.png){kind=icon}
Welcome to Part 2 of our 3-part series on AI in social media for small businesses. If you missed Part 1, click here to read about AI tools that save you time. In this article, we’ll focus on AI analytics — powerful insights that reveal what’s working, what’s not, and how to refine your social media strategy for better results.
You've signed up for social media platforms targeting your demographic, polished your profiles to make them look professional, developed a comprehensive content calendar, and instructed your team to post a few times a week. Despite this, you might be plateauing after earning a few thousand followers.
For many businesses, studying AI social media analytics is the key to accelerating their growth, doubling their leads, and giving customers the best possible service. Once you understand your audience's needs, you can adjust your content to generate more engagement. You'll also monitor your reputation and take care of issues before they lead to bad press or review bombing from disgruntled strangers.
Analytics involves collecting data to draw conclusions and predict how customers might behave. Metrics that you could track include:
When you launch an ad campaign, you'll deal with more specific metrics. This includes views, clicks, emails, phone calls, and purchases that your advertisement generated.
Many social media platforms offer a limited number of metrics for free. If you're looking for specialized data, you might need to invest in analytics software that presents everything in a single dashboard.
Analytics are essential because they help you analyze your social media campaign. You'll see what's working and where you can improve, which allows you to adjust your budget, fine-tune your content, and experiment with different techniques. This increases your visibility and ensures you get the most out of your marketing budget.
In addition to providing complex data, analytics can answer more nuanced questions, such as "Does my brand have a good reputation?" and "Are people talking about my business?" You'll track hashtags, reviews, and public conversations to learn what people say and determine how to multiply their satisfaction.
Since the artificial intelligence (AI) boom started in 2023, thousands of brands have launched new products or integrated AI into their existing software. AI uses machine learning to scrape data from millions of sources and make judgments in seconds, allowing it to generate text, perform research, answer questions, and streamline your workflow. Since AI is continuously learning, future products might be even more advanced.
In social media, AI tools can quickly gather data and write concise summaries highlighting the key details. They can also make recommendations and complete daily tasks, such as organizing your calendar or converting metrics into charts. While these tools aren't perfect and require human oversight, they could eliminate unnecessary processes and free up time for working with clients.
Likewise, these tools could help you stay on top of AI social media trends. When you analyze your audience and competitors' behavior, you'll see which techniques make a splash and which are just passing trends. This gives you an edge over competitors who use outdated technology.
Social listening is the practice of figuring out what people are saying about your brand. You'll gather data from a wide range of sources, such as:
Once you've chosen your sources, you'll search for specific keywords, such as your business's name, new product, mentions, or relevant hashtags. You can perform this step manually, but most companies use software that scours the Internet, collects any mentions of your business, and consolidates this data into one dashboard.
Social listening doesn't involve responding to reviews (although you should), planting bots that sway the conversation, or trying to take down negative articles. Instead, you'll silently observe your company's reputation. This helps you gather facts and opinions you might not receive when talking to customers directly.
Once you've collected data for your AI social media analytics, it's time to determine what this means for your business. Sentiment analysis involves studying what other people are saying and determining your company's reputation, which could be positive, neutral, or negative.
AI tools usually generate a quick summary, such as "Overall, customers are enjoying the new autumn line of products, but shipping fees make up the bulk of the complaints." If you've ever read online reviews and seen an AI-generated summary at the top, you're already familiar with this practice.
If you're in a massive controversy, you probably don't need a tool to tell you you have a negative reputation. However, this technique helps you gauge the success of your PR recovery and lets you know when you're getting back on track. You'll also learn how customers feel about specific products, services, and marketing campaigns, allowing you to allocate your budget efficiently.
In this rapidly shifting culture, even the best AI social media analytics can't plan for every possible trend. However, predictive analytics gives you an advantage by looking at the past and determining the most likely outcomes. For example, you could analyze your sales, losses, and expenses from previous months and estimate how much you'll make in the following year.
Predictive analytics also helps you determine the best times to post social media content to reach maximum followers. Looking at past interactions, you might find that certain posts don't attract much attention during the week. However, if your content blows up when you share it on the weekend, it's safe to assume that you've found the perfect timeslot for future posts.
You'll need to know your audience before you can sell them anything. Otherwise, you could accidentally target the wrong demographic, wasting most of your marketing budget. Audience insights teach you about their wants, needs, and desires so that you can develop personalized content and double or triple your leads.
Important metrics may include:
You can gather this information by sending surveys, reviewing purchase histories, inviting customers to sign up for an account on your website, and using software to collect data. Afterward, you'll develop a social media strategy that attracts your demographic. While some customers prefer a calm, professional approach, others respond well to jokes and a laid-back attitude.
Adding hashtags could expand your reach and increase your following. However, it's important to select relevant hashtags that target your demographic. Once you've uploaded a post with hashtags, you can use third-party software or review the platform's built-in metrics to see how each tag performed. In the future, you'll include tags that reach the maximum number of people.
