If you've been in a marketing conference in the last year or so, or even read an article on the subject, you've probably heard someone ask, “What is the ROI in social marketing”? (Alternative version: “What is the value of equal or retweets one”?) That's what the new features in Google Analytics are trying to answer.
Given the growing importance of social marketing and social network traffic, it was probably inevitable that the team of Google Analytics add-centered social reports. However, Group Product Manager says new reports take a different approach to most social analysis products, which focus more on “listen” - counting mentions, retweets, the analysis of feelings, and so on.
So companies using new social reporting can inform Google of the goal that interests you, if it comes to making a purchase, registering a user, or simply click to have someone on your page about. Then, Google will show not only how many visitors come from social networks (and social networks in particular), but how many of these social visits “convert” to that goal. The reports also examine the impact of social networks “upper funnel” of a company - in other words, the more difficult cases as they do not lead directly to a conversion, it can indirectly contribute. So if someone visits your website through a link on Twitter, then come back in a week to buy something, Google will track that as well.
Google then you can assign a monetary value on these two “last interaction” and conversions of “assisted”. That, in turn, helps companies decide if the money could be put in a social marketing campaign on Facebook or Twitter is really paying off.
There is also a tab Activity Stream to track what people are saying about your company on social networking. Works with any network that is connected to Social Hub like Google data. In the future, Software Engineering Manager (who, together with some other members of the Google Analytics team, joined Google through the acquisition of social services PostRank analysis) said that social networking sites could join others But for now, the big name in the bucket is, of course, Google +. (Other participants include Digg, Disqus, and Reddit.)
Speaking of Google Plus, it's hard not to notice how the social network appears to be introduced in other Google products. In this case, Google wanted to make sure that was his famous “do no evil” policy, which means it offers “more transparent measures of social media be it different from Google, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, or Delicious”. Adding he was confident that as Google grows and matures, “which will be of value to a large number of merchants and advertisers”.
Update: I forgot to mention when this is actually going live. Google says it will implement this feature in the coming weeks. Google Analytics users are the new features in the Standard tab of the Information.
