MARUDHAR KESARI JAIN COLLEGE FOR WOMEN (AUTONOMOUS)

VANIYAMBADI
PG and Department of Computer Applications
I MCA – Semester – II
E-Notes (Study Material)

Core Course -1: Social Media Analytics Code:24PCAE22

UNIT I: Social Media Analytics : An Overview

Core Characteristics of Social media, Types of Social Media, Social media landscape, Need for Social
Media Analytics (SMA), SMA in small & large organizations. Seven Layers of Social Media Analytics,
Types of Social Media Analytics, Social Media Analytics Cycle, Social Media Analytics Tools.
Learning Objectives:
1. Familiarize the learners with the concept of social media.
2. Familiarize the learners with the concept of social media analytics and understand its significance
3. Enable the learners to develop skills required for analyzing the effectiveness of Social Media.
4. Familiarize the learners with different tools of social media analytics.
5. Familiarize the learner with different visualization techniques for Social Media analytics.
6. Examine the ethical and legal implications of level raging social media data.
Course Outcome:
1. Understand the concept of Social Media
2. Understand the concept of social media Analytics and its significance.
3. Learners will be able to analyze the effectiveness of social media.
4. Learners will be able to use different Social Media analytics tools effectively and efficiently.
5. Learners will be able to use different effective Visualization technique store present Social media
analytics
6. Acquire the fundamental perspectives and hands-on skills needed to work with Social media data.

1. Introduction to Social Media Analytics (SMA)

Social media analytics is the process of collecting, measuring, and analyzing data from social media
platforms to understand and evaluate the performance of a brand or organization's social media presence.
This process involves the use of various tools and techniques to extract, clean, and transform data from
social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The data collected can include
metrics such as likes, shares, comments, followers, and mentions, as well as text-based data such as
comments and posts. Once the data has been collected, it can be analyzed using a variety of methods and
techniques, including:
1. Descriptive analytics: Summarizing and describing the data, such as calculating the number of followers
or the average number of likes per post.
2. Diagnostic analytics: Identifying patterns and trends in the data, such as identifying the most popular
topics or the best time to post.

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3. Predictive analytics: Using the data to make predictions about future behavior or outcomes, such as
forecasting the number of followers or predicting the success of a future campaign.
4. Text mining and natural language processing: Extracting meaning from text-based data, such as
comments and posts, using techniques such as sentiment analysis, topic modeling, and named entity
recognition.
5. Social network analysis: Analyzing the structure and dynamics of interactions and relationships on social
media platforms, using techniques such as centrality measures, community detection, and network
statistics.
The insights and information obtained through social media analytics can be used to inform and optimize
social media strategy, improve the effectiveness of marketing and advertising campaigns, and increase
engagement and reach on social media platforms.
Social Media : Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in
social networking.
Analytics means analysis of data “The real impact of analytics means analysis and interpretation of data
leads to actionable insights.”
Social Media Analytics “the art and science of extracting valuable hidden insights from vast amounts of
semi
structured and unstructured social media data to enable informed and insightful decision making”.

2.Core Characteristics of Social Media:

In the ever-shifting landscape of social media marketing, content strategists and content creators are always
striving to make effective content that will engage users. Any user of social media will have a different
definition of what makes content engaging, but there will always be certain consistencies:
 It should catch the user’s attention
 It should be interesting to look at
 It should be easy to digest
But for anyone who has gone behind the curtain to create social media content knows, those stipulations
don’t provide a lot of guidance when your boss or your client asks you, “So what are we going to post on
social media today?”
1.Entertaining
 First things first, content needs to catch a user’s attention. It needs to stand out on busy and
competitive online content platforms.
 Whether they leverage beautiful content, humor, vulnerability, beauty, great design, important
information or something else, the brands that earn user attention online are, at minimum,
entertaining their audiences.
2.Aspirational
 It’s important to differentiate between Inspirational and Aspirational. Providing inspiration, creating
the urge within your consumer to do something, is nice. But it’s also fleeting. Providing your
audience with that initial inspiration as well as the long-term aspirations to back it up is how to

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 grow an engaged community. Your brand’s content should inspire your consumers to aspire to a
goal.
 That goal will be different for different brands. Some brands should motivate their customers to
have all the gear they need to be prepared for their next great adventure.
 Others should inspire their customers to become better stewards of the environment. Still others
should push their customers to get outside to reconnect with themselves or loved ones away from
the day’s distractions. Whatever aspiration your brand provides should align with your brand’s
organizing principle.
3.Actionable
 When a consumer decides to follow along with a brand, via social media, newsletters, or
catalogues, they are committing their time and attention.
 For that commitment to have real staying power, the brand needs to go beyond entertainment and
aspirations. Providing actionable content is key. For most brands, this can simply be updates on new
products, sales, maintenance recommendations, or curated accessory suggestions.
 But there are tactics beyond the basics, whether that means highlighting worthy causes they can
support, producing educational content so they can get the most out of your products, or sharing
curated information the brand has gleaned from being an authority in the space. A brand should
provide consumers with everything they need to take action, to ensure they’ll keep coming back for
more.
4.Joinable
 Brand loyalty in today’s world is based on people feeling like they are participating in a community
rather than yelling into the void.
 Whether it’s through events and causes, or a shared mission, or simply a hashtag that consumers can
identify with, creating a feeling of belonging and community is key.
5.PayOff
 Whether it’s promotions, giveaways, or freebies, consumers want an incentive above and beyond
the prior points to let a brand occupy the real estate on their social feeds and in their inbox.
 It takes time and attention to follow a brand, even passively, and brands need to offer something in
exchange for that.
 Web space
The website should provide the users free web space to upload content.
 Webaddress
The users are given a unique web address that becomes their web identity. They can post and share
all their content on this web address.
 Build profiles
Users are is asked to enter personal details like name, address, date of birth, school/college
education, professional details etc. The site then mines the personal data to connect individuals.
 Connect with friends
Users are encouraged to post personal and professional updates about themselves. The site then
becomes a platform to connect friends and relatives.
 Upload content in real time
Users are provided the tools to post content in real time. This content can be text, images, audio,
video or even symbolic likes and dislikes.The last post comes first, giving the site freshness.
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  Enable conversations
Members are given the rights to comment on posts made by friends and relatives. The
conversations are a great social connect.
 Posts have time stamp
All posts are time stamped, making it easy to follow posts.

