Influencer Marketing Myths You Need to Stop Believing to Double Your Campaign Reach

Influencer Marketing Myths You Need to Stop Believing to Double Your Campaign Reach

Stop believing these influencer marketing myths.

Influencer marketing has emerged as the fastest way to generate an excellent investment return through digital campaigns. Many brands adopt this strategy to connect with their target audience, resulting in greater recognition and enhanced brand awareness.

But only when done right. 

According to 90% of marketers, influencer marketing is more effective and provides higher ROI than any other marketing method (source-Bigcommerce). 

The popularity of influencer marketing is set to increase in the coming years due to the growth in the creator economy and the ever-expanding digital landscape. But like other marketing tactics and strategies, influencer marketing is surrounded by many myths. 

In this post, we’re going to be addressing some of the most common influencer marketing myths. 

Ten common influencer marketing myths  

While there are many influencer marketing myths, we’re going to address some that have a direct impact on marketing campaigns for businesses/ brands: 

  1. Influencer marketing is overpriced
  2. All influencers have paid followers
  3. Influencer marketing is ineffective for B2B Brands
  4. The ROI from influencers cannot be calculated
  5. Influencer marketing is effective only among younger generations
  6. Influencer marketing gives quick results
  7. Nano and micro-Influencers cannot provide results
  8. There are no rules and regulations for influencer marketing
  9. Influencer marketing is effective for CPG brands
  10. Influencer marketing is only for brand awareness

1. Influencer Marketing is overpriced

Many people have the misconception that influencer marketing is expensive. If the influencer network resonates with your business, you will see greater returns than expected. So the charges you pay for influencers don’t matter if you successfully connect with the right influencers.

If you still think influencer marketing is too expensive, you can work with nano- and micro-influencers who charge considerably less than mega- and macro-influencers. Furthermore, you can create a shorter collaboration based on posts, mentions, or results.

The key to successful influencer marketing is choosing the perfect influencer for the brand. Our AI-based tool, Social listing, can streamline and make your task easy. 

2. Every influencer has paid followers

While it might seem like the case mostly and might be true sometimes, it all comes down to being able to identify who your ideal influencer is and how you evaluate them.

The accounts with no engaging content or lack of a specific niche are the main things to look over before choosing influencers. Almost every influencer will have a community of an organic follower base passionate about a particular subject. 

Before collaborating with an influencer, confirm whether they are a genuine person with a loyal following by gauging their engagement rate using social listening and monitoring.  

3. Influencer marketing is ineffective for B2B brands

It is believed that most B2C companies only see success with influencer marketing as people tend to have a direct influence on their network. But this is often equated to the tactic not being adequate for B2B brands. 

But many influencers educate their followers on B2B related subjects as well. Some of the niche influencers that B2B companies can consider are influencers who inform their followers on topics such as entrepreneurship, e-commerce, technology, marketing tools, etc. 

Therefore, we cannot support the fallacy that B2B brands cannot benefit from influencer marketing. Some B2B businesses that have benefited from influencer marketing campaigns include SAP, Microsoft, IBM Watson, Cisco, InVideo, Okta, and IntroHive. 

4. Influencer marketing ROI is hard to calculate

One of the biggest myths of influencer marketing is the inability to measure its success for a company’s goals and objectives – not true.

There are several methods in the market to measure the source of traffic, the number of clicks, and the number of leads from individuals. UTM parameters can also be used to examine the traffic and sales generated by influencers. You can also use social listening and sentiment analysis to gauge how they help your brand get perceived in a target market. 

5. Influencer marketing is effective only among younger generations

On social media, people generally follow influencers who specialize in the areas of their interest. Therefore, this statement is in no way appropriate. For instance, an influencer in the culinary or fitness industries will have all kinds of followers, regardless of age. 

The only thing that may vary is their channel of influence, type and format of content they create, and the audience they speak to – which may have an overall impact on the total number of followers they have; the one metric that has low to no effect on the influence they have on their audience.   

6. Influencer marketing gives quick results

Influencer marketing cannot always produce quick results; it depends on how the target audience responds. People who find the content interesting and informative will engage and share it with others, resulting in a positive campaign spread. 

When the content receives more attention, it may go viral and increase the number of leads coming to the company. There should be strong collaboration terms between businesses and influencers. Influencers can be encouraged to incorporate the product information in their other content over some time to help reinforce the brand’s message more powerfully. 

So, influencer marketing may result in instant results and sometimes gradually build up the effect. 

7. Nano and micro-influencers cannot give results

Although Nano and Micro-Influencers have fewer followers than Mega and Macro, they tend to have a more relevant and engaged community with their brand. 

Since these influencers create content for a specific niche, their followers tend to interact more meaningfully with their promotions. 

According to statistics, nano influencers with 0-10k will get 4% engagement, whereas macro influencers get only 0.8 to 1.4%. This proves that nano and micro-influencers can yield better results than mega and macro influencers(reference- Later blog) – but then again, this may vary based on your target audience and your campaign objective. 

8. There are no rules and regulations for influencer marketing

Many people believe that influencer marketing is unrestricted, which is not valid. To make the most out of the tactic, it’s crucial to have some guidelines for running brand promotions across the digital landscape – even through the influencer’s profile. 

Apart from securing your brand positioning with rules, the Federal Trade Commission has taken the following steps to reduce the spread of misleading messages on the internet: 

  • Use the hashtag #ad or #sponsored at the beginning of the post
  • Use post header as a paid partnership with “[brand]”
  • Disclosure of the brand partnership/collaboration in the video in writing and verbally

9. Influencer marketing is effective for CPG brands

CPG brands may get more success compared to other types of brands because products are being replaced often. Non-CPG brands have also made a high impact on influencer marketing. 

Influencers exist in every niche, from food blogging to lifestyle, fashion, education, and many others. And to be clear, every brand can easily find influencers in their specific niches if they look hard enough. 

According to market statistics, influencer marketing helped get 11x ROI than the usual ads(Source- Social Shepherd). Therefore, if you can pick the perfect influencer, your campaign will surely succeed.

10. Influencer marketing is only for brand awareness

Marketers often believe that influencer marketing is only for creating brand awareness. Many times, influencers also hold the capacity to educate people about a product or service, which can eventually get them to sign up or use it. 

When people find the post informative, it builds the brand’s trust, which leads to increased sales. According to statistics, 8 out of 10 people will buy the product through influencer marketing awareness – but only when your objectives and campaign requirements from the right influencer are laid out. 

Wrapping up

Influencer marketing can produce significant results if the influencer can build rapport and trust with your targeted audience. 

But many brands often fail to choose the right influencers for their campaigns, leading to forming plenty of myths around the marketing tactic. 

Our take on it? 

Influencer marketing works only when you have a documented strategy around your goals and objectives and can identify the right person for it – this is where an influencer management platform and a social listening tool like Radarr comes into play. 

