Social analytics key to targeted campaigns, says Sysomos exec

Brands need to place a greater emphasis on leveraging analytics tools on social media to identify target audiences and deliver relevant content campaigns that regularly reach and engage with customers, marketing experts have claimed.

Speaking at The Drum’s recent Future of Marketing event, the Director of Marketing for analytics enterprise Sysomos, Lance Concannon, touched on the ongoing battle that brands face when attempting to cut through the background noise on platforms such as Facebook by publishing properly targeted content that drives positive customer intent.

Concannon said that the planning phase of content marketing campaigns can be challenging due to the guess work involved but urged marketers to use Twitter, for example, to identify keywords and other information about particular topics that are of interest to the general public. He added that an algorithm could then be used to “create distinct community clusters.”

He also added weight to the recent trend of in-depth analytics by insisting that marketers must measure campaigns to ensure that they deliver return on investment. Concannon believes that performance should not be solely judged in terms of re-tweets and likes. He said that pinpointing activities that have worked and haven’t worked in the past is crucial, as is fully understanding a client’s expectations and benchmarks.

Concannon concluded by stating that a mix of content formats is likely to be the best solution moving forward. “There’s a lot of insight that can be obtained by looking at all of these channels and comparing and contrasting them through a digital dashboard. It allows companies to ask more impactful questions and get better and better in their marketing. Done properly, the process can become a virtuous circle.”

A separate report published by Social Media Examiner shows that Facebook is the most important social platform for both B2C and B2B marketers, and the latter prefer Twitter and LinkedIn to outlets such as Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. More than a third said that LinkedIn is a top priority compared to four per cent or less for each of the visually oriented platforms.

In terms of paid ads on social, Facebook (93 per cent) commands the vast majority of investment, ahead of Instagram (24 per cent), LinkedIn (16 per cent), Twitter (15 per cent) and YouTube (11 per cent).