Additional Resources:
https://www.easymedia.in/7-key-characteristics-of-social-media/
https://www.saltwaterco.com/uncategorized/5-characteristics-of-good-social-media-content
Practice Questions:
1. Define social media.
2. Name any two core characteristics of social media.
3. What is user-generated content in social media?
4. Mention any two examples of platforms that exhibit social media characteristics.
5. Explain the concept of interactivity in social media.
6. How does social media enable real-time communication? Illustrate with examples.

2.Types of Social Media

 If you want to improve your social media marketing strategy, you need to know about the different
types of social media content and how or where you share that content.
 Should you focus on photos? videos? Blogs? What about forums? And, once you have your content,
how do you want to roll it out? You could post on community review sites or live-stream it to the
masses. Understanding these different types of social media will help you develop a better content
strategy and know where to focus your time and energy.
 To help you out, we’ve put together a list of 14 types of social media every marketer needs to know.
From social networking to video sharing and social messaging there’s something for everyone.
Types of social media
1.Social Networking Sites
A Social Networking Site (SNS) is an online platform where people can create profiles and connect with
friends, colleagues, or others with similar interests. These sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events,
and interests within their networks. Some of the famous social networking sites are
- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Users can post updates, photos, videos, and messages that
can be shared publicly or with a selected group of friends.
SNS platforms often provide various interactive features like commenting, liking, and sharing posts to
enhance communication and engagement among users. These sites play a significant role in modern
communication, allowing people to maintain relationships, meet new people, and gather information.
How brands can use social networking sites
Social networking sites provide businesses with powerful tools to connect with their target audiences,
promote products, and build lasting relationships. Here's how brands can effectively leverage these
platforms
 Post, share and respond to audience content.
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  Directly connect with others. Whether as friends or fans, an engaged social following signals clout
for marketers and brands alike
 From communities and discuss relevant news within them.
2.Photo and image sharing sites:
 Photo and image sharing sites are online platforms that allow users to upload, share, and interact
with visual content. They play a significant role in personal expression, digital marketing, and
creative collaboration.
 Photo and image sharing sites are platforms where users can post, view, and share photographs,
illustrations, and other visual content. These platforms often include features for editing,
organizing, and interacting with content through likes, comments, and shares.
 Platform like Instagram which has more than 1 billion monthly active users, have made it easier
than ever before to curate and share photos and images. Brands looking to implement this types of
social media marketing should focus on high-quality, creative visuals that tell a story.
How brands can use Photo and image sharing sites
 Post high-quality, creative images that illustrate your brands values
 Curate and promote user-generated content via branded hashtags
 Engage with customers and followers in real time
3.Video sharing sites
Video sharing sites are websites that allow people and companies to upload or live stream their videos.
Users can then search for videos by keyword or topic. The content on these sites can be available to the
public or to private or invited audiences. Many video sharing sites use income from advertisements to
support their platforms. They might also offer revenue sharing to users whose videos get lots of views.
Much like image-based social sites, video hubs like YouTube, TikTok and Vimeo are attracting visitors in
droves via visual content.
How brands can use Video sharing sites
 Use video to demonstrate how your product or service works
 Share customer testimonials and success stories
 Create helpful how-to guides and tutorials related to your industry
 Highlight company culture with behind -the-scenes footage
4.Audio Sharing Sites
Audio sharing sites are a type of social media that became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic. stuck
at home with Zoom fatigue, people were looking for an easier way to consume content and audio-only
proved to be the solution.
Examples: Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces and Facebook Live Audio Rooms
Soundcloud is the world’s most popular audio sharing website.
Starting from 2007, it’s become the largest audio sharing platform in the world.
Any user can share their audio files like music, songs, audiobooks, podcasts, etc on this platform.
They offer two plans for their creators.