Ready to revisit influencer marketing?

Book a demo of Radarr today. 

Social Media Ad Creatives That Convert

Social Media Ad Creatives That Convert

Learn more about designing social media ad creatives that engage target audiences.

Social media platforms have entirely usurped traditional marketing platforms like television. TV ads used to reach a wide audience, but with very few personalization options. They used to cost too much. 

But with the number of social media users skyrocketing, the amount of TV viewers has shrunk dramatically. But with more than 4.5 million users posting so much content on social media platforms, grabbing your potential customer’s attention has become harder. 

Brands are now spending most of their digital advertising budget on social media ads. Social media ads had worldwide revenue of $153 billion in 2021. So how do you win in this insane competition? The answer is pretty simple — by standing out. 

And one of the most effective ways to stand out on social media is by working with your ad creatives. Because how persuading your ad looks is as important as how good your offer is. Using attractive, engaging, and high-quality ad creatives takes the conversion rate of your campaigns to the next level. 

Let’s dive right in to find out how you can create ad creatives that make your customer take the next step. 

What Are Ad Creatives? 

The ads served to users in the digital environment are called creatives. It can be an image, video, or other visual formats. These creatives must be added to line items for them to serve ads in a better way. 

Wondering why they are so crucial for your social media campaigns? Here’s why. 

Social media users don’t read as much as they used to a few years ago. And even the attention span of the audience is at its lowest. No matter how attractive your copy is, it’s not enough to “hook” the customers. And that’s where creatives come into the picture. 

You can simply make your potential customers stop scrolling by using a stunning visual creative. And it works every time because: 

  • Our brain is wired to process and interpret images in under 13ms. 
  • According to MIT, 90% of the information that our brain receives comes in a visual format. 
  • More than half of humans are visual learners. They can only remember images rather than texts. 

These stats show why the competition for visual hegemony in social media ads is so fierce. 

However, even after being one of the most effective parts of the ad, social media is still saturated for creatives. And for them to deliver what you want, you need to stand out. Let’s discuss more on this in the next section. 

How to Make Social Media Ad Creatives That Convert? 

You can only grow a loyal customer base when you provide the audience with the right messages and creative designs. Implement these best practices in your new ad creatives to boost the CTR and conversion rate. 

One Creative, One Message 

Don’t try to sell it all with just one ad creative. When you try to send more than one message at a time, there’s a risk that you must confuse the audience. If your potential customers need to think hard about what you’re offering, they will lose interest in your product. 

Look at this simple ad creative by The Wiselap that sends one strong and straightforward message. These ads are highly approachable. And despite a mundane design, they deliver outstanding results. 

Different Creatives for All Stages of the Funnel 

To convert more with paid ads, you must prioritize your customers in different sales funnel stages. 

Your ad creatives should be different for the audience that has never heard of your brand and for those who know what you can offer. 

Here’s a graphic that can help you determine the content of the creative based on the stage at which your target audience is. 

Be Consistent With the Landing Page 

This point is quite significant for ad creatives that you’ll use to generate leads or website traffic, where you need to redirect users to a landing page to take the next step. Your ad creatives will deliver better results when the landing page is in continuation with its content and theme. 

The landing page’s colors, font, text, images, and message should align with your ad creative. When they don’t align, the visitor loses the initial connection and needs to rethink the purpose of the visit. This can lead to less number of sign-ups. 

Lifestyle Imagery Over Product Images 

More often than not, it is observed that the audience connects more with lifestyle imagery compared to non resonant product images. When you use lifestyle images (like someone using your product) in your creatives, the ad becomes more relatable to the audience. 

Images of someone using your product inspire the audience to go for it as they imagine themselves as the person in the ad. Moreover, these creatives are more natural for the platform. And the less it looks like an advertisement, the more people will want to take the next step. 

However, if you don’t have a dedicated photographer to click crafted lifestyle shots, you can use user-generated content too. Using UGC as a creative makes the ad more authentic. And evens love brands that share their content. 

Address Pain Points 

Your product is meant to solve a problem. You can show via your creatives why your solution to the problem matters. Doing this will improve your ad rankings, and people will be more inclined to click on it. 

If you want your creatives to convert effectively, you must ensure that they deliver what your audience wants to see. The more it explains their pain point, the higher are chances for conversion. 

Here are some questions you can answer with your explainer creatives: 

  • Why should the customers use your product? 
  • How is it different from others in the market? 
  • How easy is it to use the product? 
  • How will this product solve their problems? 

Look at the thumbnail of this ad creative by Happy Wax. Innovative, flame-free, and natural — these are bold and strong words to catch anyone’s attention. This video further explains how the product works. 

Short Video Creatives 

Talking about video creatives, it’s a type of format that people engage the most with because it’s easily digestible. And you don’t need a professional video editing team or high-end equipment to create good video ad creatives. It can be easily done with a tool that almost everyone has — a smartphone. 

However, if you’re a luxury brand or a B2B company, having a professional video editor can help you make videos that you can use on a big scale. 

In your video creative, don’t try to explain everything at once. Somewhere below 60 seconds is the sweet spot for the video’s length. If the videos are longer, customers drop off, no matter what you’re offering or how engaging the video is. Keep the video short, crisp, and to the point. 

Create Platform-Specific Video Creatives and Add Captions 

When you create video creatives that are native to the platform, they don’t look like an ad. And people engage more with content that’s not an ad. If you’re using posting ads on Instagram reels, then the aspect ratio of the video should be 9:16. For feed ads, however, the aspect ratio of the video can be 16:9 or 4:3. 

You should also add captions to the video creatives to make it easily understandable for everyone. Because there are people who watch Instagram videos on mute, and there’s no point in your ads being in front of them if they don’t know what you are conveying. 

Moreover, by adding captions, you also ensure that your content is accessible to someone who’s hearing impaired. 

Add Testimonials in Video Creatives 

Adding testimonials in video creatives is one of the best ways to humanize your brands because people will always trust other people more than they can trust any brand. 

When you add testimonials to the creatives, people get excited and want to see what the hype is all about. It’s based on a psychological principle, social validation. It plays a huge role in customers deciding whether to go for the product or go against it. 

This way, you don’t even have to worry about writing an ad. You can just let the customers tell the potential customers why they should be using the product. 

AppSumo’s ads always have leveraged testimonials and features in the best possible ways. This company uses recognizable logos and quotes from the features. When recognizable logos are used, customers find it easier to trust the brand as the feature is coming from a brand that they know already. 

Leverage Color Psychology 

As we mentioned already, we are all visual creatures. And colors play a major role in how we think and perceive a particular product or brand. Every color is associated with a specific emotion in our mind. As a brand, if you want your creative to perform better, you need to be mindful while selecting colors. 

For example, if you’re a finance company, your go-to color should be blue as it makes you appear trustable and dependable. For NGOs, on the other hand, it’s best to go with green as it sends a peaceful message. 

