So you recently created a Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account or branded your very own YouTube Page. Now What?

Your next step should be to track what “social customers” are saying about you and your company. Monitoring and engaging these conversations will allow you as a business owner to keep your finger on the pulse of the market, and make quick business decisions.

Facebook Insights

Facebook’s analytics tool, also known as Facebook Insights, provides you with important metrics specifically related to your company’s Facebook Fan Page. This tool allows you to view a comprehensive dashboard highlighting top level metrics around the posts and visits to your company’s Fan page. By understanding and analyzing Insight’s metrics, marketers are better prepared to respond to customer feedback and needs.

Within Facebook Insights Dashboard, you will see both User Insights and Interaction Insights. User Insights allow you to view monthly active users, total and new page Likes, Likes from referring sites, user demographics, tabs views and photo views. In addition, Interaction Insights allow you to track daily comment views, mentions within status updates, reviews, wall posts and video posts surrounding your company.

Monitoring the total number of new Fans or Likes is a valuable metric to consider. At what point did you receive the most Likes? How were you engaging these “social customers”? What content were you pushing on your Fan Page? Once you have defined the factors that contributed to this growth you will be able to cater your marketing strategy accordingly. Aside from new Fans or Likes, it is also beneficial to know the average number of comments you typically receive on any given post. Measuring this engagement metric will allow you to increase the number of posts around topics based on your fans interest. These insights gather data comparable to what you would receive from a focus group, but they are totally free.

YouTube Insights

YouTube offers a similar reporting tool known as YouTube Insights. Much like Facebook Insights, this tool allows you monitor your company’s branded YouTube Page. You can check out who is watching your videos, see what referring sites and keywords continue to drive traffic to your branded page and what videos are the most popular. You can also drill down within a specific video to see what portion particularly sparked viewer’s attention and where the interest dropped. These metrics help you understand what content your customers like, enabling you to promote related content and grow your audience.

Twitter Analytics Dashboard

With millions of tweets occurring daily, it seems only natural that you would want to monitor any conversation surrounding your brand on Twitter. While much newer than Facebook and YouTube, Twitter has several applications that allow you to monitor when people mention or follow your company. Last quarter Twitter announced a launch of a new official Twitter analytics dashboard. This dashboard highlights real-time data regarding which tweets are spreading and which Twitter users are influential in your network. The emphasis of Twitter’s analytics is focused on the fact that the data is truly real-time, allowing for branding adjustments and marketing strategy decisions to be made on the fly.

Each of these monitoring tools will provide you with a wealth of knowledge about our company. When deciding which tools are best for your brand, remember to always keep your end goal in mind. Utilizing these tools will help you better understand how people interpret your brand, and allow you to respond quickly to customer’s needs.

Best Practices

1. Construct the perfect profile picture. Facebook profile pictures are one of the most important factors in capturing a user’s initial attention; therefore, it is crucial to have a clear, eye catching image that perfectly represents your business and your brand. In order for your thumbnail to contain your brand logo, you must remember that Facebook crops your photo with a 12 pixel border and that Facebook thumbnails are square with rounded corners.

2. Captivating conversations matter!  That means doing more than inserting a post, a link or a picture periodically on the page. You should comment on posts made by fans, answer their questions in a timely fashion, add value to those posts with additional information and encourage more interaction. Make sure people know that you are personally updating the page and it’s not just a feed.

3. Integrate other Facebook entities. The sections on the left side of the page should be intelligently selected with one goal in mind: Enabling your fans to do more and spread the word. Add a welcome page or a mailing list page where fans can add themselves to your email list. You can also add a shopping cart to allow fans to purchase your products directly and securely through Facebook. Ex: Warehouse Skateboards Welcome Page, Join My List & Shop Now.

4. Statistics are extremely important: Facebook Insights allows you to understand which posts are encouraging your fans to interact and engage with you by analyzing trends in your Facebook data. Make sure to conform to your demographics, too. Whatever works should be continued!

5. Make your fans feel special.  Reward fans for participating, let them know you are watching and encourage additional engagement. Make someone a fan of the week; allow fans to link to your Facebook page and website so that they stand out as an extended member of the brand family. Do things that are unique to your Facebook fan page only.

6. Use outside properties to promote the page: Too often enough, people create their business page and never receive the desired audience. Use all of your communication properties to build up your Facebook. Mention your Facebook in your blog, on your website and in your ads. If you prioritize brand promo in front of conversation on your Facebook fan page, expect an inactive fan base.

7. Facebook fans love photos and videos.  Tagging your fans from event photos and videos is just a simple, obvious way to make them feel like they are part of the community. In fact, you should be encouraging them to upload their own photos and videos.

8. Limit the number of posts. No one wants their Facebook page flooded with useless posting, but you don’t want your fans to forget about you either. It is best to post about 3-4 times a day at the most in order to maximize your fan base according to their Facebook timing.

9. Always add variety. It is best to post a variety of different things to add value to your page and keep fans interested. If you consecutively post multiple photos, links or videos than your fans will lose their interest quickly. So make sure to change it up every time or every other time in order to keep your fans captivated.

10. Expand your reach. Facebook is the best way to interact with your loyal customers and prospects. These days a “Like” is just as good as a lead. Throughout our own analysis we have found that one way to obtain “likes” is by simply running Facebook ads.  These ads should target your customer demographic, link directly to your Facebook page,  include an enticing thumbnail picture and creative ad copy.

If you are looking for innovative ideas or have any questions, our expert designers, programmers and marketers are here to help you with your next project. Contact us to move your business to a new level of Facebook success.

“Facebook has announced to its partners that in the next two to three weeks, the “Become a Fan” concept for branded pages will be replaced with the more prevalent “Like” button and brands will no longer accumulate “Fans,” but “Connections” instead.

This change narrows the list of actions available to Facebook fans, and consolidates the bulk of interactions fans will have with brand content to “Like,” “Comment” and “Share.” Brands will still be able to communicate with opt-in users on a regular basis, but only users who have “liked” their page itself — not just one of their updates.

The change also affects engagement ads — the “Become a Fan” verbiage will disappear, being replaced by the simple “Like” button and thumbs up icon.”

Read more at Adage.com