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Basic plans are free which allows users to upload any type of audio for up to 3 hours.
On the other hand, Pro plans give unlimited upload time, more features, and facilities to help the creators.
Features
 Upload 3 hours of any type of audio
 Lossless HD storage and download
 Real-time stats
 Play, like, post, comment & download
 Embed player customization
How brands can use Audio sharing sites
 Share behind-the-scenes content, like interview
with employees and company leaders
 Host live events and Q&A events with customers
or experts in your industry
 Take listeners on a journey by sharing audio
stories or vignettes
5.Live Streaming apps
 Live Streaming is the method of data transmission used when someone watches video on the
Internet. It is a way to deliver a video file a little bit at a time, often from a remote storage location.
By transmitting a few seconds of the file at a time over the internet, client devices do not have to
download the entire video before starting to play it.
 Live streaming is when the streamed video is sent over the Internet in real time, without first being
recorded and stored. Today, TV broadcasts, video game streams, and social media video can all be
live-streamed.
Examples: Popular live broadcasting apps are Twitch, YouTube Live, Livestream, and Periscope.
How brands can use Live Streaming apps
 Give viewers a candid look at your brand
 Build anticipation for upcoming products or events with live teasers
 Increase sales by offering exclusive deals and discounts to viewers tuning in live
6.Social messaging apps:
 Social messaging apps are a type of social media that allows users to communicate in real time.one
of the popular messaging apps WhatsApp has more than 200 billion monthly users.
 While they aren’t traditionally thought of as marketing tool, messaging apps like WhatsApp can be
a powerful way to reach and engage with your target audience. Brand can use them to provide
customer service, product recommendations and even to make sales.
Examples: Facebook messenger, Twitter DMs,Google Business Messanger,WhatApp and WeChat
How brands can use Social messaging apps
 Use chatbots to answer customer questions

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  Send out automated coupon codes or discount offers
 Create a private group for loyal customers and followers
 Use smart Inbox to monitor all incoming messages and conversations in one place
7.Disappearing content apps
Disappearing content, also known as ephemeral content, refers to digital media, typically images or videos,
that has a short lifespan. Unlike traditional posts that remain on a user's profile indefinitely, disappearing
content automatically vanishes after a predetermined period, often 24 hours.
The concept of disappearing content gained prominence with the rise of Snapchat in 2011. Snapchat
introduced the "Stories" feature, allowing users to share photos and videos visible for 24 hours before
disappearing. This innovative approach to content sharing revolutionized social media and inspired other
platforms to adopt similar features.
How brands can use disappearing content apps
Promote time-sensitive sales and discounts
Encourage your audience to share their own disappearing content
Create behind the scenes content to give your audience a peek into your brand
8.Social Shopping Networks
Social shopping involves directly engaging with social media users to drive sales. Through social media,
ecommerce brands can showcase their products and services to potential customers in an interactive way.
Social shopping is a great way to boost engagement and build customer relationships. By actively engaging
with social media users, brands foster a strong emotional connection that leads to increased sales and
revenue.
The main advantages of social shopping
Boosts brand visibility
Improves site traffic
Social shopping works by leveraging social networks like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat.
Brands create high-quality content showcasing their products or services, and then they attend to customers
who send a direct message, drop a comment or make an order.
9.Interactive Social Media apps:
Social media analytics tools are a type of software that collects and analyzes data from your social media
channels. Data from social media analytics software lets you better understand your audience and how they
interact with your content. With these tools, you can increase social media followers, optimize engagement
and improve conversion rates.
Some social analytics tools provide additional functionality, like monitoring and analyzing competitor
behavior. Advanced tools will also help you “listen” to the conversations your target audience has on social
media to gauge their perception of your brand.
Using a social media analytics tool helps make sure you’re consistently creating and publishing content
that actually resonates with your target audience. Get insights like:
How many people are your posts reaching

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How often do people like or interact with your content
How much your social media following is growing
How many sales and conversions your social media posts are generating
10.Discussion forums:
A discussion forum is an online platform that enables people to engage in ongoing conversations and share
information about a particular topic or theme. These forums are often created on community engagement
platforms designed for business use.
A Discussion forum is a tool for community building, and 80% of company founders state it is important
for their business. Forums help companies connect with customers, gather feedback, and establish a sense
of community, and they are also an opportunity for users to connect with like-minded people and
participate in a shared experience.
How discussion forums better your business
Improve your customer support and success outcomes
Increase customer engagement and drive organic growth
Build better products with your customers
Create clear community guidelines and policies
Encourage user participation
11. Microblogging Platform:
Microblogging is a short blog post designed for quick and typically direct audience interactions. These
concise blogs are shared using social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram, and can include different
content formats such as audio, text, images or video.
Microblogging enables users to weigh in on trending topics or reach friends or family, and organizations to
reach their prospective audiences. Shared content includes user-generated content, event highlights, news
updates, memes and quotes.
Microblogging platforms typically include popular social media sites like the following:
 Twitter is a quick way to share short posts, links and other content up to a 280-character limit.
 Users can send messages and share numerous content types with families, friends and groups.
 Owned by Meta (Facebook), Instagram is a visual and video microblogging service.
 A popular platform for connecting with businesses and professionals, LinkedIn is known as a
professional networking site.
 This popular short-form video social media app enables users to share video-based microblogs.
 Users can link to photos of products, style inspiration, recipes and other useful information.
12.Community blogging sites:
Community blogging are also used by communities as shared chronological spaces for posting opinions or
news items. In some cases, a community blog acts as a kind of dynamic, online newsletter to keep
members or broader audiences up-to-date on what is happening in and around the community. In other
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cases, a collective blog focuses on a topic and the chronological stream of postings and comments forms a
kind of conversation on that topic.
Blogging communities can help bloggers:
 Increase visibility
 Network with other bloggers
 Get support from other bloggers
 Improve their content
 Grow their following

13.Social Review Site:

