The new social interaction analytics tool from Google Analytics helps you understand the value of these social media channels in bringing you new customers and in measuring how many of them are conversions (i.e., are they buying products after reading a testimonial on your Facebook page, or are they coming to your site to answer questions that were posted on a Twitter feed?)   Which pages on your site are these visitors coming to and why?  You can also find out the number of assisted conversions, or people who used social media to interact with your site at some earlier point in time and then returned to complete a transaction.

The new tools and reports can help a business to quickly identify what percentage of total traffic (and total value or conversions) is originating from social media channels.  This measure is quantified as “social value” and can be used to calculate the actual dollar value of these conversions.  You can also find out which social buttons your visitors are clicking on within your site and which pages they share using social plug-in analysis.  This goes way beyond counting Twitter followers and number of Facebook likes.  It shows a business how these followers and fans are engaging with the site, both while on the website and through social media channels.

It all sounds great but how do you go about tracking social media analytics?  The first step is to add a line of JavaScript code (known as the _trackSocial method) in order to send all social media data to Google Analytics.  This includes social media icons (such as Facebook “Like” and Twitter “Tweet” icons that you might have on your website.  Yes, you can finally find out how many people clicked the Like or Send button.  Here is some sample code provided by Google Analytics to automatically monitor Facebook and Twitter buttons using the social tracking feature.  Collecting this data will allow you to compare Facebook interactions against Twitter interactions and help you determine where to spend your social media time and money.  You can find out more about how to install the social interaction code on the Google Analytics support page.

Analytics Screenshot

Evaluation Matters works with start-ups, small businesses and nonprofit organizations to help track and analyze their web traffic and to improve the usability of their websites to optimize user experience and customer engagement.

Understanding the engagement or involvement of visitors with your site is more than a measure of total visits or clicks.  It includes tracking how often they visit your site, the time spent on these visits, the quality or depth of their visits (how many pages did they click on? which pages did they click on?), their loyalty to your brand or content (do they click to the company’s Facebook Page, Twitter feed or blog), and their ongoing connection to the site (when did they most recently visit? did they interact or comment on site content?)  

Just as important as finding out where your visitors are coming from and why they come to your site (which page do they land on? what are common search terms that bring them to your site?) is learning why they leave your site (which pages have high exit rates and could this be because of errors or confusing content on the page?)  In other words, you are using analytics to track, evaluate and improve visitor engagement on your site.