There is a massive amount of social media data available today, and businesses are eager to tap into it. Almost nine in 10 business leaders expect to use social data more to inform their decision making in the next three years, and 95% agree they must rely more heavily on social data to inform business decisions outside marketing.

Yet, raw data points or lengthy, stat-stuffed reports alone don’t tell a compelling story, which leads to data being underutilized. Executives need contextualized social media metrics like sentiment analysis, customer satisfaction and competitor benchmarks to make informed decisions.

With this impactful data on-hand, businesses can improve brand reputation, predict trends, differentiate from competitors and carve out a market niche. For these aspirations to come true, it starts with CEOs proactively asking for a social media scorecard to review on a regular basis.

Why a social media scorecard is crucial for leadership

Most CEOs are already a part of their brand’s external social strategy. Building an effective executive communications strategy is a solid step toward boosting brand awareness and PR efforts. Yet, to maximize the value of social, CEO engagement must go beyond being a spokesperson. If executives want to make the most of social media investments, they need to reevaluate how social data is internally shared and acted on across their teams.

By regularly drawing on social media intelligence, those in the C-suite are empowered to:

Gauge brand perception

Insights from social go far beyond likes, comments and engagements. Social is a 24/7 focus group where you can find unfiltered feedback about how your brand and products are perceived. Social listening enables you to analyze these customer conversations at scale, uncovering emerging trends in time to change or capitalize on them.

For example, you can get ahead of negative sentiment before it snowballs into something more serious like decreasing stock value or plummeting sales. You can also surface positive sentiment and consumer-generated trends and amplify them, like how McDonald’s translated the viral Grimace Shake trend into a nearly 12% increase in global same-store quarterly earnings.

Identify opportunities for growth

Voice of the customer insights from social equip companies with the feedback needed to grow in the right direction—from developing new products to charting expansions to building brand partnerships. With social insights, you can discover consumer pain points, where your target audience is located, how they use social and other brands they love. These learnings help your team create more effective campaigns, focus product development efforts and drive sales.

Take Airbnb. The homestay experience brand forged a partnership with Barbie™ the Movie via their Barbie DreamHouse, which generated mega buzz on social media and helped bolster their profitable brand awareness strategy.

Improve customer experience

According to The 2022 Sprout Social Index™, 36% of consumers will share a negative experience with a brand on social media with friends and family. A comparable 31% won’t complete their purchase, while 30% will buy from a competitor instead. By regularly reviewing customer care metrics like response time and customer satisfaction, CEOs can make sure teams have adequate resources, training and headcount to exceed customer expectations, especially during the busiest seasons.

This is what happened at Hudl. By switching from Social Studio to Sprout Social, 97% of Hudl’s customer interactions handled through Sprout reached a resolution within one business day—a major uptick in their responsiveness and an improvement to their customer experience.

Track competitor performance

Today, new competition emerges faster than ever, brands are up against legacy companies and D2C players alike, and you must compete for attention with companies far beyond your industry. So how can you make sense of it all?

Weaving together your brand’s performance metrics with competitor data and industry benchmarks creates a more complete picture of social’s impact, and adds much needed context that will make social data meaningful across your org. Knowing the details of your competitors’ performance helps gauge the value of your own, set smarter goals and refine your PR, sales and product development strategies.

With a tool like Sprout Social, you can visualize how your share of voice, engagement, sentiment and impressions data stack up to your competition, helping your brand stay on the pulse of what messages and strategies are resonating in your industry.

What to include in your social media scorecard

When asking for a social media scorecard, it’s most important to include metrics that are important to your business and industry. If you need help getting started, ask your team to include these social metrics in your dashboard:

• Brand health/audience sentiment: Consumer perception of your products, services or brands. Typically, this data is reported as positive, negative or neutral.
• Earned media value: The financial amount that you would need to spend in order to achieve the same level of promotion that your organic efforts are achieving. In other words, how much your company is saving by posting organic social content.
• Key social listening findings: While this will vary based on your company’s goals, this data should indicate the volume and sentiment of keywords surrounding your brand and products. For example, these metrics could speak to the success of your latest campaign, a new launch or relevant industry news.
• Competitor insights and analytics: A comprehensive view of your competitors’ performance across channels and data points. This should include not only quantity metrics (i.e., followers and views), but also quality metrics (i.e., engagement rate and sentiment).
• Customer service efficiency: Metrics related to your team’s customer care performance, including reply time, received messages, response volume, efficiency and your customer satisfaction score.

Start keeping score of your brand’s social media performance

The vast amount of social data available today presents an opportunity for business leaders to make informed decisions and deliver on key company priorities. But tactical social data alone isn’t enough to move the needle.

To surface data-driven insights from social, you should be asking your team to regularly share a social media scorecard with you. This is imperative for CEOs who hope to stay ahead of the competition.

Share this social media scorecard template with your team to guide their data collection and stay informed on a more consistent basis.

The post CEOs: If you’re not asking for a social media scorecard, you need to be appeared first on Sprout Social.

If your brand is on TikTok, you’re probably aiming to create your own viral moment. A combination of a well-thought-out strategy, posting on TikTok at the right times and mastering TikTok SEO can be a huge help in your endeavor.

Learn more about what TikTok SEO means, ranking factors to keep in mind for your videos and how to create content that will rank well on TikTok.

Let’s get started.

What is TikTok SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is often used in reference to Google and the web pages that appear in search results. For example, this article is an example of a piece of content optimized for traditional SEO. You may have found it by searching for “TikTok SEO” on Google or Bing.

TikTok SEO is similar—but it takes place on TikTok. TikTok SEO is the practice of optimizing your video content (rather than your website content) for TikTok’s search engine, algorithm and “For You Page” (rather than for a search engine results page or SERP).

TikTok is becoming more and more popular for search. In fact, 40% of Gen Z will use TikTok and Instagram for search instead of going to Google. So if someone is searching for, say, a local place to get lunch, and you’re running TikTok for a restaurant or lunch spot, you want your videos to appear first. This is where TikTok SEO comes in.

TikTok SEO ranking factors

Every search engine has its own factors that help content rank. Just like every social media platform has an algorithm that helps put relevant content in front of each user. With TikTok, they’re one in the same.

There’s been a lot of buzz around the TikTok algorithm due to its ability to place hyper-relevant content in their users’ feeds (called the For You Page or FYP for short). These factors also play a part in the content shown in search results.

There are three main factors used in determining which videos are shown to which users: user interactions, video information and device/account settings.

User interactions

User interactions refer to the actions each user has taken on videos they’ve already watched. This information is saved to help improve the content shown to each viewer, creating a better user experience.

Some of these interactions include:

• Likes
• Shares
• Follows
• Comments
• Completions
• Skips

The algorithm pays attention to these actions to get an idea of the types of content each user likes and adjusts the FYP accordingly.

Video information

The information accompanying each video also helps the algorithm figure out what videos to show. This includes captions, hashtags, sound clips and other identifying factors on the videos. This will be one of the most important parts of TikTok SEO and ensuring your videos are shown when someone searches for relevant keywords or hashtags.

Device and account settings

And finally, your own device and account settings also play a part. Information like the type of device you’re using, your location and your language preferences will impact the content shown on your FYP.

5 TikTok SEO tips to boost your content’s reach

Knowing what the algorithm looks for is one thing. Knowing how to create content that ranks is another. Keep these five tips in mind when planning, creating and even publishing your TikTok video content to increase your chances of showing up in search and the feed.

Conduct TikTok keyword research

Our content team conducts keyword research to pinpoint which web pages and blog posts make the most sense to create for our audience. Your social media team needs to do the same with your TikTok.

Some traditional SEO tools can be a great starting point. Tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs can help you get a general idea of what your target audience searches for on sites like Google to learn more about your industry or business.

You can also take advantage of TikTok’s Keyword Insights tool. This tool can help you find keywords, view relevant videos/ads and discover keyword phrases you can use in your captions.

Another great option is to use the TikTok app and its search engine yourself. Let’s say you’re managing the TikTok account for an online plant shop and care company. You might start with the basics, conducting a search on the TikTok app for “plant care.” TikTok’s search functionality will display a list of auto-populated results that other users are searching for:

Each of the auto-populated results could be an idea for a video or series of videos. You can also narrow down results even more by adding letters after your initial keyword request. Type out:

• Plant care a
• Plant care b
• Plant care c

And so on and so forth to see additional video ideas. Use the traditional SEO tools to find even more starting points for keywords you can input into TikTok’s search function.

Create high-quality TikTok content

The next step is to create high-quality TikTok videos. You also need to create content consistently. TikTok recommends publishing videos 1-4 times per day, especially when you’re testing out new content types to see what your audience likes best. Posting more content also increases your chances of going viral.

Some tips for creating TikTok content that your audience will enjoy are:

• Keep your videos around 30 seconds (internal data from TikTok in 2021 said 21-34 seconds is best)
• Use TikTok’s editing features so the video feels native and familiar
• Incorporate trending sound clips and memes into your content
• Find a subculture your content and brand fit into
• Experiment with different types of videos

Pay attention to the videos that do well so you can try to replicate that success. Eventually, you should land on a formula that works for your brand and help you get more followers.

Leverage trending challenges and hashtags

Another key in creating high-quality and engaging content that TikTok users want to see is to leverage trending challenges and hashtags. TikTok challenges have been a staple since the app’s beginning. Many of the top TikTokers earned their place by starting and participating in challenges, and your brand can do the same.

Brand challenges like wet n wild’s #BiggerIsBetter challenge or Scotts #DoTheScottsSlide challenge have been great ways for these businesses to make a splash on the app and reach a large audience. Plus, highly-used hashtags can appear in search results, improving your SEO ranking.

Whether you decide to try to create your own challenge or hop on existing challenges that make sense for your brand, it’s a good idea to put this tactic into your TikTok marketing strategy.

Use your keywords in your captions and videos

Include your video’s keyword(s) in your caption, hashtags and any on-screen text you add to your video. This can help solidify your video’s relevancy to your topic, improving your chances at appearing in search results.

However, your captions should still be engaging. Don’t keyword stuff. Instead, strategically place your keyword within a caption that helps tell more of a story for your video. Ask questions and try to get your viewers to leave comments. You can then use these comments to make more video content. Consider incorporating some of the keyword phrases you discovered using the Keyword Insights tool.

In addition, you should include 3-5 hashtags in your TikTok caption for maximum results. And at least one of those hashtags should include your keyword verbatim to help your video rank. Find relevant hashtags by looking to competitor accounts or influencers in your niche. You can also try out the TikTok Hashtags tool to generate a few top hashtag options.

And finally, if you include on-screen text in your video (one of the many editing features available within the TikTok app), make sure at least one of your captions or text snippets includes your keyword. Using on-screen text or captions helps give the algorithm a better idea of what your video is about, but also helps with accessibility.

Engage with the TikTok community

Finally, engage with your audience. Videos from active and legitimate accounts are much more likely to rank than inactive accounts that focus only on publishing and promoting.

There are several different ways to engage with your audience on TikTok—and encourage them to interact with your brand account as well.

One option is to go live. Live streaming is wildly popular on TikTok and can be a great way to showcase how things work behind the scenes for your followers and customers. Go live while you create or package products. Hold an AMA or FAQ session to answer follower questions about your products or services. Talk to people who join and comment on your live video to help them feel involved.

