Meaningful Insight Made Easier in Social Media Measurement

By Stewart Gandolf, Chief Executive Officer

analytics magnified On some level, does “your boss” think the business value of social media is roughly the same as an open block party BBQ? Maybe it’s a friendly-nice-to-have, but the measurable marketing impact for hospitals and healthcare is vague at best.

And when you know all mind-numbing numbers, how can social media analytics provide audience understanding and shape better content that’s interesting, engaging and shareable?

Take heart. Each of the four biggest social media platforms in the world feel your pain and provide surprisingly good, and easy to use, analytic tools designed to deliver social media insight.

Here’s a rundown on each of the top four sites:

#1. Facebook: With 900-million unique visitors each month, Facebook tops the list as the most popular social networking site…but since you likely own a Facebook page you probably knew that. But what many people don’t know is that the Facebook Insights and Analytics page provides overview data for healthcare marketing managers to deliver more engaging and shareable content. At a glance, page owners have data about page likes, page reach and engagement.

#2 Twitter: The 140-character messages on Twitter rush past any given viewer so quickly you’ll welcome the un-blinking watchfulness of the Tweet Activity Dashboard. Twitter recently unveiled analytics dashboards that report engagement, followers (interests, locations and demographics), and to track Twitter Card action.

This tool—available to everyone with an active account—turns mountains of data into readable (understandable) graphs and graphics. Social media marketing insights are valuable to seeing trends, understanding what resonates with your audience, and the ability to unbundle the detailed data, revealing the number of retweets, replies, favorites, follows or clicks an Tweet receives.

#3. LinkedIn: While Facebook is informal and fun, and Twitter is fast and furious, LinkedIn is often the business-serious face of social media for physicians and hospital executives. And like the other leaders in the social media pack, LinkedIn’s analytics pushes past the dry data to form a picture of how content is performing/engaging. An Analytics Tab is available for Company Pages, and an improved analytics viewpoint for publishing offering views, likes, comments and viewer/reader demographics.

#4. Pinterest: Ranking nearly the same as LinkedIn (both have about 250 million unique monthly visitors), the social spin of Pinterest is the sharable visual content. Posting requires an image, graphic or video, which is the naturally engaging fuel they call “visual discovery.” For business, and for health care and hospital marketing in particular, Pinterest Analytics interprets audience data for demographics, impressions, and insight about what people like most.

There are many other (often more expensive) tools available, but our list provides the basic—and free—analytic insight dashboards that everyone should have and use. Insightful audience data is the sometimes-neglected feedback loop that unlocks effectiveness in social media. Improving marketing and key business objectives comes from improved strategies, tactics and content delivery.

Give us a call if we can help. And there’s more on this topic in our free marketing library:

Kylie Ladd