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Google Analytics 101, Part 2 – Measuring Social Media Traffic…

Search Engine Watch, By Ron Jones — Now that we’ve discussed some of the basics of using Google Analytics, let’s move on and explore some other useful features and tools.

First, we’ll look at how “Google Analytics plays a part in measuring social media traffic.” Then, we’ll review how it can help with tracking phone conversions. Finally, we’ll look at how to link your AdWords account to your analytics account for better ROI tracking.

Measuring Social Media Traffic through Advanced Segmentation

One of the most challenging things about getting involved with social media is measuring effectiveness. Tool vendors are scrambling to build tools that will allow the measurement of sentiment, profitability, traffic, etc. If you’ve already set up Google analytics, then you’re on your way to measuring social media traffic. Let’s take a closer look.

The idea here is to set up a segment to monitor traffic from either one specific site like Twitter, or multiple sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Let’s set one up for analyzing Twitter traffic. After you log into Google Analytics, find the gray Settings box on the left. Here, you’ll find a link to “advanced segments.” Then:

1. Click on “create new custom segment” in the upper right corner.
2. Look under the green dimensions box and click on “traffic sources.”
3. Drag the “source” rectangle and drop it in on top of the words “dimension or metric.”
4. For the condition, select “Matches regular expression.”
5. For the value type in twitter\.com. (Note: If you want to use Facebook or LinkedIn, the syntax would be facebook\.com or linkedin\.com.)

Name your segment below and click on the button “create segment” and you’re done. To activate the measuring, go back to your dashboard and look in the upper right for “advanced segments.” You should now see a checkbox for Twitter Traffic. Check it and apply. That’s it.

Now you should see any Twitter traffic in relationship to all of your traffic. If you would like to track multiple sites at once, then in the “value” box just put a “|” symbol between each site like this: twitter\.com | facebook\.com | linkedin\.com.

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