Another option is to use your regular video content to encourage your viewers to leave comments, like your video and share it with their own friends or followers. TikTok comments can be leveraged in future content, so if nothing else, ask questions, poll your audience and find other ways to get viewers to leave their own comments.

You can then use those comments to create a new video. This type of content feels natural to your audience and can encourage them to cycle through past videos to see where the comments came from. This increases your views, showing TikTok that you have a popular account and people want to see your videos.

Finally, consider collaborating with TikTok influencers. Find popular TikTokers in your industry and reach out to them about a partnership. They can create content promoting your brand and sending people to your account, growing your following and proving you’re a credible resource.

Your community on TikTok is going to be key for growing your account and creating high-ranking videos. For every minute you spend creating content, you should spend another interacting with others on TikTok.

Start ranking with these TikTok SEO tips

Ranking well on TikTok starts well before you create your video. Implement SEO tactics into your planning, creation and publication phases to maximize your reach on the platform. Then keep an eye on your TikTok analytics to ensure you’re seeing the results you’re looking for.

The post TikTok SEO: how to boost your reach appeared first on Sprout Social.

The launch of a new social network is typically met with equal doses of curiosity and concern. The response to Threads was different. Brands and the social media managers that run them took to the platform with enthusiasm. Sure, there was some stress—expressed mainly in the form of overworked social media manager memes—but most seemed excited about the novelty and potential of a new platform.

Threads has generated a lot of discussion since then. What role will it play in existing social media strategies? What do consumers think about it? Does it have staying power?

Our team has spent the last month discussing these questions while experimenting with our approach to Meta’s latest platform. Along the way, we’ve learned quite a bit and have some hot takes of our own on what’s coming next.

What is Meta’s Threads?

Threads is a text-based social network developed by Meta’s Instagram team. The platform received 100 million sign-ups less than a week after its launch on July 5, 2023, making it the most rapidly downloaded app ever.

Some of the network’s instant popularity can be attributed to an exceptionally simple signup process. Users are required to have an Instagram account to sign up, maintaining the same account name, username and password across both networks.

How to create a Threads profile

To create a Threads profile, install the Threads app from the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you already have the Instagram app downloaded, you can also search “Threads” and tap the ticket icon that appears in the search bar.

When you open the Threads app for the first time, you’ll be prompted to log in with Instagram. At this point, you can also decide whether you’d like to auto-follow the accounts you follow on Instagram, or if you’d like to start your following list from scratch.

Once you do that, you’re ready to start Threading.

What features does Threads offer?

Threads will feel familiar to fans of text-based social media platforms. However, there are still little differences that give the app its own unique user experience.

Key features as of August 2023 include:

• Quick follow, which allows users to follow accounts they see in their feed without navigating to their profile by simply tapping the plus icon in the corner of the other user’s profile picture.
• Reply controls allow users to tighten the reins on who can engage with a specific post. Users can choose between the following audiences: Anyone, Profiles you follow and Mentioned only.
• Users can mute profiles by tapping the three dot menu on a post from the Threads account they’d like to mute.
• Users can also hide words and phrases from appearing in their Threads feed by navigating to the Privacy menu and tapping Hidden words.
• Tapping the Share button allows users to share Threads to their Instagram Story or grid.
• Tapping the Threads logo at the top of the app allows users to choose between two feed options: the For you feed displays posts from followed accounts, as well as recommended profiles. The Following feed displays posts only from profiles you follow.

Meta’s future plans for Threads

Since its launch a month ago, Threads users have been dreaming up additional features for the app. Luckily, Meta’s been in the mood to grant wishes.

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, has taken to using his own Threads account to confirm what’s in-development for the app. According to Mosseri, confirmed features include a desktop version, hashtags, expanded search functionality and direct messaging.

Aside from ongoing feature releases, Meta is also working to build Threads into the fediverse. The fediverse is a new type of decentralized social network infrastructure that will allow people to follow and interact with users on independent but interconnected platforms, like Mastodon for example.

Meta has yet to announce when the Threads API will be released. However, social media managers can rest assured that we’ve shared the demand we’re already seeing among our customers.

We’re working closely with the team at Meta to open the API up as soon as possible, so you can schedule your Threads alongside the rest of your social content in Sprout.

Testing Threads: What we’ve learned one month post-launch

We wouldn’t offer any advice we haven’t personally tried for ourselves. That’s why we spent the last month experimenting with Threads and exploring how it may impact the overall social media landscape.

Use these tips and takeaways to lay the foundation for your own Threads strategy.

Engagement is the big opportunity (at least for today)

Threads gained a record-breaking user base in just a few days. A near effortless sign up experience combined with Meta’s influence in the social media industry made creating a profile an easy choice for brands and individuals alike.

Right now, it’s a mobile-only app with a closed API. Posting still feels personal, and a little attention from a brand can go a long way. While we wait for a native analytics tool or API access—whichever comes first—we’re prioritizing quality of engagements over quantity. What we lack in concrete KPIs, we’re making up for in surprise and delight.

However, we understand that senior leadership may not be too keen on dedicating time to a network that lacks the reporting functionality needed to prove its value. If you still believe Threads is the right play for your brand, sell them on the opportunity for 1:1 connections with customers, influencers and fans.

Threads is its own thing

If you haven’t noticed yet, text-based social media is having a moment.

You can’t talk about Threads without talking about Twitter, BlueSky, Spill or any of the other emerging players in the social media landscape. Naturally, a lot of the conversation veers toward comparison. It seems there can only be one network to rule them all, and people want to know who it’s going to be.

The truth is, the social media landscape is fracturing. A few networks have turned into many, each with their own unique user base and engagement norms. It’s a new era of social media, all about authenticity and community—which will look different across platforms.

Although Threads has a similar user experience to Twitter and other text-based social media networks, it has a different vibe. On top of that, the Instagram team has plans to continuously release features that will differentiate Threads from other social media networks.

Brands that treat Threads like it’s just another Twitter account will eventually lose out on the network’s unique value.

Let consumers show you what they’re looking for

Every social media network has its original intended use, how people actually end up using it, and all the features built to connect the two.

This push and pull can be seen in many of your favorite social networks. For example, TikTok is most commonly known as a platform for short-form videos, but photo slideshows are gaining popularity on the platform and recently, the app launched text posts.

Threads may be synonymous with text right now, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t using it to share photos and videos. When it comes to developing your strategy, embrace variety. Share a consistent mix of content types—static images, text, video, etc.—to narrow in on what people are responding to.

Are you thread-y for a new social media network?

A month out from launch, Threads is still on the way to becoming itself. Right now, conversations on the network feel both organic and positive. There’s an intimacy that you can only find in an up-and-coming platform. Once Threads expands its daily active users and influence, the atmosphere will undoubtedly change.

If you have the resources needed to manage a Threads presence natively, it’s worth considering as a place to experiment with your brand personality. How can your business sound more authentic online? How can you make customer care interactions feel more real? These are the questions you can unravel on Threads today.

That said, running a new brand account is no small responsibility. If you’re still on the fence, try asking these five questions MIT’s Director of Social Media Strategy, Jenny Li Fowler, always asks before starting a new social media account.

The post Unraveling Meta Threads: What we learned from our first 30 days on the network appeared first on Sprout Social.

From content creation to community management, the responsibilities of social teams have expanded significantly. And with the popularity of video, it’s clear that entertainment is critical in your social media content strategy.

As a brand, it’s important for you to adapt to this shift and engage your audience in a more authentic and personal way.

In this article, you’ll learn how social media entertainment grew and ways you can approach it for your brand to increase your loyal customer base while staying relevant.

We also share excerpts from Sprout’s Webinar Masterclass series, where Rachel Karten, social media consultant and creator of the Link in Bio newsletter, shared her thoughts on creating clever content that resonates with your audiences.

What spawned the era of social entertainment?

Social media used to be a way to communicate directly with your community and the algorithm barely had any influence over your feeds.

So if you followed a brand on social media, you would see their posts on your feed regardless of any optimization. Today, every post is influenced by factors like format, creativity, hashtags, how people engage with it and the ever-changing algorithm. Plus, everyone is competing for attention.

As a result, social media has become just as important for building brand awareness as fostering community, and it requires authentic storytelling and curating a unique voice to stand out. It’s also become a source of entertainment, which audiences are craving more than ever.

Let’s break down how this evolution in social media entertainment came about.

The pandemic made lo-fi content a necessity

With most people locked in their homes during the pandemic, the average time US users spent on social media in 2020 climbed to 65 minutes daily—a significant jump from the previous year. This rapid increase forced marketers to ditch traditional practices and get creative with their ideas.

Enter lo-fi (low fidelity) and personality-driven content. With audiences craving authenticity and more human interaction, polished content was no longer enough. Brands like Oreo were some of the first to adopt lo-fi content and enviable creativity.

Real people and real faces are what audiences wanted while being quarantined. And brands responded with their employees and even CEOs posting stories and shooting Reels right from their phones.

Audience preferences for storytelling in marketing

More time at home and on their phones also meant audiences were wanting for more entertainment. A strong storyline, well-developed characters, conflicts and resolution are foundational elements of a compelling story. And social media content is no different. Audiences seek entertainment and you can have their undivided attention on social media, provided you beat your competitors who are vying for the same attention. You can do this with content that is eye-catching, unique and relatable.

The pandemic and earlier global changes like the rise of smartphones and even the Hollywood writer’s strike way back in 2007 that spurred today’s reality shows, changed the way audiences consume content. They’re still looking for the same elements any good story has but without the feeling that it’s contrived and fake. It’s a sign of the times.

Plus, with the Internet becoming more accessible, you can’t get away with unsubstantiated claims. As Rachel pointed out in the Masterclass, people’s tolerance for BS is at an all-time low.

The most successful brands leaned into this evolution in content consumption, adapting their strategies to tell stories that resonate with their audience.

For example, this YouTube video from Google uses storytelling to subtly highlight its features while also comparing them with a competitor in the friendliest manner.

The “TikTok effect”

Entertainment’s place in social media was solidified when TikTok arrived on the scene. TikTok initially entered the market as a social media entertainment platform and has quickly secured its position in every brand’s social media marketing strategy.

TikTok was truly a people’s app, empowering regular people to create and post authentic, short-form video content on any subject. The app’s ranking algorithms further leveled the playing field, enabling videos to appear on feeds based purely on the level of engagement it got such as views, likes and shares, giving rise to TikTok trends or “challenges”.

TikTok campaigns like the #ChipotleLidFlip challenge and the #GuacDance challenge resulted in over 250K video submissions and 430M plays in just six days. After the #GuacDance challenge, Chipotle reported over $800K sales of their guacamole on National Guacamole Day.

With its short-video format and clever positioning, TikTok took the world by storm, replacing YouTube as the most-watched app in 2021, and Netflix as the most downloaded app in 2022.

And it influenced consumer preferences as well. The 2022 Sprout Social Index ™ found that audiences prefer social content driven by brand personality. Plus, 34% prefer videos that are authentic and less produced.

3 ways to create more entertaining social content

Social media teams are effectively in-house content creators, which means you need to know the latest trends and align them with your brand values. All while ensuring you entertain your audience.