A Social Review Site is a website on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or
services. They are sometimes a feature within a social media platform but aid in sharing content with other
users to make decisions.
Customer reviews can be defined aspieces of feedback a company or business gets based on a customer’s
experience with their services or products. The feedback can be shared in public or directly to the company
and can be accessed by the corporation personally or through third-party review websites.
The significance of collecting and analyzing this information is to help determine customers’ satisfaction
with a product or service and also to help improve engagement with the customer and target audience.
Why you need to know your customer reviews?
It gives you an exact measure of where your business stands with a chance to use the insights to improve
the business. It is an easy way to learn what is missing and what should be done to meet all the customer's
needs.
14.Social curation and bookmarking sites:
Social bookmarking websites are sites on which Internet users share their web pages, articles, blog posts,
images, and videos. There are a number of advantages to submitting your content to one (or more) of these
sites. For one thing, they help to increase your brand awareness.
Popular social bookmarking websites
1. Twitter
Let’s start with the big one (and one people might not associate with social bookmarking too much).
Twitter is an excellent tool for this and you can achieve it in a couple of ways.
First, simply posting links, images, and content with your account means you’ll have technically
bookmarked them. You could then go back through your account to find things again.
On top of that you can also use the ‘like’ button for certain tweets. Many people use that too bookmark
interesting things they find and go back to them in the future.

Additional Resources:

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 https://www.easymedia.in/7-key-characteristics-of-social-media/
https://www.saltwaterco.com/uncategorized/5-characteristics-of-good-social-media-content
Practice Questions:
1. What are the different types of social media platforms? List them with examples.(Re)
2. Explain the main purpose of each type of social media platform, such as Facebook, Instagram,
LinkedIn, and YouTube.(Un)

3. Social media landscape:

Social media landscape shows how media's world is divided and which particular media platforms are
reigning supreme in the digital world at this moment. Social media landscape. Connecting with customers
and potential customers positively impacts your relationship with customers, as well as increases brand
loyalty.
The social media landscape:
Means Different platform and apps that enable people to connect and share in different ways.
The social media landscape refers to the various social media platforms that exist and the way they are used
by different audiences and for different purposes.

Social media landscape shows how media work is divided and which particular media platform are regning
supreme in this digital world at this moment.
1.Facebook 2.Youtube
3.Whatsapp 4.Instagram
5.Snapchat 6.Printest
7.Twitter
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1. Understanding Your Audience
 Demographics: Helps identify who your audience is in terms of age, location, and preferences.
 Behavioral Insights: Understand how your audience interacts with content, allowing for tailored
messaging.
 Segmentation: Enables targeted campaigns by categorizing audience groups.
2. Optimizing Campaign Performance
 Identifies which content types resonate most (e.g., videos, images, text posts).
 Highlights the best times to post for maximum engagement.
 Improves allocation of resources to high-performing strategies.
3. Measuring Success
 Tracks critical metrics such as impressions, engagement rates, and conversions.
 Assesses the effectiveness of campaigns to determine ROI.
 Provides benchmarks for future improvements.
4. Enhancing Brand Reputation
 Monitors brand mentions and public sentiment in real time.
 Identifies potential crises early and enables proactive resolution.
 Helps maintain a positive and consistent brand image.
5.Boosting Customer Engagement
 Analyzes interactions to understand customer preferences and pain points.
 Helps create personalized and meaningful connections with the audience.
 Improves response rates and customer satisfaction.
Additional Resources:
https://theintactone.com/2022/01/21/social-media-analytics-in-small-and-large-organizations/
#goog_rewarded
Practice Questions:
1.Define the term "social media landscape. (Un)
2.Explain the role of hashtags in shaping the social media landscape.(Re)
3. Illustrate how businesses use social media platforms to enhance customer engagement.(Ap)

4.Need for Social Media Analytics (SMA):

The need for social media analytics arises from the growing importance of social media platforms in
personal, organizational, and societal contexts. Here are some key reasons why social media analytics is
essential:
1. Understanding Audience Behavior

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Insights into Preferences: Analyzing likes, shares, comments, and other engagements helps identify what
content resonates with your audience.
Demographics Analysis: Provides information about age, gender, location, and interests, allowing for
targeted strategies.
2. Enhancing Marketing Strategies
Campaign Performance: Measures the effectiveness of marketing campaigns to identify what works and
what doesn’t.
Trend Identification: Tracks emerging trends to ensure campaigns are relevant and timely.
3. Reputation Management
Sentiment Analysis: Helps gauge public sentiment about a brand, product, or service.
Crisis Response: Quickly identifies and addresses negative comments or potential PR crises.
4. Competitor Analysis
Benchmarking: Understand how competitors are performing in terms of engagement and reach.
Differentiation: Helps identify gaps in the market and opportunities to stand out.
5. Driving Business Decisions
Customer Insights: Provides data-driven insights into customer needs and pain points.
Product Development: Feedback from social media can inspire new product features or services.
6. Increasing ROI
Optimized Content: Data from analytics ensures the right type of content is shared at the right time,
increasing engagement and conversions.
Efficient Ad Spend: Identifies which ads perform best, allowing better allocation of resources.
7. Measuring Social Impact
Brand Awareness: Tracks the spread of brand mentions across platforms.
Community Engagement: Measures how well you’re connecting with your community.
8. Real-Time Feedback
Social media analytics allows businesses and individuals to adapt quickly based on real-time data, ensuring
agility in decision-making.
Additional Resources:
https://www.studocu.com/in/document/university-of-mumbai/computer-engineering/sma-notes-sem8-
comps-bw/58503850
Practice Questions:
1.What are Social Media Analytics (SMA), and why is it important? (Re)
2.Define the term "social media analytics" and list two benefits of using it for businesses. (Un)

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3.Explain how businesses can use Social Media Analytics to improve their customer engagement strategies.
(Ap)

