What’s the true impact of social media on buyers? Where does social media fit in the marketing mix and investments? These are among questions on the minds of retailers converging in Chicago for the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE) this week. With the largest e-commerce event as a backdrop, we’re delighted to be launching the new Anametrix Social Analytics solution to help answer those questions. If you are among the nearly 10,000 attendees at McCormick Place Convention Center, be sure to come by Booth #260 to meet us and see a live demo.
Leveraging social media in the customer journey is at the center of research and debate among marketers. Findings in Monetate’s Ecommerce Quarterly (EQ), a report based on more than 500 million online shopping experiences in the first quarter of this year, show that social media drives just 1.55 percent of all e-commerce traffic to top sites. In addition, social-media platforms overall had a conversion rate of about 0.71 percent. But the study’s guest commentators Jay Baer popular social-media author and speaker and Anametrix Advisory Board member and Mitch Joel tell marketers not to give up on social media. They suggest leveraging what social media does best: “make content as shareable, findable and valuable as possible.”
To understand how to use and optimize social media in the customer journey, you need two things: data and analytics. The number Facebook “likes” or social sentiment metrics are of little use by themselves.
It’s so much more than just numbers,” Anametrix CEO Pelin Thorogood explains to destinationCRM. “What we’re interested in exploring is correlation. We want to connect the dots and explore the impact of social media, rather than just determine if something is generating a buzz. Analyzing social media can give companies an advantage by providing insight on how to improve results in other paid campaigns.”
Rather than putting the focus exclusively on metrics such as engagement volume or frequency, Anametrix Social Analytics gives marketers a window into real-time performance by analyzing engagement and its sentiment. The solution then enables marketers to apply predictive analytics to determine how specific decisions and marketing activities will change ROI.
All this takes place from a unified dashboard where marketers can compare metrics from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and other social-media channels. But much more than simply viewing social-media activity, users can conduct drill-down assessments of social’s impact on what occurs on your website and in paid-media campaigns. The solution helps identify trends on social-media reach and engagement by channel and explores how changes in reach affect engagement.
The good news is that this solution enables marketers to assess how earned media from social channels influences marketing investments in paid and owned media. That’s critical. Social media might not be the direct route to a sale, but its influence, like traditional “word of mouth,” might affect the customer’s decision to buy. Anametrix Social Analytics shows where social media fits in the equation and how to optimize social-media campaigns to support your brand.
If you’re not at the IRCE event, please contact us for a demo of Anametrix Social Analytics and see how it fits into the award-winning Anametrix marketing analytics platform. And be sure to share your questions, insights and stories about optimizing social media in the marketing mix. Post a comment below or connect with us anytime on the Web, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+.