But as Rachel noted, “It’s really important you understand that social is now entertainment first.”

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to social media entertainment. This freedom gives you the chance to experiment with different content types and formats. But there are some hallmarks that can help brands adapt their voice to be entertaining.

Here are three ways you can lean into entertainment with your social content:

1. Lead with personality 

Every brand has a distinct personality that sets it apart from competitors. Figure out your strengths and weaknesses, and carve out a niche for yourself. To do this, you need to:

Go beyond having a strong voice and tone

Tone and voice are crucial to every brand personality, but in a constantly changing social landscape where brands are competing for consumers’ attention, it’s necessary to go beyond the traditional route.

Take, for example, budget airline, Ryanair. With its self-deprecating humor and witty responses, the brand has become synonymous with disruptive social media marketing. Their content isn’t just another marketing asset, it engages their customers and builds a sense of community where audiences share a laugh and their adventures on the airline on social.

Put a face to your brand, and rely on creators as needed

Instead of collaborating with creators occasionally, think of them as an extension of your social team.

As Rachel shared, “I think one way to think about creators and influencers is sponsored posts, but another way is how can we bring them onto our channels and use their comedic timing and their personality on our channels.”

If your influencer budget is limited, motivate your co-workers to share some behind-the-scenes content or encourage your customers to create content with your products. It’s also a great solution if you or your social media team isn’t comfortable being on camera.

Old Navy encourages its customers to use their hashtag #OldNavyStyle on social media to share videos or photos with their products. This strategy has lead to an increase of more than 500,000 posts on Instagram and TikTok videos getting over 15.5k likes.

2. Be real

No, we’re not talking about the social platform called “Be real”—we mean be authentic.

With social media becoming so ubiquitous and audiences becoming increasingly savvy to marketing and sales tactics, brands can no longer rely on superficial content. Consumers are looking for honesty and authenticity with content that provides value and is relatable.

To strike the right authenticity chord, you need to:

Embrace lo-fi, stop showing up perfect

Not only is it cost-effective but also shows the human side of your brand while delivering higher ROI with smaller budgets. Shoot unpolished videos or capture product images from your phone and hit publish.

Fenty Beauty, with over 2.4M followers on TikTok, embraces the platform’s lo-fi content style, letting their community and products speak to the value of the brand.

Humanize your brand

Make your content feel like a person, not a brand. For example, BTS video from your office, factory, kitchen, etc.

“Think of creative ways to make your content feel more like a person, like a peer’s content, and not like there’s some brand kind of talking down to your audience.”

At Sprout, we often recruit employees from various teams to star in our social videos to show the people behind the brand.

3. Optimize for shareability

Social media algorithms are focusing more on discoverability, helping supply endless entertainment with creators and brands you may not follow yet. Relevancy and relatability drive people to share content.

To create such content:

Tap into specific communities

Speak directly to your audience by posting content that connects your brand to their values.

Take this Tweet from Uber Eats, as an example. They celebrated Father’s Day by sharing some jokes on their feed and subtly encouraging users to order something special for their dad. They highlighted the importance of spending quality time with loved ones while appreciating the role fathers play in our lives.

Tap into “universal truths” for your audience

People relate to universal truths the most, making them feel seen and it builds a sense of belonging. It can be content that breaks stereotypes, talks about shared experiences or just is fun.

Tap into community building with social media entertainment

Social media is an opportunity to build meaningful relationships with your customers. Harness the power of social media entertainment to connect with your audience on a deeper level and build a sense of community that fosters brand loyalty.

And with tools like Sprout that assist in developing engaging captions for social posts and capturing customer trends from social listening, opportunities to transform your brand strategy for maximum impact are limitless.

Watch the Masterclass webinar with Rachael Karten to learn more about creating meaningful content that entertains and engages your audiences in a real, authentic way.

The post 3 ways to adapt content for the era of social media entertainment appeared first on Sprout Social.

But with so much data available, it’s easier said than done. There’s sales trends, revenue, marketing performance, web traffic — the list goes on.

It’s no surprise then that 95% of businesses see unstructured data as a problem.

Thankfully, with the right business intelligence (BI) tools in your arsenal, you can transform raw data into actionable insights.

In this guide, we’ll break down why business intelligence tools (BI tools) should be a top priority and which tools can level up your business’ decision-making.

Let’s get started.

Table of contents: 

• What are business intelligence tools (BI tools)?
• Benefits of business intelligence tools
• Business intelligence tools to try today

What are business intelligence tools (BI tools)?

Business intelligence tools are responsible for gathering, organizing and presenting business intelligence in a way that makes sense to employees. Some of the key data points analyzed by such tools include:

• Financial information (revenue, quarterly sales, best-selling products)
• Customer interactions (marketing engagement, lead sources, traffic)
• Productivity (time or money spent on a task, employee engagement)

When you’re juggling a massive tech stack and tons of customers, analyzing all of the above manually is a tall order. Uniting your company data via BI software gives you a complete, holistic view of your business minus the legwork of crunching numbers yourself.

Benefits of business intelligence tools

The concept of business intelligence isn’t just reserved for the enterprise: we’re seeing businesses both big and small invest in business intelligence tools.

Consider these three key benefits of business intelligence software:

Eliminate data silos once and for all

This is the big one. No department or higher-up should be solely responsible for your company data.

That said, data silos are an unfortunate phenomenon that many companies deal with. According to the Zendesk CX Trends report, just 22% of business leaders say their teams share data well.

This means nearly 80% of teams rarely collaborate, and operate in complete silos — causing a significant barrier to efficiency and growth.

Business intelligence tools encourage a sense of unity and transparency, whether it’s marketing teams dealing with social media data or IT, HR and sales departments.

This puts a stop to informational bottlenecks that otherwise slow workers down or keeps them in the dark.

Visualize data for stakeholders and team members

Getting rid of data silos results in companies sharing their data around.

But doing so means minding how that data is presented. Making sense of complex metrics and KPIs is easier said than done, especially for cross-team collaboration.

Most modern business intelligence tools have features that make it a cinch to present and share reports. This includes a variety of data visualizations, chart types and built-in sharing options (think: email, Slack and so on).

Make informed decisions and accurate projections

Beyond assessing your company data, business intelligence tools are also capable of identifying trends and opportunities related to marketing and sales.

For example, which factors contributed to your highest-earning month? What are your top-performing marketing channels and best-selling products? Social media analytics — a type of BI tool — can also tell you which campaigns are lagging.

The ability to understand these trends gives you a sense of confidence and encourages more informed decision-making. Additionally, some BI tools are powered by machine learning and can come up with projections and sales forecasts for you.

15 business intelligence tools to try today

Below is our list of 15 top business intelligence tools to wrangle your company data and translate it into action.

From enterprise software to free tools, there’s something on this list that can help regardless of your company’s size, scope or goals.

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social can highlight business trends and opportunities with ease. Features such as social listening and sentiment analysis highlight how well your company engages customers and which interactions are resulting in revenue.

Plus, our social media reporting capabilities make it easy to understand and share data among teams.

Sprout Social also highlights how your social media efforts contribute to company-wide marketing campaigns. Given that social is such an invaluable source of leads, tracking your performance is a key piece of business intelligence at large.

2. Databox

Databox is an awesome, all-in-one tool for connecting your company’s data sources and visualizing your business’ data.

The platform boasts 70+ native integrations including your CRM major digital marketing tools, payment processors and more. Databox keeps you from bouncing between tools by consolidating your key metrics into a single dashboard.

Selecting data sources and metrics to watch is a cinch, too. The drag-and-drop functionality of Databox means you can customize your dashboards and reports based on your specific priorities.

Speaking of customization, the platform also boasts 200+ pre-built templates and visualization options. These charts, graphs and tables are a far cry from old-school spreadsheets and are perfect for presenting to your team.

Oh, and the fact that Databox has a forever-free plan is a huge point in their favor. If you’re totally new to business intelligence tools, this is a great place to start.

3. HubSpot

HubSpot is a holistic CRM platform that seamlessly integrates marketing, sales, content management and customer service.

As a BI tool, HubSpot provides a centralized location where all customer data is stored and organized. This allows businesses to gain a 360-degree view of their customers, tracking every interaction from the first point of contact through to sales and post-sales support.

The platform’s analytics tools allow businesses to transform this data into actionable insights. Users can create custom reports and dashboards to visualize their data, making it easier to identify trends, monitor performance and make data-driven decisions.

Furthermore, HubSpot’s marketing, sales, and service hubs each offer their own analytics capabilities, providing detailed insights into specific areas of a business. For example, the marketing hub includes tools for analyzing website traffic, social media engagement and email campaign performance.

4. Domo

Domo’s suite of BI tools is tailor-made for enterprise companies with serious revenue and big customer bases.

The tool shines when it comes to looking at financial interactions and company-wide trends. Domo encourages you to put each of your metrics under the microscope while also hooking users up with 150+ chart types to choose from.

Predictive analytics via advanced AI and machine learning is ideal for large companies looking to project revenue and dig into margins. Additional features such as goal-setting and alerts mean that companies can intervene before problems have a chance to snowball.

5. Audiense

The importance of social listening tools can’t be overstated.

Tools like Audiense dig deep into ad campaigns and audience-specific data for social media. Identifying and segmenting audiences automatically, the platform identifies demographics, customer traits and other information to inform your overall business strategy.

Remember: the “intelligence” in BI is only as smart as the data you’re able to gather. The more in-depth and granular that data is, the more targeted your campaigns can be.

6. Grow.com

A self-proclaimed no-code business analytics software, Grow.com is a powerful BI tool with a serious sense of style.

The platform connects with tools including Salesforce, Google Analytics or your ecommerce platform of choice (think: WooCommerce or Shopify) to pull data directly and generate customizable dashboards. Features such as roles and permissions make collaboration a breeze, as does the ability to share metrics directly in Slack.

You can build your dashboards from scratch or start from one of their own role-specific templates. To highlight the diversity of business intelligence tools and what Grow.com can do, some sample dashboards include:

• Company health
• Sales projection
• Ecommerce sales
• Clinical effectiveness

Figuring out which metrics to focus on is overwhelming by itself. Thanks to Grow.com’s templates and pre-build dashboards, newbies to analysis can get started with BI without analysis paralysis.

7. Holistics

Holistics’ self-service platform is ideal for BI-savvy companies that want to tear down data silos. One of the tool’s main goals is to reduce the need for data requests, empowering users to access their data directly.

Although the platform might be a bit much if you don’t work with SQL, Holistics offers users easy-to-build data visualizations. Affordable pricing and quick setup are also two major points in the platform’s favor.

8. Looker

Looker is part of the Google Cloud Platform. The tool stands out because of its data modeling capabilities — and it’s free to use.

Looker has a user-friendly interface and comes with advanced analytics, including predictive analytics, to help businesses forecast trends and make proactive decisions.

LookML, Looker’s powerful modeling language, enables users to navigate complex data structures, create new metrics and build data models without extensive coding knowledge.

The platform also integrates seamlessly with Looker Studio to help businesses build interactive reports and dashboards.

9. ActivTrak

ActivTrak is unique among our business intelligence solutions because it focuses heavily on individual employee data.

That said, the performance and productivity of individual employees have massive implications for your company at large.

