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Part 3 · Operate

Social analytics

What every post did on every network you connected, read from each network’s own API, and what it led to on your site and in your deals.

01What it is

Social analytics, under Measure, opens on All: four numbers (reach, engagement with its rate, site clicks, and the people and deals your posts led to), reach and engagement by day, sentences on what the numbers say, your top posts, your best times, the formats that worked, follower growth and every post in a table. The chips across the top switch to one network: its follower growth, its trend and a sortable table of its posts. Open any number to see the posts behind it, and open any post to see each reading the network gave, when, from which endpoint, and the clicks, visits, people and deals it led to. Choose 7, 30 or 90 days at the top right.

02Why it exists

A scheduling tool tells you a post got 31 likes. That is the network’s number and you could read it in the app. What you cannot read in the app is whether the post sent anybody to your site, whether any of them signed up, and whether one became a deal. Those live in your tracked links, your own website analytics and your deals, which is why they are on the same row here.

Every number is the network’s own, read with the permission your account gave. A number a network did not report is shown as not reported, never as zero, and nothing is estimated. Where a network needs one more permission, the network’s chip says so and its page names the exact permission and what it unlocks, rather than leaving an empty chart for you to puzzle over.

03How to use it

  1. 01With the new sidebar on, this is Results, Social; the old address opens it there.
  2. 02Social analytics is on for every venture. Connect a network under Posts, Accounts, then post from here as usual.
  3. 03Each post is read every hour for its first three days and once a day after that, for a month. Follower counts are read once a day.
  4. 04Open Social analytics in the rail under Measure. Pick a period at the top right, and a network from the chips, or stay on All.
  5. 05Click a headline number to see the posts behind it. Click a post to open its readings and what it led to; the close button puts it away.
  6. 06A chip marked Permission needed opens that network with the exact permission, what it unlocks and how to get it. After it is granted, reconnect the account under Posts, Accounts.

04What good looks like

You give it
Instagram’s insights answer for a feed post, as its reference shows it: reach 412, likes 31, comments 4, saved 9, shares 2, profile_visits 7.
You get
A reading of reach 412, likes 31, comments 4, saves 9, shares 2 and profile visits 7. Engagement 46, rate 11.1% (46 of 412, rounded down), on the table row and the post’s readings.
Why
Every number on the row is one the network returned or a sum of them, and the rate is never rounded up.

Derived from the rules in the code

05What weak looks like, and what it costs

You give it
A Facebook Page post nobody has shared: Facebook’s answer carries reactions and comments and leaves the shares field out.
You get
Likes and comments are kept. Shares is left out of the reading, so the post shows no shares figure rather than a zero.
Why
Absent is not zero. Counting a missing field as zero would be a guess, and a guess that looks like a measurement is the one thing this screen must not show.

Derived from the rules in the code

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