Cultural Relevance 

The design should strike a chord with the potential customers the moment they see it. And for this to happen, the creative should be culturally relevant to them. 

You know your audience, you know their age group, and you know where they are from. This knowledge is enough to make ad creatives that connect with them. 

You can use festive themes at the time of festivals to make the content of the creative more relevant. Using the right colors and festive elements, you can add to the spirit of holidays and can potentially convert more customers. 

Send Shock and Humor 

When you can’t think of anything for the high-converting ad creatives, you can go with humor and shock factor to grab the attention and deliver your message. These factors trigger customer emotions, which makes them listen to what you have to say. 

In research of 1400 successful ad campaigns, it was found that campaigns that use these emotional factors performed twice as well as those that leveraged just rational content. 

Make Them Unambiguous 

You can’t just fill your ad creative with all the pieces of information. It will only make the design cluttered and hard to understand. Your creative should be able to say what you want to convey in the simplest possible way. 

The quicker your potential customers can understand the creative, the higher their chances are for conversion. 

Add CTA to Your Creatives 

A creative is the most conspicuous part of any ad. And whatever you add on it will get more attention than any other place. 

Yes, it’s important to have a CTA button. But adding it to the creative is even more essential as it helps you create a solid first impression. 

How to Foolproof Your Social Media Ad Creatives 

The abovementioned tips can take your social media ad creatives to another level. But as long as you don’t have data to back your ad creative strategies, it’s all just guesswork. And guesswork can only take you so far. 

You need to leverage data to make your ad creatives foolproof. How do you do it? You do it with the help of image analytics. 

What is Image Analytics? 

It’s a branch of social listening that’s capable of analyzing images and other rich media formats to understand the sentiments behind them and identify how it’s related to brand perception. 

In the image analysis process, your sentiment analysis tool gathers data from social media images, memes, brand logos, etc. The data generated after the analysis can help you make marketing decisions (which includes ad creatives too). 

Learn more about image analytics here

Create Better Ad Creatives With Image Analytics 

Did you know that 96% of untagged brand mentions are simply ignored? People might be sharing your brand photos, logos (on product packages), etc., but you wouldn’t know about them without a good image analytics strategy. 

Images are posted in an entirely different context compared to text mentions. It gives you an idea of how different people are using your product. The way people are using it is the ideal way to advertise the product because that’s how the customers like it. 

You can take inspiration from the analyzed posts and use it in your ad creatives. This will eliminate all the guesswork, and your creatives will convert more customers. 

Go Creative With Ad Creatives 

The most valuable thing that you can get from your social media audience is their attention. And relying on data to make creatives is a surefire way to get that. 

Implement the tips mentioned above in your upcoming creatives to increase the chances of conversion. 

Explore Radarr today for accessing image analytics via social listening. 

Sign up for a demo here

How to Find Never-Ending Social Media Content Ideas

How to Find Never-Ending Social Media Content Ideas

Struggling to come up with new social media content ideas? This is for you.

More than 100 million posts are published on Instagram every day. Considering this average, over 3 billion posts are published on the platform every month. Where does your brand stand in this list? Are you posting enough content to stay in front of your audience? 

There are no shortcuts to thriving on social media. Every platform requires you to post content consistently for the algorithm to notice you. And more than the algorithm, it’s for your audience to connect with you. 

You must have experienced that the flow of ideas slows down as we continue posting. It becomes harder and harder to come up with fresh social media ideas. 

Worry not. We’ve got you covered. In this blog, we’ll share some amazing ways to consistently find fresh ideas. We’ll also share some social media post ideas to give you a head start. 

Let’s dive right in! 

9 Ways to Find Social Media Content Ideas 

Your social media audience is always hungry for fresh content. And if you can’t deliver it successfully, they might lose interest in your brand. Here are some tried and tested ways to come up with new social media ideas: 

1. Social Listening 

Social listening is the process of identifying what people on the internet are saying about your brand. It can help you pick out the pain points for which you can provide a solution via your posts. 

And not just the problems, you can also identify what’s trending in the industry. You can use these trends as a foundation for your future posts, tapping into what interests your target audience at that moment. 

You can use social listening tools like Radarr to collect unstructured data from the internet and extract valuable and actionable insights from it. 

2. Forums and Communities 

The more helpful your post is for the audience, the more they are going to interact with it. You can join various forums and communities relevant to your industry to find out the questions that haven’t got the right answers yet. 

When you answer the questions in your communities through your social media content, the members will be glad to promote it. With the help of forums and communities, you don’t just get ideas but also improve your brand awareness. 

3. Survey Your Existing Customers 

Your audience’s curiosity is insatiable. The closer you can go is to ask them what it is that they want you to share. Ask them if they would like to receive industry/product updates, content that helps them, tips, reviews, or anything. 

Fill your social media content calendar according to the results of this survey. On the days when you have no idea what to post, you can give your audience what they asked for. 

Note: Even if they are relevant to your industry, you must pick the right ones. The ideal question should be the one that your products can solve. 

4. Competitor Analysis 

One of the easiest ways to find content ideas that click with your audience is by looking at what’s working for your competitors. 

You can analyze their (direct and indirect competitors) social media strategies and make a list of the content that had the maximum engagement. You can use any competitor analysis tool to streamline the process. 

You can take inspiration from their successful content, and more often than not, it’ll deliver the right results for you too. Learn more about competitor analysis here

Google is undoubtedly the most lethal weapon in every marketer’s arsenal. And one of Google’s tools that’s often overlooked is Google Trends. It’s a goldmine for valuable marketing and content ideas. 

It helps you come up with fresh content ideas that are relevant to your users and are also trending at the same time. All you have to do is search for what’s trending in your industry. 

Suppose you’re a brand that sells coffee machines. You can search for Coffee Machine and further investigate what else people are searching for along with this keyword. Let’s say Dalgona coffee appeared on the top. You can then schedule a video content or even a carousel showing how your customers can make Dalgona Coffee using your coffee machine. 

Moreover, this tool can also show you what time of the day is best to schedule and publish the content. 

6. Google Image Tags 

Here’s how you find content ideas using Google image tags. You have to open Google Images and search for a broad topic idea you have. 

On the results page, look closely at the tags suggested by Google. 

These are the tags that Google associates very closely with your topic. You can combine your keywords with the suggested tags to get a specific idea for your social media posts. 

For example, if your broad topic idea is “website development,” you can use it with tags like “WordPress” or “eCommerce.” Then you can post content like — WordPress Website Development Tips or eCommerce Website Design Ideas. 

7. Skim Through Podcast Titles 

Skimming through podcasts is definitely one of the most underrated ways to find social media post ideas. But it’s an effective way to find it. 

Go to a podcast relevant to your niche. And skim through the titles and descriptions of the post until you find something that can be used to create a post. 