The platform is capable of spotting trends and bottlenecks alike, including inefficiencies, time-consuming tasks and attention shifts. This highlights how BI goes hand in hand with not only doing better business but building a more proactive, healthy company culture.

Another notable feature of ActivTrak is SaaS license management. For example, the platform identifies which apps are most important to your team and how they impact productivity. These insights can be eye-opening in terms of which tools are actually worth their investment and what’s bogging your employees down.

10. Zoho Analytics

Zoho Analytics is a self-service business intelligence software that lets you organize, visualize and analyze large amounts of data. You can easily create custom dashboards, connect to various apps and databases, and collaborate with your team to share data stories.

The platform’s AI-powered assistant, Zia, can answer questions about your data, predict future trends, do cognitive and what-if analysis, and create personalized reports.

Zoho also offers white-label solutions for embedded analytics so you can fully brand your analytics to match your business identity — customize the entire interface with your own logo, colors, images and URLs to deliver a consistent brand experience.

11. Tableau

Tableau is a popular business intelligence tool that specializes in data visualization and analysis. Its drag-and-drop interface allows businesses to create complex visualizations, interactive dashboards and detailed reports without needing to write code.

You can easily manipulate data, change visualization types, add filters and drill down into specific data points to make better business decisions.

Tableau also supports real-time data analysis and can connect to a wide variety of data sources, from spreadsheets and databases to cloud services. It also offers strong collaboration features that enable teams to share dashboards and insights.

12. Sisense

Sisense is an enterprise BI tool that enables businesses to embed analytics into any application or workflow — with or without code. The platform uses unique technology to process data faster than other BI tools. This means you’re able to analyze data from multiple sources in real time and quickly react to any changes.

Here are some other features of Sisense:

• Drag-and-drop user interface
• Custom, interactive data visualizations
• Embeddable white-label analytics
• Ad hoc analysis, queries and reports

13. Mode Analytics

Mode Analytics is a modern BI tool that’s bridging the gap between data experts and decision-makers by providing a collaborative environment for data analysis.

It combines SQL, R, Python and data visualization in one place, and enables data scientists to share their analysis with non-technical teams in the programming language of their choice.

Mode also offers ad hoc analysis, self-service reporting, interactive dashboards, advanced analytics and custom data apps that make it a flexible and powerful full-stack BI platform.

14. Klipfolio

Klipfolio is a business intelligence tool that focuses primarily on dashboard data visualization. Businesses can easily create, visualize and monitor custom metrics in real time.

The platform lets you combine data from various sources like spreadsheets, SQL, REST, pre-built metrics and more so you can quickly filter and analyze your data. The software also offers a mobile app to help you track KPIs on the go.

Klipfolio offers a robust free plan with unlimited metrics and multiple users. However, you’d need to upgrade to a paid plan to download PDF reports.

15. Qlik Sense

Qlik Sense is an AI-powered analytics solution known for its one-of-a-kind associative technology. Unlike with traditional BI tools, users can freely explore data from various angles and uncover insights that might be missed in linear analyses.

Create and share interactive dashboards, and enable real-time, data-driven alerts that automatically notify you when there are any changes in data so you can take timely action.

The platform also offers AI-generated insights, search and conversational analytics, no-code reporting and more to help businesses analyze data more effectively and make better decisions.

Which business intelligence tools are on your radar?

Investing in BI can be a game-changer for any given business.

That’s because they identify trends and opportunities that would otherwise be impossible to spot yourself.

If you want a more comprehensive understanding of how your business actually works, business intelligence tools can do the trick. They should be a top priority for companies moving forward.

And if you haven’t already, make sure to test-drive a trial of Sprout Social to understand how your social media metrics can support your company’s growth and big-picture business goals.

The post 15 business intelligence tools (BI tools) to use in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

The rapid rise of short-form video content eclipsed static posts in early 2020, when TikTok and Reels took over popular culture—but now we’re wondering if static posts are making a comeback with Instagram returning to its photo-sharing roots and Meta launching its nostalgia-inducing network, Threads.

We investigated the role of static content as the likely reigning king of social content and how it compares to video, and asked Jackson Alder, Senior Digital Strategist at PFLAG National, to weigh in.

Are audiences and marketers experiencing video post fatigue?

Burnout rates are high for social media teams. According to a Q4 2022 Sprout pulse survey, more than half of social media professionals are either experiencing burnout or have experienced it within the last one to three months. Lack of bandwidth and resources were cited as the biggest contributing factors.

The demands of video production are taxing creators and marketers under pressure to maximize their consistency in hopes of being favored by fickle algorithms. As early as 2019, CNN was already reporting on the burnout rate creators on YouTube experience, often filming, editing and posting multiple long-form videos each week. The New York Times published an exposé centered around creator burnout on TikTok in 2021, explaining the mental strain of constantly producing new short-form videos.

It seems audiences have stopped engaging with video content like they used to, suggesting they too may be experiencing video fatigue. Even last year, 61% of consumers found static images to be the most engaging in-feed content. At Sprout, our metrics reveal static posts are our highest engagement drivers. At the time of publishing, eight of our top 10 highest engagement-generating posts from 2023 feature static images, like carousels and data visualizations. The other two are text-only posts, which makes a compelling case for these tried-and-true formats.

Other brands are seeing this same trend. As Alder puts it, “As marketers, we’re always looking at what’s engaging, and what’s making folks interact on social media. I think the shift [toward static] is because video was the previous trend that made people stop and engage. It’s looking like it’s not as much of an engagement-driver these days, so we’re all just trying to find what is.”

Are static posts as effective as video content?

With our team’s social data and anecdotal evidence from other brands, we see that static posts can be more effective than video content when it comes to generating engagement. But that’s only scratching the surface of what it means to be effective on social.

Most social marketers are upping their investment in static and video content, suggesting that both are vital for overall success. A Q2 2023 Sprout pulse survey found that 59% of marketers are focusing more on images in 2023. By comparison, 53% said they are upping the quantity of 5-15 second videos this year, and 49% are creating more 16-30 second videos.

Always use your strategy and performance metrics to find your ideal content mix, and weigh the pros and cons of each content type. Your brand might be looking to boost discoverability with audiences on video-first platforms like TikTok. Or your data might indicate your audience behaves differently than ours.

By using an analytics tool like Sprout Social’s Post Performance Report, you can filter for your highest performing posts to see how static content compares to video and other post types. These results will help you determine which formats you should prioritize across networks.

4 examples of inspiring static content strategies 

If you want to experiment with incorporating more engagement-worthy static content into your strategy but don’t know where to start, use best practices from these four brands in your content ideation and development. Each brand produces static content that feels unique and modern, and it makes up a core part of their social presence.

1.  PFLAG

PFLAG is the nation’s largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them. On social, they use static content to fulfill their mission. As Alder describes, “We’re an education and advocacy [organization]…Static images are often the most accessible way to share content, which is a priority for us. Video isn’t very accessible by comparison.”

Static content like branded graphics and quotes makes up the bulk of PFLAG’s content. “We lean heavily into static images and gifs, with video content being fairly minimal unless we’re at an event. The big reason for this is safety. With all of the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and laws being passed in our country, we must prioritize the safety of our PFLAG families. That means that we can share quotes from those families, but oftentimes can’t share photos,” Alder explains.

Their static posts on their national and regional accounts all feature on-brand colors and graphics that stand out in feeds. The PFLAG team uses Canva as a central hub for streamlining content creation for their team, and the hundreds of volunteer-led chapters across the country.

This boosts the efficiency of PFLAG’s team, Alder says. “For us, incorporating static imagery means it can be used in a variety of ways and platforms. We’re a small team, and being able to re-use content in email or on other platforms is helpful for us.”

Apply it: Use static formats, like carousels and graphics, to educate your audience. By templatizing these content types in a program like Canva, you will save your team time and make it easy to ensure brand consistency.

2.  Seemore Meats

Seemore Meats is a women-owned meat company that makes sausages with fresh vegetables and humanely-raised meat. On social, their brand excels at leaning into cultural moments and creating their own.

Their fantastical, whimsical and often meme-ified static content is distinctly on-brand, while clearly speaking the language of social. It’s obvious the Seemore team knows who their audience is, and what type of content will make them engage.

Apply it: Static posts don’t have to be boring. If it fits your brand persona, experiment with infusing your product into cultural moments and memes that will resonate with your audience.

3.  IKEA

IKEA, the iconic Swedish home goods and furniture brand, builds rapport with their audience through sharing images that feel warm, cozy and aesthetically pleasing, like their Instagram page demonstrates. It all feels distinctly IKEA, and the swoon-worthy photography elicits giddy praise from their audience.

On other networks like X (formerly known as Twitter), IKEA takes a human-first approach to their static content. They maintain the same elevated photography style, while turning the camera on designers and other team members behind their brand.

Apply it: When everyone else goes lo-fi, try something more high-brow. High-quality photography and staging might be the best approach for showcasing your product. Whatever you do, make sure your content has a look that is undeniably yours.

4.  OREO

The brand behind milk’s favorite cookie is irresistibly playful and creative with their static posts. OREO content often features their products in absurd, comedic scenarios that draw laughs from audiences who are in on the joke.

They used this approach when they rolled out their first post on Threads.

OREO also brings their community center stage by reposting user-generated content, like this Tweet featuring dogs named OREO.

Apply it: Use your brand identity to inform how you approach static content. Surreal scenarios aren’t right for every company. Use your brand style guide as a starting point to hone the right look and feel.

Make room for video and static posts in your calendar

So, is static content back to reclaim its seat on the throne? The answer is, it depends. While static posts can generate high engagement for some brands, going all-in on static might not be right for yours. Ultimately, there’s room for more than one monarch in the social media royal court.

Find the right content mix by listening to your audience and measuring what works. Invest your time and talent strategically to improve your performance, without overtaxing your team’s bandwidth.

Up next: Check out our visual content guide for tips to create social content that is distinct, memorable and impossible to scroll past.

The post Are static posts making a comeback? appeared first on Sprout Social.

Every six months may have been enough in the past, but now, consumer preferences can change instantly. Commissioning a five-figure biannual brand reputation survey—and spending multiple months on data collection and analysis—means the research you conduct will always be stale.

You deserve real-time insights, unfiltered audience opinions and speedy results. It may seem like asking for too much but trust me, you’re worth it. Plus, social insights can give you everything you got from your brand survey and more.

If you’re wondering whether it’s the right time to say goodbye, keep reading. We’re making the case for moving on to bigger and better things.

What is a brand survey?

Brand surveys measure how an audience thinks and feels about a brand. These surveys are designed to gauge overall brand health and perception with specific audiences. For example, if you seek insights on how your brand stacks up against its competitors, you’d probably survey prospects and customers. Alternatively, if you’re trying to understand how your brand resonates as an employer, surveying your colleagues would provide stronger insights.

Survey questions can vary based on your goals. Here are four types of brand survey questions marketers use to learn more about how audiences perceive their brand:

• Cognitive: Questions that assess what audiences associate with your brand. For example, people might associate Apple with “minimalism” or “innovation.”
• Emotional: Questions that measure the emotional connection a respondent has with your brand.
• Descriptive: Questions that prompt respondents to describe your brand in their own words. These questions are typically open-ended.
• Action-based: Questions that ask respondents to rate the quality of their experiences with your brand.