5.Social media analytics in small and large organization

Social media analytics (SMA) can be beneficial for both small and large organizations,
although the specific ways in which they use SMA may differ.
Small organizations often have limited resources and may use SMA to:
 Identify their target audience
 Track their competitors
 Measure the success of their campaigns
 Identify cost-effective marketing
 Identifying potential business opportunities
Large organizations, on the other hand, may have more resources and may use SMA in
ways
such as:
 Tracking performance across multiple departments and campaigns
 Identifying trends and insights to inform overall business strategy
 Monitoring and managing the company's brand reputation
 Optimizing their advertising and promotions
 Identifying new business opportunities and markets
In both cases, SMA can be a valuable tool as it allows organizations to make data-driven
decisions about their social media strategy, understand their target audience and identify
potential business opportunities, all while maximizing their resources and ROI.
Social media analytics can be valuable for both small and large organizations. Here’s how it
can benefit each:
Small organizations:
Cost-effective: Small organizations often have limited budgets for marketing and
advertising. Social media analytics provides a cost-effective way to measure the
effectiveness of their social media efforts.
Improved targeting: Small organizations may have a smaller customer base, which makes it
easier to identify their audience and target them with specific messaging.

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Quick feedback: Social media analytics can provide quick feedback on marketing efforts,
allowing small organizations to make changes and pivot quickly.
Competitive advantage: Small organizations can use social media analytics to monitor their
competition and identify opportunities for growth.
Large organizations:
Scale: Large organizations often have a large social media presence, making it difficult to
manually track and analyze data. Social media analytics tools can help automate this
process, allowing for large-scale analysis of data.
Campaign optimization: Large organizations may run multiple social media campaigns
simultaneously. Social media analytics can help optimize each campaign, identifying what
works and what doesn’t.
Deep insights: With a large customer base, large organizations can use social media
analytics to gain deep insights into their customers’ preferences and behaviors.
Crisis management: Large organizations may face social media crises that require quick
action. Social media analytics can help identify potential issues and provide insights into
how to address them.
Overall, social media analytics can benefit both small and large organizations by providing
valuable insights into their social media presence and helping them make data-driven
decisions to improve their marketing efforts.
1. Sprout Social
With social media ranked the No. 1 channel for connecting with customers, there’s no
better starting point for competitive analysis.
Sprout Social enables you to understand competitor performance on social media from
multiple angles and data points.
2. Phlanx
This free Instagram and TikTok engagement calculator clues you in on how active any
given account’s followers are. Phlanx is a good resource for high level analysis of your
competitor’s audience interactions compared to your account and industry.
For Instagram, this competitor analysis tool’s engagement ratio is calculated based on the
number of followers an account has versus the rate at which followers interact with content
(likes, comments, etc).
SEMRush
SEMRush is one of the most widely used SEO tools on the market, but its competitor
analysis features set them apart from the pack. For starters, you can use SEMRush to pull
your competitor’s backlinks and monitor changes in their ranking.
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https://sproutsocial.com/insights/competitor-analysis-tools/
Additional Resources:
https://theintactone.com/2022/01/21/social-media-analytics-in-small-and-large-organizations/
#goog_rewarded
Practice Questions:
2-Mark Questions
1. Define the role of social media in business organizations.
2. List two benefits of social media for small organizations.
3. What is one challenge large organizations face with social media?
5-Mark Questions
1. Explain how small organizations use social media to increase their brand visibility.
2. Describe three advantages of social media for large organizations.
3. Compare the role of social media in small and large organizations.

6.Seven Layers of Social Media Analytic:

Social media at a minimum has seven layers of data (Figure 2). Each layer carries potentially valuable
information and insights that can be harvested for business intelligence purposes. Out of the seven layers,
some are visible or easily identifiable (e.g., text and actions) and other are invisible (e.g., social media and
hyperlink networks). The following are seven social media layers that will be discussed in detail in the
subsequent chapters.
1. Text
2. Networks
3. Actions
4. Hyperlinks
5. Mobile
6. Location
7. Search engines

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LAYER ONE: TEXT
Social media text analytics deals with the extraction and analysis of business insights from textual elements
of social media content, such as comments, tweets, blog posts, and Facebook status updates. Text analytics
is mostly used to understand social media users’ sentiments or identify emerging themes and topics.
LAYER TWO: NETWORKS
Social media network analytics extract, analyze, and interpret personal and professional social networks,
for example, Facebook, Friendship Network, and Twitter. Network analytics seeks to identify influential
nodes (e.g., people and organizations) and their position in the network.
LAYER THREE: ACTIONS
Social media actions analytics deals with extracting, analyzing, and interpreting the actions performed by
social media users, likes, dislikes, shares, mentions, and endorsement. Actions analytics are mostly used to
measure popularity, influence, and prediction in social media.
The case study included at the end of the chapter demonstrates how social media actions (e.g., Twitter
mentions) can be used for business intelligence purposes.
LAYER FOUR: MOBILE
Mobile analytics is the next frontier in the social business landscape. Mobile analytics deals with
measuring and optimizing user engagement with mobile applications (or apps for short). Chapter 6
discusses mobile analytics and provides a practical tutorial on analyzing and understanding in-app
purchases, customer engagement, and mobile user demographics.
LAYER FIVE: HYPERLINKS
Hyperlink analytics is about extracting, analyzing, and interpreting social media hyperlinks (e.g., in-links
and out-links). Hyperlink analysis can reveal, for example, Internet traffic patterns and sources of incoming
or outgoing traffic to and from a source.
LAYER SIX: LOCATION
Location analytics, also known as spatial analysis or geospatial analytics, is concerned with mining and
mapping the locations of social media users, contents, and data.
LAYER SEVEN: SEARCH ENGINES
Search engines analytics focuses on analyzing historical search data for gaining a valuable insight into a
range of areas, including trends analysis, keyword monitoring, search result and advertisement history, and
advertisement spending statistics.
Additional Resources:

16
https://www.studocu.com/in/document/university-of-mumbai/computer-engineering/sma-notes-sem8-
comps-bw/58503850
Practice Questions:
1. Define social media analytics.
2. List any two layers of social media analytics.
3. What is the importance of descriptive analytics in social media?
4. Discuss all seven layers of social media analytics and explain their interrelation with suitable
examples.