You could also search your company's hashtag to see what people say about your business. If you don't have one, make a post that encourages people to use your company name or slogan in their posts. Most people won't do this without an incentive, so you could launch a giveaway that offers a free entry every time someone uses your hashtag. When your brand catches on, they'll start using it independently.
Key performance indicator (KPI) tracking is a tool for evaluating your company's success. You'll choose a goal, select a few relevant KPIs, and track them through your project. For example, if you set a goal to gain 10,000 followers, your follower count is your main KPI. You might also track views, likes, comments, and shares to see how many people you reach.
During this process, it's important to record your KPI tracking to see how far you've come. You'll also notice potential signs of issues, such as a sudden follower decrease or unexpected plateau. Likewise, a surge in followers means you're doing something right.
When you've gathered enough data, you'll use competitive benchmarking to see where you rank alongside your competitors. This involves comparing your web traffic, sales, lead conversions, followers, search engine rankings, and other metrics. If you're significantly lagging, this gives you the chance to study the competition and figure out why they're pulling ahead.
Technically, every company in your industry is a competitor. Still, nobody expects a small-town coffee shop to have as many followers as Starbucks. As you choose your competitors, look for businesses with a similar audience and income level. Once you've surpassed them, you can start looking at bigger operations.
Like social listening, brand monitoring involves reviewing your online reputation. However, this is where you'll take action. If your metrics determine that your reputation is going downhill, you'll start by reading complaints, thanking customers for their time, and offering to make the situation right.
This also gives you the chance to implement customer feedback. For example, if people complain about damaged shipments, you might need to switch to a supplier with better materials. Eventually, you'll enjoy a better reputation and more five-star reviews.
Socialinsider gathers a wide range of metrics, including posts, followers, and engagement rates, then shows you how you compare to your competitors. This platform also analyzes your social media content and displays the most successful strategies, making it easy to fine-tune your marketing campaign. Socialinsider integrates with Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more.
Customers can start with a 14-day free trial. After that, they can upgrade to the Adapt plan, which includes benchmarking, automatic reports, and competitor analysis. The advanced plans come with premium features, such as branded reports, AI content pillar insights, and a dedicated account manager.
Glassbox offers insights into sales funnels, mobile apps, products, and web traffic. With their session replays, you'll watch recorded videos of website interactions to see where customers click, how long they stay, and which steps need to be shortened or removed. Their heatmaps provide a comprehensive look at clicks, errors, and website behavior.
Instead of subscriptions, Glassbox offers different packages that meet your individual needs. You'll start with a demo and then discuss how you can learn more about your product operation, product sales, or marketing. All packages come with session replay, at least two million monthly sessions, and unlimited users.
Gladly uses AI to quickly and efficiently answer your customers' questions without giving them generic replies. This platform also provides insights into customer service metrics, such as abandoned calls, inbound volume, popular channels, and agent performance. As a result, social media will become a positive outlet for your customers instead of a complaint forum.
If you're interested, you can start by requesting a 30-minute demo. Once you sign up, you can access personalized features like workforce management, customer profiles, built-in payments, and conversation timelines. Gladly is compatible with phone calls, emails, text messages, and social media direct messages (DMs).
Modash connects you with influencers who could promote your business and provides analytics that allow you to evaluate their past performances at a glance. Once you've launched your campaign, Modash tracks your views, clicks, sales, and other metrics to ensure you get the most engagement for your money.
The Essentials plan supports up to 100 influencer campaigns. You can search their database with over 250 million influencers, track up to 100 creators, track your revenue, and manage coupon codes. If you're running a larger campaign, you can work with up to 250 influencers and get access to premium features with the Performance plan.
Reputation is a comprehensive program that analyzes your competitors, optimizes business listings, provides a survey platform, offers a social media dashboard, and performs sentiment analysis. With this software, you could build a professional and authoritative presence that enhances your reputation and attracts visitors you might have missed.
This platform offers personalized demos for new subscribers. When you sign up, you'll access features tailored to restaurants, retail stores, property managers, healthcare clinics, car dealerships, or financial experts. You can also check out their events, article,s and customer stories and get help from their online community.
When you subscribe to our e-marketing newsletter, you'll get tips, advice, and industry updates delivered straight to your inbox. Simply enter your name and email address, then click the "Subscribe" button. You can choose from our small business and hospitality newsletters or sign up for them both.
While you're at it, sign up for a 15-minute discovery call. We're excited to learn more about your company and discuss how our products and services can help you succeed. E-Marketing Associates offers reputation management, website design, ADA compliance, search engine optimization, social media management, and more at prices that small businesses can afford.
-----------------------
AI in Social Media: A 3-Part Series
👉 Part 1: AI Tools to Save You Time on Social Media
✅ Part 2: How AI Analytics Can Show What Works
🔜 Part 3: AI and Human Creativity: Finding the Balance
.jpg)