These questions can be used in different combinations to better understand how people view your brand and how that differs from your company’s perception of itself.

Evaluating brand health—why traditional survey methods are not enough

A healthy brand is like having an emergency line of credit for times of crisis. The stronger your brand health is, the more forgiving your audience is likely to be in the event of an issue.

Routine brand health evaluations help you better understand how an unforeseen event might impact your brand’s reputation. This information enables you to determine the perceived threat of a crisis, making it foundational to your response strategy.

If you’re only conducting biannual brand perception surveys, you could be missing meaningful shifts in audience sentiment. If that’s not enough, here are three reasons you should reconsider your brand survey distribution plans.

• Your brand health is constantly changing: Biannual surveys used to make sense because up until recently, there were only a few ways to move the needle on brand perception. Now, social media and review sites have empowered consumers to speak their minds whenever the inspiration strikes. If you’re not consistently monitoring your online brand health, you’re likely missing vital feedback.
• Your survey design could lead to biased responses: You don’t know what you don’t know. Even now, an online conversation could impact how people will perceive your brand for months to come. Even the most intentional question list can return biased results if it’s not informed by accurate insights.
• You need timely insights: Brand health survey design and distribution takes a long time. If you need to understand how a current event is affecting your brand perception, you don’t have any time to waste.
• NPS and star ratings don’t provide the whole picture: Net promoter scores (NPS) and star rating systems aren’t the most dependable brand survey methods. They give you no contextual insights and are notoriously difficult to trust given that most users provide ratings arbitrarily. For example, ratings may depend on the mood of the customer or have nothing to do with the product but rather their interactions with staff. Unless there is a comment accompanying the rating, you have no way of getting actionable insights to improve your brand health.
• Ratings discount customer segmentation: Customer demographics play a key role in market research as brand experience may differ vastly based on segmentations such as age groups or ethnic backgrounds. For example, a resort may get different ratings from families with little children than from older guests based on the holiday, in-house entertainment facilities or proximity to transportation. That’s why blanket biannual brand surveys for customer ratings can give you skewed data.

Brand survey functionality across social networks

Brand surveys on social are typically used to gauge ad effectiveness. That said, they can also provide valuable insights into brand perception and awareness. If your team often relies on paid social, use any of the following in-network survey tools to get more out of your budget.

Twitter Brand Surveys

On Twitter, brands aren’t just part of the fun. Sometimes, they’re driving the fun themselves. Seven out of 10 Twitter users even say that “Brand Twitter” is one of the best parts of being present on the network.

Using Twitter Brand Surveys can help you better understand what drives brand lift among an already receptive audience. These surveys are typically used to measure awareness after repeat ad exposure. They can also be used to dig into message association for your brand and its competitors.

LinkedIn Brand Lift Tests

LinkedIn Brand Lift Surveys help marketers measure several brand awareness metrics as they run ads on the platform. The surveys use test and control groups to determine the overall effectiveness of an ad, alongside key perception metrics like brand favorability, familiarity and product consideration.

While these brand surveys are technically free, there are some strings attached. Marketers must spend a minimum ad budget of $90,000 in a given period to use the Brand Lift Survey feature.

Facebook Brand Survey Tests

With Facebook, you can use the Experiments tool to run a brand survey test. Like LinkedIn, these surveys reach a test and control group to calculate the impact a Facebook ad has on brand awareness and perception. These tools are particularly useful if you’re wondering how well an awareness campaign is resonating with a target audience.

There are minimum ad spend requirements to use Facebook’s brand survey tools, but they vary by country.

How to conduct rolling, real-time brand surveys with Sprout Social

In-network survey tools best measure brand awareness after repeat ad exposure. But that only scratches the surface of brand insights available on social media. According to The 2023 State of Social Media report, 95% of business leaders agree social media data and insights are important to inform business decisions outside of marketing.

Sixty-nine percent are already investing in social media tools, with 62% using listening features to capture all the conversations about your brand on social and review sites. This is crucial for meeting KPIs and keeping track of competitors as social listening helps synthesize discussions across social networks into actionable business insights. Here are three Sprout tools that will help you get it done.

1. Brand Health Social Listening Topics

Sprout’s Listening tool helps brands keep a pulse on the conversations that matter most. Think of it as a real-time focus group that provides honest, unfiltered feedback.

You can use five Listening Topic templates to tap into social insights at scale. For this case, let’s check out the Brand Health Topic Template.

The Brand Health Topic template will help you gauge the public perception of your brand or products. By using the right social listening platform you can decide what counts as a mention using the Query Builder, so you can factor in your brand name, popular product names, common misspellings and more. Whatever it takes to get a comprehensive picture of what people are saying about your brand online so you make improvements as needed such as better customer support or better-targeted content.

This ongoing analysis has several advantages to a traditional brand survey. Most notably, ongoing sentiment tracking.

Sprout’s social media sentiment analysis tool monitors the positive, negative and neutral mentions of your brand within a particular time period. It also provides vital details on how sentiment is trending over time.

2. Competitive Analysis Social Listening Topics

Brand health survey questions typically don’t assess your brand performance in a vacuum. Your competitors are an essential piece of the puzzle. In Sprout, you can track their public perception and compare it to yours using the Competitive Analysis Listening Topic Template.

This report will help you visualize your brand’s share of voice compared to competitors’. These insights are a critical tool in assessing what differentiates your brand from the competition, whether they’re indirect, direct or aspirational.

To get started, decide on a few priority competitors. Once you’ve created your shortlist, you can add their brand names and related keywords to the Listening Query Builder. Related keywords might include product names, branded hashtags or direct profile mentions. Finally, add in your brand information. The Listening Topic will backfill data for the past 30 days and continue to collect it over time for consistent, rolling insights.

3. Inbound Message Tagging and Tag Reports

Thirty-one percent of consumers prefer to leave feedback about products or services via social media, making it the most popular channel to do so. These messages are rich sources of brand health information and influence business decisions outside of marketing such as improving product features and customer care.

Sprout’s Tagging feature can help identify and organize incoming messages from across all social networks. You can then report on those Tags using the Tag Performance Report. This information can help you translate large volumes of customer feedback into actionable insights that illuminate your audience’s thoughts and feelings.

Creating this system requires ongoing collaboration with whichever team typically manages social support requests. This process may not seem natural at first, but it’s critical to breaking down information silos and accelerating time to insights.

The team at Grammarly, a cloud-based typing assistant, pulls this off by sharing quarterly reports on themes found within their social messages to keep others up to date on trends and opportunities they’re seeing in customer support.

Brand surveys: It’s not you, it’s them

Breaking up is hard to do. Still, when your current brand survey practices are standing in the way of faster, more accurate insights, you’ve got to rip off the bandage and say goodbye.

If you still find yourself wondering if you’re ready for what’s next, check out this social media market research worksheet. This tool will give you a framework for extracting unbiased audience feedback from social in less than two hours.

The post Why it’s time to break up with your biannual brand survey appeared first on Sprout Social.

Instagram hashtags can help your Instagram content get discovered by an even larger audience than the one that already follows you on the platform. Including relevant hashtags in your captions or comment section helps improve the visibility of your posts.

Throughout this article, we”ll talk more about how to use hashtags on Instagram, the benefits they bring your brand and marketing strategy, top Instagram hashtags and more.

Table of Contents

• What are Instagram hashtags?
• How to use hashtags on Instagram
• 5 Benefits of hashtags on Instagram
• Top Instagram hashtags in 2023
• Top Instagram hashtag generators
• Types of Instagram hashtags
• Tracking and analyzing Instagram hashtags
• 7 Best practices for Instagram hashtags
• Get started with Instagram hashtags today

What are Instagram hashtags?

Instagram hashtags are words, phrases or numbers with the pound or hashtag symbol (#) in front of them in Instagram captions. Using this symbol categorizes your Instagram content and helps them be found more easily on the app.

Here’s an example of what an Instagram caption with hashtags might look like:

You can include up to 30 Instagram hashtags on one single post, though Instagram itself recommends sticking to between 3-5.

How to use hashtags on Instagram

Hashtags have several different uses that can help you grow your account and keep your content organized. Let’s run through a few of the main uses for Instagram hashtags.

Increase visibility on your posts

First, like we’ve mentioned, hashtags help increase visibility on your posts. Not only do hashtags make your posts come up in search results for keywords you’ve used, they also help fuel the Instagram algorithm. The algorithm will place posts in other users’ feeds based on their interest in the hashtags included within your post.

Invite user-generated content

Instagram hashtags are also a great way to invite users to create user-generated content (UGC) for you to share on your feeds. Highlight a branded hashtag in your Instagram bio for followers to engage with and so your team can easily find UGC photos. Here’s an example of what this might look like:

Categorize Instagram posts

You could also choose to use hashtags for more of an internal purpose, like categorizing your Instagram posts. For example, a clothing store called The Closet might use hashtags for their various products, like #TheClosetShoes, #TheClosetAccessories or #TheClosetDresses.

5 Benefits of hashtags on Instagram

Hashtags should be a major part of your Instagram marketing strategy. There are many use cases for them—but also many benefits. Let’s cover five major benefits that hashtags can provide.

1. Increases exposure & discovery

The biggest reason for using hashtags is for the increased exposure and discovery. Clicking on a hashtag in Instagram leads to a gallery of both the top posts and latest posts that used the hashtag.

From there, you’re able to explore all the related posts, making hashtags a great way for people interested in a certain topic to find more accounts to follow. This means that if you use the right and most relevant hashtags for your brand, others searching on that hashtag will find those posts.

In addition, your audience can use branded hashtags to show off their experiences with your products or services as a form of brand advocacy. Hashtags are good for overall brand awareness. Even clicking through one post on the search results page will lead you to other similar posts.

2. Encourages audience interactions

When you use branded hashtags and encourage their use, it becomes another form of engagement. Tagged feed posts are saved in search results and tagged Story posts are saved for the duration of the Story. Think of Instagram hashtags as just another way to reach and engage your customer base.

3. Competitor analysis

How much digital space are your competitors taking up in your market? Hashtags help you analyze your share of voice on social media. Chances are that you and your competitors will have overlapping hashtags, especially if you’re using industry and local ones. With a social media competitive analysis, you’ll be able to analyze the share of voice, sentiment and engagement of those posts.

In an ideal share of voice situation, your posts and ones that your customers have tagged are taking up the bulk of those hashtag search results. You can also check out posts with your relevant hashtags for content inspiration and to get ideas on where your brand might be falling short compared to competitor content.

4. Content research

Similar to what you would do for SEO keyword research, hashtags can help you research different content ideas. Say you want to increase your share of voice in the #NaturalSkincare hashtag. That’s rather tough since there are over 9.8 million posts using the hashtag.

However, you can use the search results page’s Top tab to see what the best posts have been. Use this area as inspiration.

What seems to be working for similar brands? Is there a certain style or caption that’s trending now? By clicking into top posts for details, you might also be able to find additional hashtags that are less highly populated, but just as relevant to your audience, similar to secondary keywords for search optimization.