7.Types of Social Media Analytics

In our last section, we talked about different uses of social media analytics.
In this section, we will be covering the 4 main types of social media analytics and how to use them
to make important business decisions or achieve an analysis goal.
 Descriptive Analytics
 Predictive Analytics
 Prescriptive Analytics
 Diagnostic Analytics

1. Descriptive Analytics
This mostly focuses on gathering and describing the social media data in other to understand a
problem or situation. At this stage, we include visualizations, reports.
These can be used to draw a quick conclusion to any business-related question.

2. Diagnostic analysis
Diagnostic analysis emphasizes on the numbers: like views, follower numbers, shares, likes,
retweets etc.
This type of analytics can help us rate performance of posts and campaigns and find out the factors
responsible for their outcome.

3. Predictive Analytics
This requires analyzing a large volume of social media data in order to predict future actions and
trends.
For example, running sentiment analysis using comments and text will be able to predict users’
reactions to a particular brand or event.

4. Prescriptive Analytics
This type of analytics suggests the best steps or actions to take based on the analysis of previously
extracted social media data.
An example of this is studying responses to various social media crisis to determine what type of
communication is best suited to handle a current crisis.
Another example is using Google analytics user patterns to recommend steps to shorten the
customer conversion path.
Additional Resources:
https://www.analytikus.com/post/2019/05/02/4-types-of-social-media-analytics-explained

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Practice Questions:
1.Briefly explain the types of social media analytics with examples.
2. Discuss in detail the different types of social media analytics and their significance in decision-making
for businesses.

8.Social Media Analytics Cycle

The social media analytics cycle refers to the process of collecting, analyzing, and
acting on social media data. It typically consists of the following steps

Social media analytics is a six step irrelative process (involving both the science and art) of mining
the desired business insights from social media data (Figure 3). At the center of the analytics are the
desired business objectives that will inform each step of the social media analytics journal. Business
goals are defined at the initial sage, and the analytics process will continue until the stated business
objectives are fully satisfied. To arrive from data to insights, the steps may vary greatly based on the
layers of social media mined (and the type of the tool employed). The following are the six general
steps, at the highest level of abstraction, that involve both the science and art of achieving business
insights from social media data.

Figure 3. Social media analytics cycle

STEP 1: IDENTIFICATION
The identification stage is the art part of social media analytics and is concerned with searching and
identifying the right source of information for analytical purposes. Data for analytics will come from
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business-owned social media platforms. While some data for analytics, will also be harvested from
nonofficial social media platforms. The source and type of data to be analyzed should be aligned with
business objectives. Framing the right question and knowing what data to analyze is extremely crucial in
gaining useful business insights.

STEP 2: EXTRACTION
Once a reliable and minable source of data is identified, next comes the science of extraction stage. The
type (e.g., text, numerical, or network) and size of data will determine the method and tools suitable for
extraction. Small-size numerical information, for example, can be extracted manually (e.g., going through
your Facebook fan page and counting likes and copying comments), and a large-scale automated extraction
is done through an API (application programming interface).
Two important issues to bear in mind here are the privacy and ethical issues related to mining data from
social media platforms. Data extraction practices should not violate a user’s privacy and the data extracted
should be handled carefully. While all social media platforms have their privacy policies in place, to be on
the safe side it is advisable to craft your own social media privacy policy. Your policies should explicitly
detail social media ownership in terms of both accounts and activities such as individual and page profiles,
platform content, posting activity, data handling and extraction, etc.
STEP 3: CLEANING
This step involves removing the unwanted data from the automatically extracted data. Some data may need
a lot of cleaning, and others can go into analysis directly. In the case of the text analytics, for example,
cleaning, coding, clustering, and filtering may be needed to get rid of irrelevant textual data using natural
language processing (NPL). Coding and filtering can be performed by machines (i.e., automated) or can be
performed manually by humans. For example, DiscoverText combines both machine learning and human
coding techniques to code, cluster, and classify social media data.
STEP 4: ANALYZING
At this stage the clean data is analyzed for business insights. Depending on the layer of social media
analytics under consideration and the tools and algorithm employed, the steps and approach you take will
greatly vary. For example, nodes in a social media network can be clustered and visualized in a variety of
ways depending on the algorithm employed. The overall objective at this stage is to extract meaningful
insights without the data losing its integrity. While most of the analytics tools will follow you through the
step-by-step procedure to analyze your data, having background knowledge and an understanding of the
tools and its capabilities is crucial in arriving at the right answers.
STEP 5: VISUALIZATION
In addition to numerical results, most of the seven layers of social media analytics will also result in visual
outcomes. The science of effective visualization known as visual analytics is becoming an important part of
interactive decision making facilitated by solid visualization. Effective visualization is particularly helpful
with complex and huge data because it can reveal hidden patterns, relationships, and trends. It is the
effective visualization of the results that will demonstrate the value of social media data to top
management. Depending on the layer of the analytics, the analysis part will result in relevant visualizations
for effective communication of results. Depending on the type of data, different types of visualization are
possible, including the following.
Network data (with whom)—network data visualizations can show who is connected to whom. For
example, a Twitter following-following network chart can show who is following whom. Topical data
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(what)—topical data visualization is mostly focused on what aspect of a phenomenon is under
investigation. A text cloud generated from social media comments can show what topics/themes are
occurring more frequently in the discussion.
Temporal data (when)—temporal data visualization slice and dice data with respect to a time horizon and
can reveal longitudinal trends, patterns, and relationships hidden in the data. Google trends data, for
example, can visually investigate longitudinal search engine trends Geospatial data (where)—geospatial
data visualization is used to map and locate data, people, and resources.