Let’s say you’re a web development agency. If you’re skimming through the niche, you might find something like — 15 Ways to Monetize a Website, Tips for Website SEO, etc. You can use any of these titles as the title for your post and then provide a valuable list to your audience. 

You can actually go on to listen to the podcast to provide better knowledge to your audience. 

8. Search Conference Agenda Pages

Conference agenda pages are like caves where you can find hidden treasures. If you want to post unique content that has probably never appeared on social media, conference pages are where you need to search. 

These pages give you a good list of in-demand topics that people will pay to know about. Find out the conferences relevant to your industry and pick out the topics that are going to be discussed there. 

You can not only create social media posts (images, videos, infographics, etc.) but can also use them to create an insightful blog. 

Pro Tip: Analyze the campaign agenda page in your keyword planner to find out the most popular topics available. By doing this, you can ensure that more and more people interact with your post. 

9. Relaunch the Content 

If you find yourself poorly stuck with significantly less time to come up with a post idea, then coming up with a new one is not the most efficient way for you. And there’s no shame in it. It happens to even the best ones out there. 

In this case, you can reuse the content you’ve published before. For example, if you posted a blog months ago, you can use its subheadings and add short descriptions to create a post that helps your audience. 

However, if there’s a scope, you should update the content to make it more relevant to the audience. 

10 Social Media Post Ideas to Give You a Headstart 

For a social media creator and marketer, there’s nothing worse than a creative block. Not being able to come up with fresh ideas when the deadline is near is haunting. It’s probably why you’re reading this blog. 

Fortunately, we have developed ten social media post ideas to help you jump over the creative block. 

1. Share Your Story 

As your follower count increases, you get a good number of audience members who don’t know your story — what you stand for, what your values are, your aim, etc. Once in a while, you can share a post to remind your audience of the same. 

2. Show Behind the Scenes 

Be it an edited video or a live stream, customers love seeing behind the scenes of their favorite brand. And it’s a very engaging thing to do on a day when there’s no content idea in your mind. 

You can show various business processes and even go live when someone from the company is attending a conference or an event. 

3. Share User-Generated Content 

User-generated content (UGC) is a fantastic way to keep interacting with your audience via community-made posts. It’s also a sure-shot option to ensure that new customers come to your profile and follow, and the existing ones convert into customers. 

Another good thing about UGC is that people find it more reliable. And hence, 90% of the audience believes that sharing the content from your actual customers influences their buying decisions. 

Moreover, you can’t just share any UGC on your profile. It would be best to create a branded hashtag for your company and campaigns. And share only the best content from your audience who’ve used your hashtag. 

4. Blog Posts 

Do you have a business blog? The best way to land more eyes on your recently published post is to share it with people who follow you. 

Your audience will be inclined to read it because they know it’s relevant as it came from you. Moreover, you should always make the blog valuable for your audience so that their faith in you pays off. 

5. Employee Spotlights 

Once a month, give your employees a chance to shine on the company’s social media account. Every month, you can choose the star performer based on the performance and ask them to share valuable learning or messages for the audience. 

These posts will encourage your employees to do better to get featured. Even the customers love seeing the faces that work in the background to deliver a high-quality experience. It’ll help them relate to the brand on a more personal level. 

6. Product Shots 

If you’re a brand that sells physical products, sharing the product shots can never go wrong for you. But ensure that the shots you share are different and not something that can easily be found on online stores and Google. 

A plain and simple product photo might not do the job. The image you share must blend in with your brand aesthetics and should also stand out when the viewers are scrolling through your feed. 

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a still image. You can create stop-motion animations, cinematic videos, cool backdrops, etc. 

7. Holiday Posts 

No matter which part of the world your business is established in, holidays matter everywhere. Show that you’re a fun-loving brand by sharing a holiday-spirited post on your social media account. 

There are over a trillion quirky holidays, and when a list is this big, you can easily find some relevant to your business. 

8. Share Client Testimonials 

Sharing testimonials on your social media account builds a sense of trust in your products/services. These posts make your brand more reliable for the customers and increase the conversion rate. 

When customers see you sharing testimonials of others and giving them a shoutout, even they are encouraged to leave a review. In their hope of getting the highlight, you get more reviews for your business. 

9. Share How-to’s and Tutorials 

As the product owner, you have unparalleled expertise in how your product can be used. And you want your audience to reach the same level as you to use the product to its full potential. 

You can post weekly how-to’s or tutorials to give your audience some new information about your product. Or, if it’s a SaaS product, you can upload videos regarding updates in the software. 

10. Make Your Audience Laugh 

Who doesn’t like a good laugh? When your content makes people laugh, they share it. And 48% of the social media marketers use shares as a metric to measure a campaign’s success. 

You should never be afraid to show off your sense of humor. And especially when it’s bringing good revenue for your company. 

Never Run Out of Social Media Ideas Again 

Are you tired of posting the same old content on your social media account? Well, you should start with social listening to identify what your target audience is talking about. 

We hope you can implement the above-mentioned tactics to fill your content calendar. 

Explore Radarr today to find content ideas via social listening

The Best Social Media Marketing Books You Should Have on Your Reading List

The Best Social Media Marketing Books You Should Have on Your Reading List

The only list of the best social media marketing books you need to bookmark.

There may be a lot of online resources available to study but nothing beats a good book. While blogs offer bite-sized knowledge and videos engage visually, books elaborately compile hundreds of research ideas in a sophisticated manner – nothing gets missed. 

As a social media marketing team, we recommend it’s time you add a good social media marketing book to gain in-depth knowledge and rise above your peers.  

Brilliant marketers have compiled years of experience into social media marketing books; and there are tons to choose from. 

Being avid readers ourselves, we’ve gathered a list of the best social media marketing books for content marketers and social media managers. This list consists of beginner-friendly social media marketing books as well as pro-level stuff. 

Best Social Media Marketing Books You Have to Read Once

1. Everybody Writes 

Author: Ann Handley

Ann Handley is a popular writer and digital marketing pioneer with a lot of experience in writing for the web. She shares her expertise in writing SEO-friendly, grammatically correct content that ranks high on Google. In her book, she also teaches how to infuse storytelling into your content to connect better with the reader. 

2. Influencer: Building a Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media 

Author: Brittany Hennessy

Brittany Hennessy was the head of influencer marketing at Hearst Magazines. At her job, she used to engage and deal with multiple influencers every day. In her book, she compiles the best strategies, tips and tricks to nail influencer marketing. The book also contains past experiences, mistakes and the achievement of great influencers so you learn from their experiences. 

3. 10x Marketing Formula 

Author: Garrett Moon

This book is all about applying tried and tested marketing formulas and shortcuts effectively to get the best results. Garrett Moon marketed his startup to success and he shares his strategies in this book. It’s best for people who like done-for-you guides and follow examples rather than creating strategies from scratch. 