5. Links digital and IRL campaigns

Go shopping in any retail store these days and chances are that you’ll come across a marketing campaign with a hashtag attached. Whether they encourage you to use their general brand hashtag or a campaign one, hashtags offer an easy way to connect digital and in-real-life campaigns.

Top Instagram hashtags in 2023

If there’s one rule to keep in mind when using Instagram hashtags, it’s to always keep them relevant to your business and the content you’re posting. However, there’s nothing wrong with using popular hashtags in your industry—so to help you find those, here are some of the top Instagram hashtags of 2023 for a variety of different industries.

Top 50 Instagram hashtags in 2023

1. #love (2.1B)
2. #instagood (1.6B)
3. #instagram (1.1B)
4. #art (1B)
5. #photooftheday (1B)
6. #photography (1B)
7. #beautiful (823M)
8. #picoftheday (720M)
9. #happy (698M)
10. #follow (695M)
11. #instadaily (639M)
12. #tbt (583M)
13. #repost (557M)
14. #summer (548M)
15. #like4like (514M)
16. #reels (509M)
17. #instalike (502M)
18. #photo (488M)
19. #me (454M)
20. #selfie (451M)
21. #music (441M)
22. #friends (438M)
23. #life (436M)
24. #smile (435M)
25. #family (435M)
26. #girl (426M)
27. #trending (372M)
28. #model (358M)
29. #design (353M)
30. #motivation (351M)
31. #handmade (345M)
32. #lifestyle (343M)
33. #likeforlike (328M)
34. #sunset (323M)
35. #artist (316M)
36. #dogsofinstagram (307M)
37. #beach (294M)
38. #amazing (287M)
39. #drawing (286M)
40. #nofilter (285M)
41. #cat (282M)
42. #instamood (279M)
43. #igers (277M)
44. #sun (270M)
45. #sky (260M)
46. #follow4follow (250M)
47. #funny (236M)
48. #l4l (221M)
49. #followforfollow (212M)
50. #tagsforlikes (191M)

Top 10 Instagram hashtags for B2B

1. #b2b (3M)
2. #work (147B)
3. #smallbusiness (121M)
4. #business (109M)
5. #entrepreneur (99.4M)
6. #success (87.9M)
7. #marketing (75.8M)
8. #digitalmarketing (29.7M)
9. #sales (20.4M)
10. #ecommerce (14.2M)

Top 10 Instagram hashtags for fashion and beauty

1. #fashion (1.1B)
2. #style (641M)
3. #beauty (528M)
4. #ootd (426M)
5. #makeup (395M)
6. #hair (242M)
7. #fashionblogger (165M)
8. #shopping (154M)
9. #outfit (146M)
10. #fashionista (136M)

Top 10 Instagram hashtags for fitness

1. #fitness (520M)
2. #gym (254M)
3. #workout (216M)
4. #fit (191M)
5. #health (164M)
6. #training (140M)
7. #fitnessmotivation (139M)
8. #bodybuilding (134M)
9. #fitfam (123M)
10. #goals (111M)

Top 10 Instagram hashtags for food, beverage and restaurants

1. #food (507M)
2. #foodporn (300M)
3. #foodie (241M)
4. #instafood (237M)
5. #yummy (199M)
6. #delicious (148M)
7. #foodstagram (119M)
8. #foodphotography (109M)
9. #foodblogger (83.8M)
10. #foodlover (77.3M)

Top 10 Instagram hashtags for technology and software

1. #technology (26.4M)
2. #tech (19.7M)
3. #engineering (14.8M)
4. #innovation (14.2M)
5. #programming (6.6M)
6. #computer (6.5M)
7. #coding (6.1M)
8. #electronics (5.9M)
9. #software (5.9M)
10. #instatech (2.1M)

Top 10 Instagram hashtags for travel

1. #nature (782M)
2. #travel (697M)
3. #explore (489M)
4. #naturephotography (230M)
5. #travelphotography (216M)
6. #travelgram (173M)
7. #wanderlust (149M)
8. #adventure (143M)
9. #instatravel (125M)
10. #travelblogger (84.9M)

Top Instagram hashtag generators

If none of the keywords we compiled above fit your business (or you want to find more options), you can use a hashtag generator tool to help. Here are the top six Instagram hashtag generators you might want to try to build the perfect list of hashtags for your business.

1. Sistrix Instagram Hashtag Generator

The Sistrix hashtag generator tool is easy to use—but only allows limited use with a free account. You can get 25 free queries a day before you’ll need to pay for a premium account. Twenty-five queries is quite a lot, so you may be able to get by without needing to upgrade.

Simply type a or a few hashtags into the text box and press the Enter/Return key to get the best 30 hashtags relating to your initial search. Pick out the most relevant ones to add onto your post.

2. Keyword Tool

Keyword Tool is a useful tool that can help brands find keywords across a number of sites—including hashtags for Instagram. With this option, you can even use some geolocation to ensure you’re finding top hashtags in a certain area. This is a plus for local brick-and-mortar businesses who only service customers in a specified location. It also has the option to select which language you want hashtags to appear in.

Type your initial hashtag or keyword into the text box, change the filters if needed, then click the magnifying glass icon. The results you’ll receive are limited for the free account—just a list of hashtags without details on their usage. But if you want more information, you can upgrade to a paid account. Plans start at $69/month.

3. Inflact

Inflact is an AI-based hashtag generator that can help come up with hashtag ideas based on a keyword, photo, or existing Instagram post. This can be useful if you’re not even sure of which keyword to start with—or if you simply want to see what the tool would come up with for your photo.

Once you input your query, the tool will provide you with hashtags from three categories based on how often the hashtag is used: Frequent (hard to rank in top posts), Average (medium chance of ranking) and Rare (easy to rank). The tool also gives you a recommendation of how many hashtags to use from each category.

4. Toolzu

Toolzu is similar to Inflact in the ways you can start your hashtag query. Input your information (either keyword, URL or photo), then click Generate Hashtags to get started. This tool will generate the volume of posts using the hashtag and how difficult it may be to get viewers using the hashtag.

Toolzu also has iOS and Android apps so you can easily search for hashtags on the go while you’re on your mobile device.

5. Display Purposes

Display Purposes will provide you with a list of hashtags based on a starting point. Type a few hashtags into the text box to get started. Each suggested hashtag generated is scored based on relevancy to our query and popularity. Daily Purposes offers another tool that will scan your profile and come up with hashtags based on the content you’ve already been posting, which is a useful feature.

6. All Hashtags

All Hashtag can generate hashtags based on a single keyword. Choose whether you want top results, random results or results for hashtags that are currently trending. You’ll get a list of the best 30 hashtags based on your query. The tool has a “Copy” button making it easy to immediately copy all 30 hashtags and paste them into your caption or comment. Remember to limit the number of hashtags you use per post for best practices and quality engagement.

Types of Instagram hashtags

There are a few different types of hashtags that brands should know about, each with its own benefit and application. Learn more about the types of Instagram hashtags you’ll want to use.

Branded & product hashtags

Branded and product hashtags are hashtags that you create with your brand and/or product name in them. These are often used for gathering UGC and increasing brand awareness.

Here’s an example of a branded hashtag. Plant store The Sill uses the hashtag #PlantsMakePeopleHappy in their Instagram bio. They’ve also created product videos surrounding this hashtag.

If you click the hashtag, you’ll see that there are 12 million posts in the results, meaning it’s a popular and well-used branded hashtag. All of the posts included are relevant to The Sill’s content as well, so they can easily reach out to people posting content under that hashtag to ask if they can feature it on their own feed.

Campaign hashtags

Campaign hashtags are specific to marketing campaigns that you’re running. Usually, these involve the brand running a regular campaign and adding a hashtag to it in a caption or in the corner of the post.

One example of a campaign hashtag is the #EssenceFestxTarget one used to promote their recent collaboration. For all posts related to this campaign, both Target and Essence Festival will use the unique hashtag, as well as any influencers they work with.

Campaign hashtags don’t need to be tied to a product or sales. REI’s #OptOutside campaign encouraged people to go out rather than shop on Black Friday, and therefore wasn’t centered around purchasing.

Community & industry hashtags

Nearly every brand community and industry has at least one hashtag that’s used within them. To find yours, head to some popular community and industry influencer posts and check out their hashtags. Many of these hashtags are simple. The hashtags that are easy to think up are usually the most used.

For craft beer enthusiasts, several exist: #CraftBeerLover, #CraftBeerLife and #CraftBeerNotCrapBeer are just a few of them. As you can see, all three of these are pretty straightforward and natural to think up, and include in posts for relevant brands.

Location hashtags

Location hashtags are pretty self-explanatory. Most brands are based somewhere and if you have a physical location, this is even more useful for you. Relevant location hashtags include your city and its associated topical hashtags, your neighborhood, the mall name you’re in and any other defining features.

One example is the above #chseats. This is one of those location + topic hashtags. The posts tagged with these are relevant for anyone searching for food recommendations or users in the Charleston, SC area. Other location hashtags to explore include any branded ones that your city’s and state’s tourism boards have already established.

Themed or holiday hashtags

Participating in relevant social media holidays can be a fun way to engage your audience. Things like #InternationalSushiDay and #InternationalDogDay can be great for sushi restaurants and veterinary offices to post about.

One of the hashtags we mentioned, International Sushi Day, is on June 18, and on Instagram, the hashtag has over 23k posts. This is perfect for sushi restaurants and sushi-adjacent businesses to post about.

Daily hashtags

Daily hashtags aren’t limited to Instagram and they’re easy to find. These hashtags include the day of the week and a specified topic. There are generalized ones such as #MondayMotivation and #ThrowbackThursday. Nearly any brand can take part in these, and there are plenty of niche topics covered.

These hashtags cover more interest-based topics and also happen to be daily. For example, on #MonsteraMonday, plant lovers post a photo of their monstera plants. These daily hashtags take a little more work to find but if you’re following influencers in specific fields, you’ll see them in your feed.

Trending hashtags

This type of hashtag is one of the more difficult ones to post since it involves keeping tabs on the latest and knowing how to apply them to your brand.

For example, one of the trending memes at the moment is a superimposed video of Jennifer Lawrence from the Hot Ones wing-eating challenge crying and asking, “What do you mean?” over and over again. By searching the hashtag #WhatDoYouMean, we can see a number of brands and creators using this meme for their content.

Keep in mind that memes and trends are short-lived. You need to catch on early to participate and reap the benefits of jumping on the trend. You may need to up your trendspotting skills for social media to get the most out of jumping on memes and trends in a timely and brand-relevant way that resonates.

Tracking and analyzing Instagram hashtags

So you’ve decided on all of your hashtags and you’re ready to get started on the new social strategy. What’s next? Checking in on how all these hashtags are working out for you. Tracking your hashtag analytics is important to ensure you’re improving performance with the ones you chose. If not, you may need to find better hashtags to use.

As you start to use the same hashtags, you’ll start noticing when you receive more engagement or more spam comments. To make sure that you’re using the right hashtags for you, find a social media tool that offers Instagram hashtag analytics.

Sprout Social’s Outbound Hashtag Performance Report keeps track of all the hashtags you use on posts as well as their performance. With one glance, you’ll notice which hashtags you use the most and which ones get the most engagement.

