Examining and responding to Facebook and email analytics for ABC Company

Before, during and after a social media campaign, a social media manager must examine the analytics behind that campaign to figure out what works and what does not so adjustments can be made along the way, if needed.

So how should you go about examining your company's social analytics? To demonstrate, I will examine the analytics for a hypothetical health-care focused company, ABC Company, which is based in Central Florida. In addition to its Facebook page, ABC Company has Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube accounts. However, the focus will be on ABC Company's Facebook Insights from April 28-May 25, 2013 and its email campaign Bronto statistics.

Facebook Insights snapshot
Taking a quick look at ABC Company's Facebook analytics, the company's page has 880 likes. This is not a bad number, though there are definitely ways to tap into the 340,325 friends of fans that I'll discuss later.

Also, it's important to note that the demographic group that has been reached most by ABC's Facebook page (and the group that is talking about ABC Company the most) is females ages 25-34.

Not surprisingly, most of the people reached by the page and most of the people talking about the page are located in the United States in cities that are mostly in Central Florida. However, there are a few other countries ABC Company reached through its page -- Peru, the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico -- so the page manager may want to keep this in mind when posting.

Email newsletter stats snapshot
Six hundred and sixty-one subscribers out of 2,606 subscribers who got it opened ABC Company's last newsletter, which translates to a 25.4 percent open rate. This may not sound impressive, but according to email marketing firm Mad Mimi, a 25 percent open rate is on the high end of the open rate average. Of those who opened the newsletter, 72 people, or 10.9 percent, clicked on links in the email. Mad Mimi says the click-through rate is usually lower than the open rate.

The conversion rate was zero percent from those 72 clicks and resulted in $0 of revenue, according to the report. However, the report does not show what those links are, so the links may not have been "money-making links" anyway.

How ABC Company can improve its Facebook efforts
It wouldn't hurt for ABC Company to try using Facebook Advertising, yet Facebook Insights show (see left) that most of the traffic to the ABC Company page is through viral reach rather than organic or paid reach. Here's how ABC Company can increase its viral reach:

-Make posts with photos. Most of ABC Company's Facebook posts appear to be text-based posts. Facebook users are more likely to interact with and share photo-based posts. Shares are a great way way to increase page likes, so making posts with engaging photos would be a quick, easy way to get more Facebook page traffic from those 300K+ friends of ABC Company's fans.

-Post timely, relevant content. According to 2008 data, Orlando has the 13th-highest rate of AIDS diagnoses among U.S. cities. ABC Company can use its Facebook page to raise awareness locally about an upcoming global event, World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The company can post photos of red ribbons, Throwback Thursday photos of past World AIDS Days or share HIV/AIDS awareness content on its page from partner Facebook pages.

To reach the page's primary demographic of women ages 25-34, it would be beneficial for ABC Company to post women's health content. This could include reminding women to do their monthly breast self-exam, to "SHARE" healthy mother-child sleeping tips or bring awareness to the fact that one in four women in America die from heart disease.

-Put calls to action in posts. Whether ABC Company is trying to raise funds for prostate cancer screening or get people to come to a health and wellness fair, calls to action are the best way to do that. "'LIKE' this post if you're coming to the health fair" or "'SHARE' this link to raise funds to fight prostate cancer."

-Use social channels to promote other social channels. This is a good thing for ABC Company to do, especially if it its social channels have only recently been established. Here are a few things ABC Company could do: Link from its Twitter account to a cool photo gallery on its Facebook page, mention its social channels at the end of its YouTube videos or add a Pinterest Page app to its Facebook page.

How ABC Company can enhance its email efforts
As I mentioned earlier, ABC Company's email is performing pretty well in terms of its open rate and click through rate. However, there is always room for improvement and some of the tips I mentioned to improve Facebook engagement can cross over to improve email marketing, if ABC Company is not doing these tips already.

-Keep length of subject line short. I know as a user, I don't like reading a super long or boring subject line. Mad Mimi recommends keeping subject lines 11 words or shorter and true to the actual content of the email.

-Use engaging photos. But not too many of them, or the email will look cluttered. And make sure the photo file size is not too big, or the email will take too long to load, which could lead to a frustrating user experience.

-Promote social media channels in creative ways. Try to go beyond having just links to social media channels in a header or footer, but engage a user with social calls to action, like "Visit our Facebook page to enter our giveaway!" or "Use this hashtag on Twitter to donate $1 to our cause."

Want to examine the data for yourself? Click here to see the full data for hypothetical ABC Company.