Monitoring social media interaction through Google Analytics

* Featured, Search: PPC & SEO — By Robin Dickinson on July 6, 2011 8:33 am

The last few weeks have seen Google launch several product updates and although Google+ has recently taken all of the headlines, an equally important announcement has been the launch of Social Interaction reporting within the updated Google Analytics (V5). Designed to complement the new Google+1 button, it is now possible to measure the impact of interactions with social buttons on your website e.g. Facebook Like, LinkedIn share, Tweet etc. Significantly, it is also possible to understand the role of the +1 button on search results.

Although it has been possible to track Social Buttons for a while using _trackEvent, it is noticeable that Google took the decision to create both a new tracking method (_trackSocial) and a dedicated set of reports with which to analyse the data.

If you don’t already have a digital agency for all your in-depth analytics and reporting needs, a handy do-it-yourself guide follows.

New reporting

The reports can be located in the visitors section of Google Analytics and are split into three types

Social engagement report

This report can be used to identify the visitors that share your website content and start to understand if they behave differently to “non sharers”. In terms of the data, the +1 button is collected by default; the other social button variations will require custom tagging.

Social action report

This report identifies the action(s) that have taken place, e.g. likes, tweets, shares etc. This data can be used to compare the social media platforms that website visitors choose to share via, versus a brand’s publishing plans.

Example report containing social source and actions

Social pages report

As you would expect, this report identifies the pages/content that have received social shares. In terms of practical uses, this report is a great way of identifying the types/styles of content that are most popular, making it possible to prioritise your publishing schedule.

Although each of the three reports offer a great way to start understanding the impact of social interaction on visitor behaviour, ultimately the true value of social interaction data will be identified through analysis using custom reporting and advanced segmentation. For instance, a good place to start with deeper analysis would be to understand whether socially engaged visits view more content, the type of content viewed, if they previously purchased a product or whether they completed a conversion goal.

How it works

It is clear that Google have invested some thought in their tracking solution and, although the actual code is similar to that used to track things like exit links or video plays (_trackEvent), it is also possible to customise the code to meet your specific needs.

The code splits into 4 sections and collects the following information:

Network (required): represents the name of the social network that content has been shared on eg Facebook, Twiiter, and LinkedIn etc

SocialAction (required): the type of action eg like, tweet, Inshare etc

opt_target (optional): the URL or resource that receives the share, e.g. the page title or the content ID from the content management system. An example application would be if a page had 2 separate pieces of content that could be shared.

opt_pagePath (optional): the page that the share took place on.

If you already use or are considering adding social share buttons on your website, this update provides the perfect opportunity to understand the role that social interaction plays in visitor behaviour.

Tags: google, google analytics, Google+1, search