These two may not generate the same results, especially if you’re switching up the hashtags for posts. By reviewing your analytics, you might end up finding that your most relied-on hashtags are not actually the ones resonating the most with audiences.

7 Best practices for Instagram hashtags

Gone are the days where hashtags were new and brands threw in every popular hashtag, regardless of its relevance. While there’s no single right way to use hashtags on Instagram, there are some best practices to improve performance. Here are several to think about:

1. Test how many hashtags to use on Instagram

How many hashtags should you use? This is a tricky question because the answer varies wildly. If you’re including them within your caption, stick to 3 to 5—like Instagram recommends. If you’re going to use the first comment for hashtags, then up to the full 30 hashtags would be acceptable. However, this is not to say that you should use 30 hashtags for every post. This leads us to our next tip.

2. Use hashtags in the first comment

Too many hashtags in a caption can overwhelm valuable real estate and make posts look messy. Keep captions minimal, and if you’re using more hashtags, move them to a comment. With Sprout’s Compose box, you can schedule the first Instagram comment along with your post and caption.

3. Find the best hashtags for you

There are several ways to find the best hashtags for your brand. The first and easiest is to look at the influencers and accounts you already follow and note which hashtags they’re already using. Another way is to begin brainstorming various ones and type them into the Instagram search bar. As you type, related hashtags also show up.

In the example above, #coffee is such a popular hashtag that using it might result in more spam comments than you want. Instead, scroll further down the results to find more niche ones that are targeted and relevant to your audience.

4. Follow relevant hashtags

Instagram offers the ability to follow any hashtag’s search results. When you do this, these posts appear in your feed, alongside all the other posts from accounts you follow. This is a good tactic to use for following industry or community hashtags because it helps you keep tabs on them. It should not be used as a solution for branded hashtags, though, because it doesn’t guarantee that every post will show up in your feed.

The above example uses #PlantMom as the hashtag. Simply hit that follow button to stay informed on that Instagram hashtag.

5. Encourage the use of branded hashtags

Once you’ve created your list of branded hashtags, make sure to start using them in every relevant post. The most general branded hashtags are often placed in the Instagram bio along with a call-to-action for using them.

In the above example, Grove Collaborative puts their branded hashtag #GroveHome in their IG bio. Customers can then use this hashtag whenever they post about the brand. It makes it easy for Grove to find and share those photos on their own feed.

6. Create a list of hashtags

Instead of copying and pasting the same set of hashtags for every post, divide them up into topical ones. For example, your education posts might have different hashtags than a new product announcement post. Instead of generating a new list for each post, keep different lists handy for the various types of content topics that you post.

Save these types of list sand text Sprout’s Asset Library to make it easier to attach the right hashtags to each Instagram post.

7. Add hashtags to Instagram Stories

While Stories do disappear after 24 hours, don’t discount the use of hashtags on them. These show up in the search results, too, and are another easy way of getting more interested followers. Have too many hashtags to put into a Story? Enter your text like normal and then hide them behind a gif or sticker.

Get started with Instagram hashtags today

Using hashtags on Instagram has many benefits for brands: increased brand awareness, higher engagement engagement and improved competitor analysis insight. Before jumping into hashtags, it’s recommended to understand the various types that are out there and some best practices to follow.

Ready to get into more #InstagramStrategy? Take a look at how to create an Instagram strategy for your brand.

The post Instagram hashtags: How to find and use the best hashtags appeared first on Sprout Social.

That’s why leaders from more than 700 companies surveyed in the 2023 State of Social Media Report revealed that 85% of their business decisions were strongly informed by social data and insights. And 56% claimed they soon planned to invest more resources in social media data analysis.

Yet, 69% of business leaders believe social media data and insights are currently underutilized at their organization.

So, how do you bridge this gap between strategy and execution? How do you ensure your social media reporting is contextual to your organization’s overall objectives? And how do you show the true impact of your metrics with effective data storytelling for executive buy-in?

Google Analytics (GA) offers solutions to these multi-pronged questions around social media analytics.

With practical data such as tracking your social efforts against actual revenue-generating clicks, sign-ups and subscriptions, and giving you in-depth audience insights, Google Analytics provides contextualized social metrics to elevate your marketing strategy without overshooting your budget.

Read on to find out how Google Analytics for social media helps with stronger reporting.

Why use Google Analytics for social media measurement?

There is a growing urgency among business leaders to harness the power of social per The 2023 State of Social Media Report.

Google Analytics enables you to measure your social metrics holistically and adds context to your regular reports so they align with your broader marketing goals. Specifically, it helps you in three crucial ways:

Build an effective top-funnel and mid-funnel social strategy

Top-of-funnel social media efforts aim at attracting new visitors and measuring audience behaviour such as web traffic, impressions and average time on site. It’s critical to track how well your brand awareness campaigns are running. The mid and mid-bottom funnel is centered toward converting these new visitors into qualified leads and quantifying the amount of purchase intent in your funnel.

However, mid-funnel efforts cannot be brought to fruition unless you capture more of that hard-earned, top-funnel traffic.

Google Analytics enables you to capture funnel metrics such as goal completions and identify where conversion discrepancies are occurring so your top-funnel and mid-funnel efforts are in sync with each other. Together, these efforts prove your social media return on investment (ROI) and show the impact on business growth.

Social media managers need to highlight the impact of both top-of-funnel and mid-bottom funnel metrics in their reporting so executives and stakeholders see the real value social adds to the overall revenue pipeline.

Align your social metrics to your business goals

Social metrics don’t live in a vacuum. They need to be aligned to the broader marketing efforts and org-wide business goals. Only then will you get the real measure of your social strategy.

For example, it’s vital to identify which social platforms are driving the most traffic to your website but also to know how visitors are interacting with your content. Or if your business objective is to increase website traffic, you should also track overall traffic coming from your social accounts and measure user engagement individually.

Similarly, if your goal is to drive more qualified leads and increase sales, Google Analytics for social media enables you to compare key performance indicators against competitors, traffic sources and hashtags or keywords so you’re able to modify your campaigns accordingly.

This capability is necessary to plan subsequent social campaigns for repeated success because contextual metrics don’t just fuel success for social but also wider business goals.

Understand your target audience

Social metrics from GA tell you audience demographics, their online behavior, interests and where they spend their time online. These metrics help you build compelling content and social tactics that resonate with your audience—both necessary to drive user engagement and successful campaigns more strategically.

For example, based on your audience demographic, you could decide which tactic, such as a live product demonstration or a launch promotion with a special offer, would give you maximum brand amplification and ROI on social.

How to set up Google Analytics for social media reporting

Follow these steps to set up Google Analytics for social reporting and get a better understanding of the impact of your social efforts on marketing campaigns and company revenue.

Identify the questions you want to answer

Identify the most important metrics you want to track based on your SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely) goals. Ask yourself critical questions like:

• What social channels are driving the most new users to my website?
• Which social accounts give me maximum website engagement?
• How often do users visit my brand and how do they engage with my content?

Using questions like these as north stars help you gauge key areas like month-over-month engagement rates and traffic source fluctuations, and dig deeper to find out what’s causing them.

This is critical to building a narrative for your data storytelling to highlight how your social efforts are paying off in relation to your organization’s broader marketing strategy.

Set up data collection in GA

You can set up data collection and start tracking web data in Google Analytics in three steps: Create a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property, add a data stream and use a Google Analytics code.

Create a new Google Analytics 4 property

To create a new GA4 property from your admin page, click Create Property in the Property column. Note: Look at the Account column to make sure that you’ve selected the right account.

Enter your business name for the new property and select the reporting time zone and currency. Changing the time zone for an existing property may give you a spike in data because of the time shift.

Select your industry category and business size. Click Next.

Choose how you want to use Google Analytics for social media to get the relevant report necessary for your goals. For example, if you choose “Generate more leads,” the reports will help you measure lead generation. And so on.

Click Create. You now have a new GA4 Property.

Add a data stream

Once you’ve created your new property, you must add data streams so the tool can track your app and website performance.

In the Property column, click Data Streams > Add stream (iOS app, Android app, or Web).

To see data in your new Google Analytics 4 property, either tag it to the website builder or to a CMS-hosted website like WordPress or Hubspot. You can also add the Google tag to your web pages directly by using Google Tag Manager.

Using a GA code

To measure your web performance data with a Google Analytics tracking code, you need to add a short JavaScript measurement code to each web page.

This code tracks and collects information on how a new user interacts with your page so you’re able to compare how different web pages are performing and make informed decisions to make changes, if necessary, to meet your targets.

Create social media conversion events in GA

Goals in Google Analytics 4 are now called conversion events. Conversion events are user activities that evaluate the effectiveness of your social and digital marketing campaigns and contribute to your success rate.

Properly configured conversion events provide critical information about your social performance. For example, measure the efficacy of your lead generation efforts by tracking how often users submit a contact form on your website.

Migrate goals to GA4 and configure your conversion events in the following ways.

Migrating goals to GA4 conversion events

To migrate your Universal Analytics goals to Google Analytics 4 conversion events, go to your Google Analytics Admin account. From the Property column, select the GA4 property set for data collection on your website. Once there, choose:

Property column > Setup Assistant > Set up conversions > click on the Actions icon > Import Universal Analytics

Once in the “Import existing goals from your connected property panel”, select the goals you want to recreate as conversion events in your new Google Analytics 4 property. A confirmation message will pop up when the goals you’ve selected are successfully recreated as conversion events.

Marking events as conversions

To mark a conversion event, you need to identify an important user interaction and mark it in GA4. Examples of these could be in-app purchases, web purchases or app-store subscriptions.

To mark an existing event as a conversion, go to:

Admin > Property > Events > Existing Events > toggle “Mark as conversion”

4 social media insights to track in Google Analytics

Google Analytics for social media gives you several social insights. Here is a breakdown of the four main ones:

Audience demographics

An in-depth understanding of your target audience is critical to the success of your social campaigns and overall organizational goals. Get these insights from GA metrics for a granular view of customer demographics through the Demographic details report.

The report pulls metrics from visitors who visit your website or app and have consented to share information. It gives you key details like location, age, gender, ethnicity based on the language used and even their interests.

To get these reports, go to:

Google Analytics > Reports > User Attributes > Demographics details

You also get metrics such as the average time your site was in focus in a visitor’s browser or an app was in use on a person’s device (average engagement time). You also see new users, engaged sessions per user and new visitor count.

User acquisition from social

Get important user acquisition details from different social channels on your website to see how each channel is performing so you can allocate your budget more wisely.

Discover the types of visitors coming to your website with GA4’s User acquisition and Traffic acquisition reports, and filter them to see how many are coming from organic or paid social.

User acquisition report

The User acquisition report helps you understand how new users find your website or app for the first time. It focuses on new sessions and tells you where they originate from, regardless if the visitor is new or returning. This includes direct traffic—users who visit your website by directly entering the URL into their browser address bar.

You can get many dimensions, or attributes of your data, in this report. A dimension describes your data whereas a metric helps quantify the data. For example, a few different dimensions in the User Acquisition report are First user campaigns, First user Google Ads ad group name and First user source. When you pair these with a specific metric, like New Users, for example, you can see the number of New Users that had a “first user source” of social media before arriving at your website.