4. Confident Digital Content 

Author: Adam Waters 

Marketing is not a one-person job. As a leader, you oversee people with different skill sets who make a marketing campaign successful. To do this effectively, you need to understand these skills yourself. This book talks about the different skills that are needed to create engaging marketing content. From video editing to community engagement, it covers all aspects that make up a successful marketing strategy. 

5. Content Marketing 

Author: Gavin Turner

This book covers everything about content marketing and bringing more exposure to your brand. Gavin uses real-life examples from top companies who’ve led brilliant marketing campaigns. The book contains tactics about sharing the right content at the right time so you reach a maximum number of people. 

6. Become a Content Brand 

Author: Chris Carter

Chris Carter acknowledges the impact of video content in this book. The book contains step-by-step instructions to create brilliant marketing videos and build a team of talented video professionals. He provides industry secrets from video editors, filmmakers and marketers across the globe to create eye-catching video content. 

7. They ask, you answer 

Author: Marcus Sheridan

As the name suggests, the book shares tactics to build a loyal audience by genuinely answering questions on social media. Marcus himself brought his company back to life by sharing his knowledge and building authority across multiple social media platforms. This serves as a good social media marketing book for beginners and mid-level marketers.  

8. Chasing the Monster Idea 

Author: Stefan Mumaw

Most business owners have a lot of brilliant ideas that they never execute. The book provides seven questions that you can use to analyze your ideas. The outcome tells you whether it’s worth investing in. Stefan shares case studies and success stories so you compare your ideas and execution methods. 

9. Made to Stick by Chip Heath 

Author: Dan Heath 

We live in a time when people forgot taglines with a scroll. Dan Heath’s book teaches you to create ideas that ‘stick’. He shares effective frameworks to partner with the right influencers who spread your idea to a larger audience in the right way. The book urges you to create emotional stories so your audience relates with your beliefs and chooses you over the competition. 

10. The Tipping Point 

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

The tipping point is when businesses become trending amongst their target audience. The book is all about starting the right discussions to market your business with the most powerful tool – word of mouth. It’s about identifying the right people – or influencers – who spread the word in their community and make your product “viral”. The book also takes a shot at companies with more than 150 employees and talks about why a huge workforce doesn’t work. 

11. Start at the End 

Author: Matt Wallaert

Most companies today start with a big marketing budget and larger-than-life campaigns. They might grab attention but miss out on the ROI. ‘Start at the End’ highlights the importance of understanding customer behavior and creating products they actually need. Only then, marketing would strike a chord – and that’s why it is one of the best social media marketing books.

12. Growth Hacker Marketing 

Author: Ryan Holiday

Growth Hacker Marketing teaches how to use the right tools to hack client growth. It follows the idea of finding the right product-market fit and using it to genuinely help your clients win. It’s about creating campaigns that are unique to your product and clients, and not blindly following the traditional approaches. 

13. The BAMF Bible 2019 

Author: Josh Fechter 

Josh teaches the concept of growth hacking in the BAMF Bible. The book contains multiple marketing formulas that you can directly put to use. It lists out tools that make your job easy and help you attract new customers quickly and easily.  

14. The Manifesto on Content Marketing Teams 

Author: Xenia Muntean

This book provides a guide to building effective marketing teams who ace content operations. It dismisses the idea of hiring people just for the sake of it or because you’ve heard of the position in a competitor company. The book also stresses on the application of social media management tools and touches on the concept of content paralysis – the short and long-term impact of content. 

15. The Idea Factory by Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation 

Author: Jon Gertner 

This book is all about technological innovation. It talks about various inventions that changed the way we do daily tasks. The book backtracks the origin of such inventions and highlights the role of the people involved in them. 

16. The Growth Hacking Book 

Author: Parul Agrawal 

The Growth Hacking Book diverges from marketing formulas and compiles ideas of famous marketers, business owners and thought leaders who really made a dent in the world of marketing. It motivates you to create your own ideas to make a campaign work. The book shares overviews of the mindset and skills required to survive in the highly competitive marketing industry. 

17. Entrepreneur Voices on Growth Hacking 

Author: Inc. The Staff of Entrepreneur Media

As the name suggests, the book shares the voices of entrepreneurs who disrupted the industry with groundbreaking ideas. It shares inspirational stories along with the tools used in them. It talks about achieving fast business growth by streamlining every lengthy task so creativity can flow freely. 

18. New Rules of Marketing and PR 

Author: David Meerman Scott

There are a lot of marketing and PR strategies out there. How do you choose the right one? David Meerman teaches different modern aspects of marketing including social media, apps, videos and advertising books. It contains different case studies to help you gain insights into what works and what doesn’t.

19. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook 

Author: Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vee preaches the art of being a dedicated customer helper before selling your product. It teaches you the tactics to keep your customer happy all the time so they always choose you over the competition. The book then talks about popping the question of sale at the right time. It prepares you to be patient and lead the customer to a lean landing – or landing page.  

20. Social Media ROI 

Author: Olivier Blanchard

Creating content on social media is one thing, but how do you measure the ROI? Olivier Blanchard provides you with a strategy to achieve your financial goals by creating content on social media. It’s all about monetization and optimization of your content so you reek the maximum benefits. 

21. Digital Marketing Growth Hack 

Author: Jamie Turner 

Jamie Turner is famous for helping brands like Coca-Cola tackle hefty marketing problems. Digital Marketing Growth Hack is second in line with his famous edition, ‘ how to make money with social media?’. It covers the concept of online growth hacking and talks about selling your product ruthlessly online. 

22. Pre-Suasion 

Author: Robert Cialdini

This book preaches the idea of grabbing your customer’s attention before approaching them for sale. It talks about the importance of the ‘right time’ to communicate your ideas. Robert Cialdini urges brands to maintain a sense of mystery in marketing campaigns to achieve better results. 

23. The Power of Habit 

Author: Charles Duhigg 

Marketing is all about consistency. Charles Duhigg talks about the importance of building habits so that you can be consistent in your efforts. This book is not only for marketers but for anyone who’s struggling to reach his/her full potential due to a lack of strong habits. 

24. The Art of Client Service 

Author: Robert Solomon 

This book compiles 58 concepts on how to ace client service to sell more. Marketing your product is one thing but being there for your clients is what retains them in the long run. The book contains insights on drafting a great proposal, handling backlashes and being explicit in your communication. 

25. Building a Storybrand 

Author: Donald Miller

Donald Miller argues that customers don’t always understand what your brand is about. That’s why you must always lead with a story. The book has seven elements to create a powerful story that helps you build a connection with your audience. It also teaches you how to create an impactful brand message. 

26. Start with Why 

Author: Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek is a renowned author and public speaker who popularized the concept of ‘why’. In his book, he shares his idea that customers relate to the reason why a brand does what it does. He also shares examples of successful companies that use the concept of ‘why’ in their marketing campaigns and make a substantial impact with it. As per Sinek, what a brand does comes secondary to why it does it. 