Other forms of visualizations include trees, hierarchical, multidimensional (chart, graphs, tag clouds), 3-D
(dimension), computer simulation, infographics, flows, tables, heat maps, plots, etc.

STEP 6: INTERPRETATION
Interpreting and translating analytics results into a meaningful business problem is the art part of social
media analytics. This step relies on human judgments to interpret valuable knowledge from the visual data.
Meaningful interpretation is particularly important when we are dealing with descriptive analytics that
leave room for different interpretations. Having domain knowledge and expertise are crucial in consuming
the obtained results correctly. Two strategies or approaches used here can be
1) producing easily consumable analytical results and
2) improving analytics consumption capabilities.

The first approach requires training data scientists and analysts to produce interactive and easy- to-use
visual results. And the second strategy focuses on improving management analytics consumption
capabilities.

Additional Resources:
https://www.studocu.com/in/document/university-of-mumbai/computer-engineering/sma-notes-
sem8-comps-bw/58503850

Practice Questions:
1. What are the main stages of the Social Media Analytics Cycle?
2. Define the term "Social Media Analytics."
3. Why is data visualization important in the Social Media Analytics Cycle?
4. Explain the importance of the "Data Collection" phase in the Social Media Analytics Cycle.
5. Describe how "Data Analysis" contributes to decision-making in social media strategy.
6. Discuss two challenges faced during the "Data Cleaning" stage in the Social Media Analytics
Cycle.

9.Social Media Analytics Tools

To keep up with the growing need for analyzing the vast amount of data, social media analytical tools are
also coming to market at a great pace. Social media analytics tools come in a variety of forms and
functionalities. Table 2 lists some example tools with respect to each layer of social media analytics.
Aligned with your social media strategy, these tools can be used to measure different layers of social media
data.

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 Table 2. Examples of social media analytics tools with respect its layers
Layer of social media Example of tools
Text Discovertext
Lexalytics
Tweet
Archivist
Twitonomy
Netlytic
LIWC
Voyant
Actions Lithium
Twitonomy
Google
Analytics
SocialMediaMine
R
Network NodeXL
UCINET
Pajek Netminer
Flocker
Netlytic Reach
Mentionmapp
Mobile Countly
Mixpane
l
Google Mobile Analytics
Location Google
Fusion
Table
Tweeps
map
Trends
map
Follower
wonk
Esri
Maps
Agos
Hyperlinks Webom
etrics
Analyst
VOSON
Research Engines Google
Trends

1.Text
DiscoverText
 Purpose: Text analytics and qualitative data analysis.
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  Key Features:
o Used for analyzing social media datasets, survey responses, or other text-based inputs.
o Includes collaborative tools for tagging and categorizing text data.
o Useful for coding and sentiment analysis.

2. Lexalytics
 Purpose: Advanced text and sentiment analysis.
 Key Features:
o Provides natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment scoring.
o Identifies key themes, emotions, and trends in social media or other text data.
o Can process multiple languages.

3. Tweet Archivist
 Purpose: Twitter data collection and analysis.
 Key Features:
o Archives tweets based on keywords, hashtags, or accounts.
o Tracks tweet frequency, top users, and retweets.
o Visualizes data through word clouds and charts.

4. Twitonomy
 Purpose: Twitter analytics and reporting.
 Key Features:
o Provides detailed insights into a user’s Twitter activity.
o Tracks mentions, retweets, hashtags, and follower trends.
o Exports data for further analysis.

5. Netlytic
 Purpose: Text and social network analysis.
 Key Features:
o Designed for researchers to analyze online conversations.
o Generates visualizations of social networks.
o Performs sentiment and thematic analysis.

6. LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count)

 Purpose: Text analysis with a focus on psychological insights.
 Key Features:
o Categorizes words into emotional, social, and psychological domains.
o Useful for sentiment and psychological state analysis in social media posts or reviews.
o Provides word frequency and thematic analysis.

2.Actions

1. Lithium (Now Khoros)

 Purpose: Social media and community management.
 Key Features:
o Focuses on customer engagement and social listening.
o Analyzes conversations in online communities and social media to provide actionable
insights.
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 o Includes tools for sentiment analysis, trend identification, and customer relationship
management.
o Ideal for companies managing large-scale customer interactions.

2. Twitonomy
 Purpose: Twitter analytics.
 Key Features:
o Tracks Twitter activity, such as follower growth, mentions, retweets, and hashtags.
o Offers in-depth analysis of user engagement and tweet performance.
o Allows exporting data for further analysis.
o Frequently used by marketers and researchers to understand Twitter behavior.

