although Facebook updates have a longer shelf-life, it is very hard to get an overview of what has performed better and what has performed worse.
Taking a quick look through the updates will give you a great idea of how well each of your postings has performed:
In same way, as you can click on “expand” on your Twitter analytics, you can do so with your Facebook postings. What I think is most useful here is that you will see exactly in which order the likes, comments or shares have happened:
LinkedIn analytics: Get comments, likes, clicks, potential and reshares
You will get all metrics displayed in near-real time whenever you hit the analytics tab also for your free account now. Very similar to Facebook’s analytics Buffer now display the whole data right there inside your Buffer analytics tab for you:
And of course, expanding works still. With one click on the person’s avatar that has interacted with you, you can head to their LinkedIn profile page and check out what they are up to.
Seeing a concise analytics view of all the different social media platforms you are posting to, is something that is very important. Even if not for every day for some, if you want to look back in a few weeks and find out how your updates have increased or decreased engagement.. All your data will always be available for you in the analytics tab and up to date whenever you click it.
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