27. Chaos Monkey 

Author: Antonio Garcia Martinez

The Chaos Monkey is an autobiography of Antonia Garcia Martinez that takes a deep dive into tech and social media culture. He shares his real-life experiences and inside stories that occur in all industries. It talks about how large tech companies are funded and how things work at big Silicon Valley firms. 

28. Deep Work 

Author: Cal Newport 

The author talks about the importance of deep work and how it’s rare these days. He provides tips and tricks to master the art of deep work and believes that anybody can have a competitive advantage if he/she masters the art of deep work.

29. Atomic Habits 

Author: James Clear

Atomic Habits was the number 1 New York Times bestseller in 2020. In his book, James Clear provides strategies and tools to transform your habits. The book contains stories of Olympic medalists, successful entrepreneurs and talented, lifesaving physicians who mastered their craft by building sustainable habits. It shares methods to overcome the lack of motivation and design powerful environments to enhance focus. 

30. Marketing Team of the Future 

Author: Vlad Callus

Marketing Team of the Future is a free e-book that teaches you how to excel at content marketing. Vlad Calus shares patterns and workflows of high-performing marketing teams that drive results for years to come. You can download this free social media marketing book’s pdf online. 

31. The 10X Rule 

Author: Grant Cardone 

The 10x Rule talks about the 4th degree of action taking called the massive action that allows you to blast through your business goals. It shares strategies on where to start, how to proceed, and how to follow up on previous actions. Grant suggests that all these steps combined unlock massive action that leads to massive success. 

32. Participation Marketing 

Author: Michael Brito 

Micheal Brito has worked with several Fortune 500 companies to create successful digital marketing campaigns that have driven millions in revenue. In his book, he shares the strategy that combines audience intelligence, creative content and paid media to achieve massive business success. 

33. Maximize your Social 

Author: Neal Schaffer 

Neal Schaffer’s book is famous for effective insights on content strategy creation, implementation and optimization. This book is a one-stop shop for a kickass social media strategy that gathers engagement and increases sales. It’s easy to grasp which makes it very helpful for social media marketing dummies. 

34. The End of Marketing: Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI 

Author: Carlos Gill 

The End of Marketing busts the old-time marketing strategies. It talks about modern ways to sell online with digital marketing and building a personal connection with your audience through social media. It promotes the idea of using AI in marketing to automate mundane tasks, so you can be fully creative in your approach. 

35. Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story 

Author: Miri Rodriguez 

Brand Storytelling compiles use cases from big companies like Google and Macdonalds to teach you the art of storytelling. It highlights the importance of creating a brand story so your target audience can build a personal connection with your brand. It dismisses the idea of AI doing all-around marketing and stresses evoking human emotion by assessing and building your brand story. 

36. Run with Foxes: Make Better Marketing Decisions 

Author: Paul Dervan

Paul Dervan, the author of this book, says up front that this is not, “a book of all answers”. This book contains several marketing lessons that come from years of experience that he gathers while being Global Brand Director at Indeed. It talks about marketing being an art, and how you can shape this artform into strong sale-oriented strategies. 

37. Digital Trust: Social Media Strategies to Increase Trust and Engage Customers 

Author: Barry Connelly

People buy from brands they trust. Digital trust teaches you to build effective strategies to gain trust from your target audience. Vanity metrics may come and go but if your customers engage with your content, it means they trust you and will choose your brand over the competition. It shifts your focus from the follower count to building a strong community of fans on social media 

38. Faster, Smarter, Louder: Master Attention in a Noisy Digital Market 

Author: Aaron Agius and Gian Clancey

Everyone is loud and braggy on social media. You can’t survive by keeping achievements to yourself. The book teaches you how to apply proven industry strategies and gather maximum attention to your brand. It guides you to go beyond generic SEO tactics and build a distinct authentic image. 

One book teaches you more than a hundred social media posts. 

Books make you better thinkers, writers and thus, marketers. Tell us your favorite book and we will add it to this list. 

Subscribe to our blog right now for the best checklists and more informative posts. 

Best Ways To Use Social Media Data That You Might Have Overlooked

Best Ways To Use Social Media Data That You Might Have Overlooked

97% of Fortune 500 companies are using social media successfully to generate awareness and foster positive communication with the stakeholders. And these companies do not get such awesome results by posting guess-based content. 

Posting just any type of content won’t produce the results you want. You must have a strategy to identify the type of posts your customers need to go for your product. 

But how do you create such a strategy? 

In this informative blog, we’re going to tell you all about social media data and how you can use it to take your social media game to the next level. 

Let’s get started. 

What Is Social Media Data? 

The data collected from the social media platforms that show you how users interact and engage with your posts is called social media data. In the social media analytics dashboard, this data is referred to as metrics and demographics. 

Moreover, the data collected from the content that users post publicly is also called social media data. But this data is not visible in the native analytics dashboard of the platform. If you want to collect this data for marketing, you’ll need to take help from social media analytics tools like Radarr. 

Why Is It Important to Collect Social Media Data? 

Here’s a truth about strategies — they work better when based on data instead of guess work. And it’s no different for social media marketing. 

Data tells you what’s working for your social media growth and what’s not. When you know these factors, you’re in a much better position to create informed strategies. 

Now, users present on different social media platforms behave differently. It would be foolish to force one strategy on every platform and expect them all to deliver results. But with social media data, you can analyze what works where and then customize your strategies based on different platforms. 

Here are some of the things that social media data tell you about your audience: 

  • The demographic profile of your followers 
  • Time of the day when your audience engages the most 
  • Hashtags that align well with your audience 
  • Type of content that interests your audience 
  • The top-performing organic post that you can boost, and much more. 

In short, social media data enables you to utilize your resources in the most efficient way possible. When you have collected a good amount of social media data, you can tie it up with your real business metrics like sales and awareness. 

35+ Ways to Use Social Media Data 

Social media data with the right interpretation and execution can solve every problem a social media marketer ever faces. It can help you identify and reach your target audience. You can use this to measure ROI, create more engaging content, etc. 

Here are the 40 best ways to use social media data to open new growth opportunities for your brand. 

Audit Your Current Social Media Status 

For you to truly understand your target audience, you have to know where you stand yourself. You can set a robust foundation for your account’s performance by auditing your social media data. 

Check your engagement metrics and demographics to access your current growth trajectory, and look for opportunities to improve it. 

Track Follower Growth Trajectory 

The number of followers you have on social media doesn’t directly translate into business growth. However, it still is an important metric considering the stat that 89% of the customers buy from the brands they follow. 

Moreover, the accuracy and reliability of your social media data increase with the increase in the follower count. By tracking and visualizing the growth of your follower count, you can find out specific campaigns that work best for you. 

Demographic Data for Better Content Strategy 

People of different age groups have different interests. Their cultural references and experiences with social media are also distinct. The same goes for people from different countries and genders. 

