5 Major trends in social media analytics to watch out for in 2022
Who is untouched by the allure of social media? Today, most people spend a good part of their days on social media watching DIY videos, following celebrities, and marketing their business.
Social media has become a vital part of people’s lives and even their routines. What’s more, opening social media app is the first thing some people do after waking up.
Given the importance of social media in people’s lives, marketers and businesses have spent big bucks in understanding what consumers want and connecting with their target customers.
But, with the overwhelming data created on social media and ruthless competition, it becomes hard to come up with a social media marketing strategy. This is precisely where social media analytics comes into the picture.
A surge in the number of social media users, a high rate of adoption in SMEs, and an increase in cloud adoption have boosted the demand for social media analytics.
The evolution from business intelligence techniques to advanced analytics tools has increased the adoption of social media analytics to improve competitive intelligence.
According to Allied Market Research, the global social media analytics market is expected to reach $9.38 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 29.2%.
What is social media analytics?
Social media analytics is a process of analyzing data regarding social conversations and using it. This analysis involves tracking conversations and campaigns.
Moreover, it includes figuring out how social media activities could positively influence the business.
Over the years, brands that are most successful at customer experience tend to combine social media analytics with customer commentary from review sites, ratings, and surveys along with call center agents.
The companies that focus on enhancing overall consumer experience use data from social media analytics tools as it offers a comprehensive insight into how customers feel about their product or service.
This helps them devise business strategies. It is common that social media analytics includes analysis of social media metrics such as conversion rates, impressions, and follower counts.
However, social media analytics goes well beyond counting likes, shares, and followers. Counting replies, comments, and link clicks are also too basic for social media analytics.
While these metrics are vital for understanding customer engagement and keeping track of what kind of users are interested in your business. However, it is only the tip of the iceberg.
Social media analytics offers insights regarding product strategy, brand reputation, and customer journey.
In short, social media analytics is less about a number but more about what is driving those numbers.
It is increasingly being a user for improving customer services and analyzing response time, use of bots, first contact resolution times, and average handle time.
Since every other brand in the market uses social media analytics for its benefits, it is challenging to stay ahead of the curve or stand out. Thus, it is instrumental for a digital marketing team to have a clear social media marketing strategy.
5 major trends in social media analytics to gain competitive intelligence
1. Video content is the future
The boom of TikTok has kept the door for video content wide open. Today’s customer’s favorite kind of content is video content.
From movie reviews to motivational speeches, video content is the easiest way to influence people. It takes less investment while social media platforms help reach millions of users of various demographics and countries.
In the future, if companies expect to leverage the potential of social media, they must invest in making video content.
2. AR/VR technology to enter the market
While it comes as a shock to some when technological experts introduced people to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
While VR is still in its infancy, it would soon hit social media. On the other hand, AR technology is taking social media by storm.
Its most common example is the use of the dog filter introduced on Snapchat. With the use of AR, digital elements can be added to reality and completely transform the digital content and its visual appeal.
Over the last two years, Instagram has added thousands of AR filters. Many cosmetic companies have leveraged this technology to promote their products by offering customers the ability to try cool sunglasses, the shade of lipstick, and other products.
3. Small social media networks hold great importance
While there are small social media networks that are not as great as Instagram and Face, they are becoming quite popular with time as they offer greater returns on ads.
Thus, retail brands tend to invest in small social media platforms in comparison to other social media platforms.
For instance, Snapchat is not as big a platform as Instagram, it generates notable Ad revenue for many retail brands over the past years.
4. Target more audience than advertising
For a few years, companies spend colossal money on advertising. However, things have changed drastically since the popularity of social media analytics.
Today, digital marketers use social media platforms to connect with customers and increase the consumer base than using them as advertising and promotional tool.
Companies aim to improve their online sales by connecting with more, new audiences. Moreover, social media has become a unique way to build a good relationship with customers through content engagement.
5. Paid advertisement will gain value
In the future, paid advertising would become key to improving customer engagement. It has already gained importance and proved to be an effective way to beat the cut-throat competition.
Organic advertisements or promotions can improve reach beyond the minimal target audience over social media platforms.
Having said that, social media is quite new and exciting. Thus, it is hard to predict its future. Social media is a vital tool that has been transforming traditional marketing methods.
It is a way of understanding customers, connecting with them, and influencing them toward a product organically instead of bombarding them with advertisements.
Thus, if you are serious about using social media for your boosting your company’s bottom line, invest in good social media analytics immediately.
Originally published at https://www.zerosuniverse.com on July 20, 2022.