3. Google Analytics
 Purpose: Website traffic and performance analysis.
 Key Features:
o Tracks social media traffic to websites and measures the ROI of social campaigns.
o Provides detailed audience insights, including demographics, behavior, and conversion
rates.
o Integrates with Google Ads and other platforms for a comprehensive analysis.
o While not a dedicated social media analytics tool, it is highly useful for tracking the impact
of social campaigns.

4. SocialMediaMineR
 Purpose: R package for social media data mining.
 Key Features:
o Allows data extraction, analysis, and visualization from social platforms (e.g., Twitter).
o Performs sentiment analysis, hashtag frequency tracking, and social network analysis.
o Suitable for researchers familiar with R programming and statistical analysis.
o Open-source, making it a cost-effective option for advanced users.

3.Networks:
NodeXL
 Purpose: Social network analysis and visualization.
 Key Features:
o A Microsoft Excel plugin for analyzing and visualizing networks.
o Handles social media data from platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
o Offers metrics like centrality, clustering, and sentiment analysis.
o User-friendly interface for beginners in network analysis.

2. UCINET
 Purpose: Social network analysis.
 Key Features:

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 o Advanced tool for analyzing and visualizing network data.
o Computes network metrics such as centrality, density, and subgroups.
o Supports various formats and data types, including matrices and edge lists.
o Preferred by researchers for its powerful analytical capabilities.

3. Pajek
 Purpose: Large-scale network visualization and analysis.
 Key Features:
o Specializes in handling large datasets with thousands of nodes and edges.
o Offers visualization tools and advanced algorithms for network simplification.
o Suitable for analyzing hierarchical and temporal network structures.
o Lightweight but powerful, ideal for researchers dealing with complex networks.

4. NetMiner
 Purpose: Interactive network analysis and visualization.
 Key Features:
o Provides a user-friendly GUI for exploring networks dynamically.
o Supports various network measures, clustering, and pattern detection.
o Offers advanced visualization techniques for large-scale networks.
o Frequently used in business and social research.

5. Flocker
 Purpose: Social media interaction and engagement analysis.
 Key Features:
o Focuses on identifying clusters of interactions in social networks.
o Visualizes user groups based on shared interests or interactions.
o Designed for social media strategists to target specific communities effectively.

Countly
 Purpose: Mobile and web analytics.
 Key Features:
o Real-time analytics for mobile apps, websites, and IoT.
o Tracks user journeys, funnels, and retention rates.

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 o Open-source and customizable, with plugins for added functionality.
o Ideal for developers and product managers aiming to improve user experiences.

2. Mixpanel
 Purpose: User behavior analytics.
 Key Features:
o Focuses on tracking user actions within apps and websites.
o Offers funnel analysis, retention tracking, and cohort analysis.
o Provides insights for optimizing user engagement and conversions.
o Commonly used in product development and marketing.

3. Google Mobile Analytics

 Purpose: Mobile app performance tracking.
 Key Features:
o Tracks user acquisition, app usage, and behavior.
o Integrates with Firebase for advanced app metrics.
o Includes features like crash reporting and in-app behavior analysis.
o Part of Google Analytics, making it widely accessible and versatile.

1. Google Fusion Tables (Discontinued as of 2019)

 Purpose: Data visualization and mapping.
 Key Features:
o Allowed users to create interactive maps and charts from large datasets.
o Supported geographic data visualization and analysis.
o Was particularly useful for blending data from different sources (e.g., Google Sheets, CSV
files).
o Discontinued: Users now rely on alternatives like Google Data Studio, Tableau, or ArcGIS
for similar functionality.

2. Tweepsmap
 Purpose: Twitter analytics with a focus on geographic insights.
 Key Features:
o Analyzes Twitter followers' locations to help with geo-targeting.
o Tracks trends, hashtags, and user engagement over time.
o Provides a detailed map of your Twitter audience by country, state, or city.
o Ideal for businesses looking to localize their campaigns based on Twitter follower
geography.

3. Trendsmap
 Purpose: Real-time Twitter trend mapping.
 Key Features:
o Visualizes Twitter trends geographically, displaying trending topics, hashtags, and mentions
in real-time.
o Shows global, national, and local trends, making it useful for identifying hot topics and
events.

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 o Ideal for journalists, marketers, and social media managers monitoring global conversations
and emerging trends.

4. Followerwonk
 Purpose: Twitter audience analysis and optimization.
 Key Features:
o Analyzes your Twitter followers and their behaviors.
o Provides insights into follower demographics, activity, and interests.
o Allows you to search Twitter bios to find influencers or users with specific keywords.
o Tracks engagement metrics and helps find optimal times to tweet.
o Great for marketers looking to grow and engage their Twitter community.

5. Esri Maps (ArcGIS)

 Purpose: Geographic Information System (GIS) for data visualization.
 Key Features:
o Provides advanced geographic data visualization and mapping tools.
o Supports geospatial analysis, heat maps, and demographic data overlays.
o Can handle large-scale, complex datasets, making it suitable for business, government, and
academic use.
o Ideal for professionals working in urban planning, environmental analysis, and location-
based social media analytics.
Additional Resources:
https://www.studocu.com/in/document/university-of-mumbai/computer-engineering/sma-notes-
sem8-comps-bw/58503850
Practice Questions:
1. What are social media analytics tools, and how do they help businesses?
2. How do social media analytics tools differ from traditional analytics tools?
3. What key features should you look for in a social media analytics tool?

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