Using social media data, you get a breakdown of your audience, which helps you understand them better and create marketing campaigns that align with each group. 

Radarr gives you detailed audience demographics reports that can help you create better content strategies

Identify the Platform Where Your Audience Engages the Most

Every social media platform has a distinct user base. Twitter is more about the text, whereas Instagram is all visual. You need to identify the platform where your potential customer engages the most. And it’s not possible to identify it without using social media analytics. 

When you do it without data, it’s like having a destination in mind but heading out without the map. You can use social media data to target the right customers on the right platform. 

Audience’s Interest Above Everything 

By tracking your performance metrics and audience demographics, you get to understand them better. But to convert them, you’ll need to know more. You can investigate their interests, requirements, and intent for a clearer understanding. 

For example, find out your top-performing post and try to establish a pattern. Create your future content based on this pattern to gain more reach, shares, and clicks. 

There’s Never a Shortage of Data 

The data from your own social media account will work the best for you. But it doesn’t hurt to have access to more data. 

There are tons of marketers who share their personal social media data on platforms like Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. You can test the effectiveness of these data in batches and can base your strategies on them if it works for you. 

Set Informed Publishing Cadence 

Setting a publishing cadence is one of the most confusing tasks for social media marketers. At the same time, it’s not that complex. There’s only one way to find the right publishing cadence — the trial and error method. 

You can begin your cadence with respect to the industry benchmark and keep up with it for a few weeks. If you don’t see enough traffic and want to publish more, just go for it. Compare the weekly report of the new cadence with the average of the industry benchmark to find out what works best for you. 

Data Supports Creative Decisions 

Making assumptions about what type of creatives and designs your audience likes is lethal for social media growth. You can get powerful insights to support your creative decisions with measured and structured social media tests. 

Identify the variables you want to test, like image vs. video vs. captions. Then in the upcoming content calendar, design multiple posts and put tags on them. At the end of the month, analyze what works best for your audience and the brand. 

Fine-Tune Your Tone of Voice 

The tone of voice reflects your brand’s personality, values, goals, and expertise. It helps you establish brand identity. 

With social media data and testing, you can fine-tune this tone to influence your audience to take the next step. 

Know When to Pull Back 

Social testing results can validate some of your assumptions. More importantly, it tells you the areas where your time and effort are of no use. When you find such areas, it’s best to shut the doors on them. 

For example, you might be inclined towards publishing video content. And videos demand a truckload of effort. But if your social media data shows that this strategy is not working, you should pull back and try something else. 

Get Answers Directly From Your Audience 

Data can come from everywhere. You just have to be a collector and interpreter with the right set of tools. If you’re struggling with anything regarding your social media strategies, reach out to your followers for the answer. 

If you’re struggling with content creation, you can use a social listening tool like Radarr that enables you to identify what your audience cares about. You can then create content based on their pain points to make it relevant for them. 

Poll Your Audience  

Almost every notable social media platform has introduced the polling feature. It’s a simple way to collect data from your audience without having to do a lot of work. 

Polls are intriguing, and your followers are very likely to engage with them. It tells your target audience that you care about their opinions. Use the data collected from the polls to give your followers what they want. 

Use Data to Pick the Fan-driven Contest Winner 

You can host a fan-driven contest, where you can track the social polls, hashtags, and engagement metrics to find the winner. These contests bring more traffic to your brand and contribute to social media growth. 

Use Pop Quiz Data to Educate Your Audience 

Every brand wants to know how much its audience knows about the industry, business, and products. You can find this out by quizzing them. 

The data collected from these quizzes will reveal the education gap. You can use this data to educate your audience about the things they don’t know much about. 

Tagging Works as Personal Referral 

The option of tagging accounts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram acts like a personal referral that can help grow your brand awareness. 

You can encourage your customers to tag you when they purchase from you or add a location when they visit you. Doing this will enhance your demographic data, which will make your ad targeting more accurate. 

Determine Where to Promote Which Products 

A watch company, MVMT, has chosen Pinterest as their go-to advertisement platform. And when they introduced new segments, they relied on their past marketing data to create strategies for the new products. Accessing the past campaigns, they found out that images with people wearing their products while on the go performed much better than product-only shots. 

When you have collected enough data from your past campaigns, you can use it to find out where to promote your new products and how. Using data this way can reduce your CPA by four times. 

Every brand has a long-term objective. Use your historical campaign data to link the big picture with SMART goals and KPIs. It’ll not only help you make better strategies but will also set the right path for you to execute them. 

If you’re new to social media KPIs and engagement metrics, read this post.

Use Organic Performance Data to Boost Posts  

If you are planning to boost your social media posts, your best bets are the ones that have already performed well organically. You don’t even need to create a new ad. Just put $50 behind those posts and see how it impacts your hypothesis when it reaches a wider audience. 

And even if your budget is high, don’t go all in. Invest a little, analyze performance using social media data, and then let the results decide if you should invest more or pull back. 

Add Specificity to Your Data for Choosing the Right Platform 

The more specific your data is, the more accurate your strategies will be. When you publish your campaigns on social media, don’t forget to add UTM parameters to your links. 

With UTM parameters, you can find user trails from your social media campaigns to your brand’s website. This will tell you on which platform your campaigns work the best. Moving forward, you can double your efforts on the platforms that produce good results. 

Tags Aren’t Just for Testing 

The best way to learn what converts your target audience is via campaigns. You can track your campaigns with a platform like Radarr to ensure every data you want to gather from it is accounted for. This makes the data more purposeful and specific. 

Evaluate the Success of Your Campaign Hashtags 

Hashtags and campaigns are two sides of the same coin. Hashtag analytics captures the audience interaction and shows how far your campaign has reached. 

Data Helps You Keep a Check on Traffic Coming From Social 

The tops two goals of a social media marketer are building brand awareness and bringing more web traffic. 

Other than analyzing your engagement metrics, keep a close eye on Google Analytics. It will tell you how much traffic is redirected to your website via social. 

Let your colleagues know how good your strategies are by showing off this social media data. 

Use Audience Feedback to Improve the Experience  

Social media marketers have the best view of the brand’s audience and customers. Their knowledge about what customers expect from the brands is unparalleled. 

You can share the feedback you receive from your social media audience with your product and development teams to create a better experience for the customers. Learn more about audience intelligence here

Show How Social Contributes to Revenue and Lead Generation 

40% of customers follow brands on social media to know about upcoming sales and discounts. You can share the promotional content’s engagement data, like link clicks, direct messages, CTR, etc., with your sales team to show how social media is contributing to brand revenue and lead generation goals. 

Help Sales Teams Find the High-Converting Channel 

Social media marketers know on which channel most of the potential customers are located. Basically, the channel that converts the most. 

You can share those channels with your sales team so they can work on their self-brand building. This will make the sales process more efficient because of the presence of more ideal customers. 

