Data! Everyone wants it, but how do you get it and what do you even do with it? There are truly many rabbit holes you can go down when it comes to analyzing digital marketing’s data, but just understanding the basics can really help you use your time, money and online marketing more efficiently and effectively.
Every social media platform will have a way of sharing the data of your platform and content. Although, of course, finding this data is different on each platform and even on different devices. The best way to find them is through a google, but here are some key things to note:
When a clickable link is included in your post, generally speaking you will receive data on how many times it has been clicked.
The foundation of all your marketing material should always come down to who your audience is. This should be specific and realistic. A great place to start, if you already have an online presence for your work, company or production, is to look at your social media demographic data. This will show you the following:
Followers/subscribers: How many people are following you or subscribed to your content. If you don’t have that many don’t worry! Its not always the number of followers you have, but what you do with your content that matters. (Although, growing your audience size is helpful)
Age: This is often shown in categories such as under 18, 18-25, 25-35, 45+ etc. etc.
Gender: This will show you how your followers are divided up into genders. While some platforms have begun showing data of people who are not represented in the binary male & female data set, not all do. Therefore if your target audience are non-binary or gender diverse people, this may not be the most reliable data to refer to.
Location: Where do your audience live! While you wont receive suburb specific, this will tell you how much of your social media audience lives in Melbourne, or Victoria generally, or Sydney, or New York or Antarctica (maybe)!
Active Times: Platforms that have an inbuilt scheduling program (E.G Meta, Instagram, Twitter) will also provide data on when your following are most active, so what time the largest group of your followers are online. This can be helpful when choosing when to post.
Visual
Views: Mainly used to refer to video content (Reels, Tik Toks etc.) this is how many times your video has been watched. This does not mean that your video has been watched from start to end this many times, but how many times someone has watched at least 1 second of your video.
Reach: This refers to the number of people who have seen your content (usually referring a static image). Often a platform will give you data about what percentage of your reach is from your followers and what is from non-followers.
Impressions: This refers to how many times your content has been seen. While reach is the number of people who have seen your image, some of those people might have seen it more than once. Therefore the impressions is that total number.