Traffic acquisition report

The Traffic acquisition report shows you where your website and app visitors are coming from, both new and returning users. In comparison, the User acquisition report only shows data on new users.

Web engagement

Find web engagement insights from Google Analytics for social media with the new Pages and Screens reports. These reports show the pages on your website and screens on your app people visit and engage with.

This gives you a fair idea of how visitors consume your content and interact with the website throughout the user journey.

To get these reports, go to:

Google Analytics Admin > Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens

Apply a filter to the report to view data for one page or screen and refine your analysis to find trends in factors such as ad units, regional performance and others essential for your goals. Also, get real-time reports and summary cards.

Web engagement reports help you identify the actions a user takes after visiting a page or screen. This lets you measure its impact on conversions and revenue.

When you create the user path exploration and select the page or screen as your starting point, you’ll get the top five pages or screens your users viewed after the first-contact page or screen.

This will give you a clear view of how impactful your content and social tactics are and where you need to make adjustments to boost effectiveness.

Conversions and conversion paths

Conversion and conversion paths reports in Google Analytics enable you to troubleshoot website and content performance and track trend declines. These metrics, when represented on a social media dashboard, quantify your team’s performance across social channels and accounts clearly. Here’s a closer look.

Conversion reports

The Conversions report gives you information about each conversion event caused by a trigger so you understand the impact of your social marketing on your conversion rate. These conversions could be from lead form submissions, email subscriptions, unique page views or sessions and even sales.

To get conversion reports, go to:

Google Analytics Admin > Reports >  Engagement > Conversions

Another important Google Analytics for social media report is the Conversion path report.

Conversion paths reports give you an insight into your customers’ paths to conversion, and how different attribution models played a role in those paths. Get clearly demarcated data visuals to quickly see which social channels are working best to initiate, help and close conversions.

Metrics include Conversions, Purchase revenue, Days to conversion and Touchpoints to conversion.

To get these conversion path reports, go to:

Google Analytics Admin > Advertising > Attribution > Conversion paths

Top conversion paths

Among the many filters at your disposal, Top Conversion paths is the most insightful.

These reports help you identify all the social media platforms driving visits to your website. You understand the path your users take before they convert and see the frequency of conversions from each path.

This gives you a fair understanding of how well your social media marketing is working in terms of leading visitors down the sales funnel.

Harness social reporting to elevate your marketing efforts

Social media is all about connecting with your audience and building a solid brand presence, regardless of your industry. Metrics from Google Analytics help you harness this power to build, measure and track impactful strategies for social media and marketing. Thoughtfully showcasing these insights to share how social impacts your organization with your leaders and other team is therefore critical to secure executive buy-in.

Present your findings in a meaningful way to reap the benefits of your hard work. Use this toolkit for templates and resources to build a compelling narrative for your social reporting.

The post How to use Google Analytics for stronger social media reporting appeared first on Sprout Social.

In this post, we’ve put together a quick guide breaking down how to make the most of Twitter’s advanced search features. This will help you better narrow down the most relevant interactions for your brand.

Read on to find out what Twitter advanced search is and how to use it strategically for your brand.

Table of contents

• What is Twitter advanced search?
• How to access Twitter advanced search
• How to use Twitter advanced search
• Twitter advanced search commands and operators
• 7 impactful ways to use Twitter advanced search
• How to use Sprout Social to enhance your Twitter searches

What is Twitter advanced search?

Twitter advanced search is a tool that lets you tailor your search results based on a number of filters. This makes it easier to find Tweets that are highly specific and relevant to your needs. So you can gain valuable insights to maximize the benefits of Twitter for your brand.

This Twitter search feature lets you search for Tweets containing specific words, hashtags and phrases. You can even exclude keywords or search Tweets from specific accounts. The feature further lets you filter results by number of engagements, date ranges and other filters.

How to access Twitter advanced search

Twitter advanced search on desktop

There are two ways to access the Twitter advanced search tool via desktop.

• The first option is to directly access it from https://twitter.com/search-advanced.
• The second option is to first conduct a search using the regular Twitter search feature. Then click on the three-dot button next to the search bar and select “Advanced search.”

Twitter advanced search on mobile

Mobile users can access the advanced search tool through their mobile browser. Just like on desktop, there are two ways to access Twitter advanced search on mobile.

• The first option is to open your mobile browser and directly go to https://mobile.twitter.com/search-advanced.
• The second option is to first conduct a regular Twitter search from your mobile browser. Then click on the three-dot button next to the search bar and select “Advanced search.”

How to use Twitter advanced search

The advanced search tool offers plenty of ways to refine your search results. This helps you discover specific Tweets and conversations to make the most of Twitter for your business. Here’s a quick look at how to search on Twitter using the advanced search tool.

Searching for specific words, phrases and hashtags

• All of these words – Provide two or more words and search for Tweets containing all those terms in no specific order.
• This exact phrase – Search for Tweets matching the exact phrase. You can use this to look for Tweets containing names, quotes and precise terminologies.
• Any of these words – Provide two or more words and search for Tweets containing any of those terms. For example, a search for “coffee beans” may show Tweets containing only “coffee” or only “beans.”
• None of these words – Exclude Tweets containing certain words. This is great for filtering irrelevant Tweets from your search results.
• These hashtags – Look for Tweets containing specific hashtags.
• Language – Filter your search results to find only those Tweets written in a specific language.

Searching for users or accounts

• From these accounts – Search for Tweets coming from specific accounts. If you use this alongside the word search, you could even look for Tweets containing certain words sent from those accounts. So, for example, you could search for Tweets by @twitter containing the phrase “customer support.”
• To these accounts – Search for Tweets sent to specific accounts. This would include Tweets sent in reply to those accounts.
• Mentioning these accounts – Look for Tweets mentioning certain accounts.

Combining these search options will help you easily find conversations between different accounts. For example, you’d be able to look for Tweets from Wendy’s to Chipotle or vice versa.

Searching for Tweets by date

Advanced search gives you the option to look for Tweets sent out within a specific date range. You can narrow your search by year, month and date.

Searching based on engagement

One useful feature is the ability to filter search results by engagement. You can look for Tweets containing at least X number of replies, X number of likes and X number of Retweets.

Using search filters

Advanced search further lets you narrow your results based on several filters. You can choose to exclude or include replies. Or you can choose to only show replies and exclude original Tweets.

Similarly, you can choose to include Tweets with links or only show Tweets with links.

Twitter advanced search commands and operators

Besides the advanced search tool, Twitter offers a few additional resources to refine your search. Make the most of its standard search operators to perform advanced searches on the platform.

These search operators work similarly to Twitter’s advanced search. The main difference is you can enter them directly into the normal search function.

For example, let’s say you’re planning a Disney vacation and have a family member with dietary restrictions. Maybe you want to see the Twitterverse’s experiences with Disney’s dining options. So you search “Disney” and “allergy” (in quotations, separately) to score some real-time information and feedback.

There are a number of Twitter search operators and queries out there. And brands can use them for everything from customer service to competitive research. Whether you use these operators in the standard search field or the advanced search UI comes down to your preferences. If you’d like a handy reminder of your options for Twitter search operators, check out the cheat sheet below.

Image Source: Twitter

7 impactful ways to use Twitter advanced search

According to the latest Twitter stats, 15% of users turn to the platform for customer service. Meanwhile, 32% of brands are using it to deliver customer service. So there’s a huge opportunity for brands to use Twitter advanced search for ramping up their customer service efforts.

But that’s not all. Check out these seven impactful ways to use advanced search on Twitter.

1. Zero in on customer questions and concerns

Twitter is the go-to channel for customer support. And using the right search queries can help you prioritize your fans’ issues.

Perform advanced searches including your @account and terms such as “help,” “support” and “service.” This can help clue you in on anyone having a problem. Additionally, you can tack on a question mark (“?”) to that query to spot anyone who has a question for you.

2. Find ideas for content

Twitter is a hub for trending conversations. People go to the platform to talk about trending topics and discuss important events. These conversations can show you what your audience is talking about and what they’re interested in. Based on these interests, you can then understand what types of content will resonate with them.

As such, Twitter serves as a valuable source of inspiration for content–whether it’s your next blog post or live broadcast.

Use Twitter advanced search to see what people are saying about a specific topic. Then use those conversations to get a sense of what they’re interested in. For example, you might find that people are talking about sustainable coffee. You could then put together a blog post discussing the topic to educate your audience.

3. Find relevant industry influencers

Want to know who are the biggest players in your industry? Or whose content is totally killin’ it?

Searching by engagement parameters can help you do just that.

This would involve filtering search results to narrow down Tweets with higher engagements. In general, influential users get more likes and Retweets compared to regular users. Performing this type of advanced search can help you zero in on users who are leading the conversation around certain topics.

4. Spot positive customer comments

Brands are rightfully concerned about their reputation with fans and followers. And the advanced search functionality is a great way to conduct Twitter listening and monitor brand reputation.

You can conduct a surface-level sentiment analysis by searching for positive keywords along with your brand name. Think “best,” “happy,” “excellent” and so on. You can even tack on emoticons such as “:)”.

These can reveal Tweets in which customers share positive experiences with your brand. So they give you the perfect opportunity to respond and engage and nurture your relationship with them.

5. Never miss another mention

Spoiler alert: not everyone talking about you online is taking the time to tag you.

Save a Twitter advanced query that includes your brand name, common misspellings and your website. This will give you a good start to monitoring social mentions more diligently. So you can send timely responses and prevent further disappointment.

Sleeping on such an interaction could be bad news for your business, especially if it’s a customer complaint on the line.

You’ll find the option to “save search” by clicking on the three-dot button next to the search window.

6. Monitor your competitors

Want to see what people are saying about the competition? Or how your competitors are responding to their customers?

Run an advanced search to look for Tweets mentioning your biggest competitors. Then analyze those Tweets to understand why people love (or hate) your competitors.

This could give you insights to strengthen your Twitter communications strategy. You can even use the insights to inform your larger marketing and promotion efforts.

Sprout Social’s Twitter analytics tools make it even easier to do a competitor analysis. You can do a side-by-side Twitter profile comparison to see how you stack up to your top competitors.

7. Identify your most popular Tweets

Curious to see which of your Tweets are resonating with your audience? Use Twitter’s advanced search to look for your Tweets with a certain number of likes and Retweets.

For example, you could search for Tweets with at least 50 likes and 20 Retweets.

How to use Sprout Social to enhance your Twitter searches

Twitter lets you run complex searches for @mentions, hashtags, keyword groups and exclusions. But there are more operators out there to narrow down the search even more.

This means that you need to have a strategy for not only figuring out relevant searches for your brand but also organizing them.

Sprout’s Twitter integration helps you streamline your searches and monitor relevant keywords in one place. Use it to set up keyword searches and identify relevant conversations for your brand. You can then keep track of all these conversations through a single Smart Inbox. From the same social inbox, you can engage with mentions and replies instead of having to switch platforms.

Using Twitter advanced search for advanced results

The Twitter advanced search feature allows you to uncover valuable conversations and insights for your brand. Make the most of the tips and ideas shared above to maximize the outcome of your Twitter strategy.

If you ever feel overwhelmed trying to make the platform work for you, don’t forget there are plenty of Twitter tools to make your job easier. Use them to your advantage and get more out of Twitter for your brand.

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