Make Positive Changes Within Your Organization  

If your brand stands for something, people are going to visit your social media profiles to find out how it’s delivering promises and commitments. 

Keep your eyes open to the inbound social DMs and collect as much feedback as you can from your customers. You can then use this sentimental data to show how the public is reacting to the ongoing action. 

Track the Performance of Employee Sharing 

People who work for your brand are your best assets. When they share something about your brand on their account, their connections are going to listen. This helps you extend the reach of your social media campaigns. 

Using social media analytics tools, you can collect the required metrics to see how employee sharing is impacting your campaign. 

Align Design Team With Customer’s Taste 

A brand’s face and identity must change with the evolving user needs and tastes. You can use social media data to bring your design and creative team on the same page as the customers. Data can help you find what resonates the best with your customers on different channels. 

Influence Decisions Beyond Social 

Social media insights related to your audience appeal the most to them. Your audience will love to see what your fellow customers have to say about your brand. 

By monitoring the tags, you can reshare UGC images in not just your social media accounts but also in email marketing content or website blogs. You can analyze the posts your users have posted about you. If it has performed well for them, you can reshare it to reap the benefits of good content. 

Manage Brand Reviews Using Data 

Reviews play a significant role in shaping a brand’s reputation. The review sites, forums, social media posts, etc., are filled with opinions about your brand. You can use these opinions as insights to improve your brand from within. Learn more about getting more positive reviews here

Data Helps You Standout on Glassdoor 

When you sit to make a list of all social media channels, Glassdoor will probably be one of the last names to hit your mind. But it’s far more important for brands. It has a star rating from those who interviewed for a role or those who work in the company. 

You can share the data collected from here with your Human Resource Department and leadership board to provide a good experience to those who want to work for the brand. Learn more about managing online reputation here

Improve Your Employer Branding 

By using a sentiment analysis tool like Radarr, you can catch the sentiment and emotions behind the review. Apply the insights you get from here for employer branding on Glassdoor and other reviewing sites. 

Use Data to Add New Questions in FAQS 

You tag your incoming DMs and questions using a social media analytics tool. If a certain tag is escalating, you can add the question associated with that tag to provide an easy and quick solution to the customers. 

Improve the Efficiency of Customer Service 

It’s very common these days for brands to use social media as a channel for providing customer support. Considering that 79% of customers expect a response within 24 hours and 40% want a reply within the first hour — using social media for customer service is the need of the hour. 

You can set a response time benchmark in your social media analytics tool to access the current response rate and encourage the team to do better. Learn how to get better at customer service with real-time data analysis

Solves the Social Media ROI Mystery 

Most social media marketers are struggling to establish an ROI on social media. Well, it’s not actually possible to measure it without analyzing social media data. 

You can start measuring the ROI by setting goals for specific actions and then tracking those actions in Google Analytics. Learn more about marketing analytics here

Social Media Data That You Must Track 

The best thing about social media data is that you can track almost everything. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. It’s your business goals that decide the social media data you must track. 

For example, if you are a new brand that wants to increase awareness, you should track the engagement metrics. However, for established brands who want to sell through social media, tracking conversion metrics is ideal. 

Here are the top 16 social media metrics you must collect:

  • Reach
  • Impressions
  • Audience growth rate
  • Engagement Rate
  • Amplification rate
  • Virality rate
  • Video views
  • Video completion rate
  • Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score
  • Net promoter score (NPS)
  • Click-through rate (CTR)
  • Conversion rate
  • Cost-per-click (CPC)
  • Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
  • Social share of voice (SSoV)
  • Social sentiment

But before you jump on to collect these metrics, set SMART goals. Based on the goals, pick out the metrics that will help you in the journey, and then collect them. 

How to Track Social Media Data for Marketing? 

The first step toward collecting social media data is to identify where you can find it. If all you want is basic engagement and demographic data, you can find it in the built-in analytics dashboard of the platform. 

This data, however, is not enough to quickly improve the growth trajectory of your brand’s account. You’ll need a unified view of your social media data to get the most out of it. And here’s how to make it happen. 

Use a Social Media Analytics Tool 

By using a social media analytics tool like Radarr, you get access to a full-view dashboard of your social media data across different platforms. 

When you have access to all the data under one roof, you can analyze what strategy is working for which channel. It allows you to create platform-specific strategies. 

Record What You Find 

As we mentioned, social media has a lot of data to offer. And if you don’t have a comprehensive system to record the collected data, things can become overwhelming for you. Keep in mind that your recording system should allow you to compare data from different platforms and timelines. 

Share Results in the Social Media Report 

Social media data is not something people enjoy looking at in its raw form. But to use it in marketing strategies, the stakeholders need to see it. Therefore, it is essential for you to compile a report in an easy-to-digest format. 

Tips to Collect Social Media Data 

Keep Your Goals and KPIs Clear 

Social media data won’t be of much use if you can’t connect them with your real business objectives and KPIs. Connecting SMART goals with social data builds context for the bigger picture. 

When your objectives are sorted, you can use social analytics to keep a check on how your brand is going towards it. This will help you find areas where you can improve. 

Track Platform-Specific Social Data 

As we mentioned, social media data can provide you with a unified view of how your strategies are performing across platforms. It also helps you fine-tune the strategies and create new ones to work best on a specific platform. 

For example, your Twitter audience might be most active during the daytime. On the other hand, the Facebook and Instagram audience might engage the most in the evening. You can schedule your posts at the time when your audience is most active on a particular platform. 

Leverage Social Listening 

Social listening can provide you with a completely distinct set of data from the audience which is relevant to your business. The data we have covered so far is collected from people who are connected with you on social media. At the same time, social listening data is gathered from social media users who have no connection with your company but are relevant to your business. 

Social listening is based on the concept of social media data mining. It helps you collect valuable insights, pain points, problems, and requirements from users who don’t even know about your brand’s existence. 

The social listening feature of Radarr helps you stay relevant to your audience by improving your products and experiences to fit their expectations. 

Here’s a complete guide on social listening and how to get started

Personalized Ads (Don’t Overdo It) 

Using social media data, you can personalize ads to the granular level. But going too far with personalization can hurt your brand’s image. 

More than 50% of internet users know that sharing personal data helps users find the items they’re truly interested in. The other half believe that when brands collect personal data, it feels invasive. 

This is why you must not overdo the personalization, or customers will perceive you as a “creepy” brand. 

Streamline Social Media Data Collection 

When you are present on multiple social media platforms, it can become overwhelming to track the performance and data at scale. 

Now, switching amongst built-in analytics of different platforms is not an efficient solution for marketers considering the fact that it eats a lot of time and provides only basic metrics. 

Therefore, you need a solution that not just offers high-end metrics but also provides data from all the platforms under one roof. And Radarr is that social media analytics tool for you. 

In addition to all the metrics, it also has social listening features, which makes it a tool for all your social media needs. 

Explore Radarr today