Are Enough Brands Exploring the ‘Social Relationship’ with Google Analytics?

The ‘Social Relationship’ tool within GA is not a particularly new tool, however, are brands using it enough? Brands are very familiar with using the traffic referral reports and setting up goals to identify where direct conversions are coming from, but the ‘relationship’ between social interaction and conversions drives a crucial further level of analysis.

The value of social to drive conversion can contribute to many stages of the consideration process. Connecting people where they share, where they interact with content and each other and ultimately where they critique and discuss.

Separate to the more traditional GA referrals, traffic sources and goals, the ‘Social Relationship’ tool encourages you to identify high value networks and content, combined with tracking on and off-site interaction of the user. And, most importantly attribute it all back to goals, actions and conversions.

Google has built an enabler to open up more understanding of this area, through identifying ‘networks and communities where people engage with your content’, measure the value of social by tracking your goals and conversions. This can then be overlaid with user engagement on-site and help brands understand the Social visitor flow.

If brands haven’t looked into this area of GA yet, this provides a solid vehicle for more visibility on the contribution that social can make towards goals and a better understanding of the influence.

Images courtesy of Google

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