One audience, many values

Whether at a theatre, an exhibition or writing a blog – we all know that everyone interprets events and information differently. However, insight helps us to shape our voice for different groups in society to be meaningful and relevant.  On Monday, Paul from our team showcased the value of Google Analytics. Website analysis is a great way for understanding how audiences react towards your message. Tuesday, saw Kemi delve into the social media engagement with some useful insight into how social media opens up the world to more debate and real time information. This was a celebration of our need to be different but share our common values with others…

Just going out for the messages

Think about how you talk to your colleagues, your parents, your child or even your neighbour. We adapt our language (verbal, body, written) to whom we are talking. In our world of arts and culture marketing it’s no different. On Wednesday, Ashley nailed the value of getting a content plan in place. It’s important as part of any marketing strategy; you are thinking of how to organise your time, segment your audiences and get the most impact from your content.

SEO – computer says no

Let’s be honest, there will be some technically minded types out there reading this thinking, ‘So what?’ SEO best practice with Eva from the team served up some everyday tips on how to ensure your message reaches a wider audience. Often when you think your message is creative and brilliant, algorithms take over and the cyberspace says ‘NO’. A uniform and structured approach to keywords and content on your website will help your message gets noticed.

Here for you…

Success full teams have a ‘can-do’ approach and welcome a range of diverse opinion… people from all walks of life, with different personalities, coming together to share.  The ‘Learn from Us week’ has been a great way of showcasing the wealth of knowledge within our team, for helping you grow your audience.

For November’s first Wednesday, Kathryn from our team will be presenting on Deprivation and Social Inclusion. SIMD16, a tool that can be used to invest in those areas that need it the most, and make it easier consider your own audience engagement practice in this area.

While we are on the point of diversity and displaying the “aye” in our team – I’d like to point you to The Learning Week with Matt Lehrman series. As an audience expert and strategist, Matt brings over a fresh perspective from the USA. Join us and Matt, for the jam-packed week of thought sharing and innovation coming to a city near you!

Don’t miss these useful articles and keep an eye out for Matt taking over our airwaves next week:

• Getting more from Google Analytics
• Social Media Engagement
• Content Hacks for the Win
• SEO Best Practice
• The Learning Week Audience Development Series  
• Deprivation and Social Inclusion – An introduction to SIMD16

The post Celebrating Diversity with our team appeared first on Culture Republic.

Creating cross platform content that looks great, reads well and performs well doesn’t have to cause pain or stress. I’ve pulled together a few of my top tools that can help you get your message across.

Writing that has more punch

My new most favourite toy is the Hemmingway App. Papa Hemmingway was known for his writing style – short, sharp, not too many big words. His simplicity let the big ideas in the stories come through. The Hemmingway App will analyse your prose check your writing. It looks for long or hard-to-read sentences. It highlights passive voice, adverbs and phrases you could simplify. It also gives your writing a readability score, to keep things accessible.

Graphics that look great cross channel

I’m no designer. I fall to pieces in the face of a design tool like Photoshop. Which is why I’ve been using Canva a lot since I discovered it. Canva has a whole range of pre-set templates – for social media and lots of other publications – that you can use for your own content. Its got drag and drop functionality, which is simple enough to give you good results on the first try. It limits the number of options, which for an amateur like me is a huge help.

Images that come to life

No matter how you pronounce it (yes, it’s a thing), everybody loves a GIF. They’re fun. They tell a story in a moment. There are plenty of free GIF tools out there but I like Giphy. It has a simple interface, you can upload your own video or use a file that’s already published online. Plus Giphy offers a vast library of silly GIFs from other users that you can draw on.

via GIPHY

Keeping things together

Pre-planning your content will keep you sane when things get busy. You need to start with your own key dates and plan your push around them. There’s free planners that you can use as a template. We’re using Hubspot but there’s loads out there. There are free tools (like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck) that you can use to pre-set your messages. Make sure you’ve turned on alerts. When your content starts generating conversation, you’ll be ready to respond. Finally, don’t forget to tap into key marketing dates, annual #hashtags and holidays. This lets you make sure your plans are making the most of wider conversations online (see my earlier article on these).

Get help if you need it

You don’t have to struggle on your own! If you want to find out more about content strategy, let’s talk at the Learning Week in November. I’ll be available with Board member Colan Mehaffey to work with you 1-1 on your ideas and challenges. Remember the whole Culture Republic team are available for consultancy too. Get in touch to discuss.

The post Content Hacks for the Win appeared first on Culture Republic.

Here’s today’s instalment of digital skills and drills that will hopefully send a shockwave of electricity through your social media channels and set up your organisation in flashing neon lights. Has your Facebook engagement dropped? Wondering how you can better engage with your fans? Look no further, help is at hand! #TuesdayMotivation

#1 Pose a Question
If fans can relate to the question and you find a way to leverage people’s interests or needs, they’ll find it hard not to answer.

#2 Ask Fans to Make a Choice
A fun way to get your fans to engage with you is to publish a “this or that” post. Most of the time, those debates are good fun but be mindful of trolls. If you want to spark even more debate, you can always mix in a little controversy but avoid politics.

#3 Post When Your Fans Are Online
Check your Facebook Insights to find out when your audience is most active. By default, the dashboard shows data for when your fans are online.

Top tip: Posting late at night (when your fans are less active) isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s less competition in their feed, so the people who are active on the site are more likely to see and engage with your content. Try posting at different times to see what works best for you.

#4 Share Relevant Images
One picture is worth ten thousand words! Enough said.

#5 Engage With Other Brands
Wander the social landscape, post to other pages, and engage with brands when there’s synergy and a shared audience.

#6 Include a Call to Action
Use a call to action in every post, whether it’s to prompt a comment, share, opt in, like, RSVP, or any other action. Always tell your audience what you want them to do to encourage engagement.

#7 Boost Your Best Posts
If you have a blog post or other website content that has seen tremendous traffic, post it to your Facebook page and boost that post. Give it a modest boost of $25 and target the people who like your page and their friends.

#8 Share Industry News and Hot Topics
Even your most loyal fans are interested in more than just your business. Sharing big news from your industry will show your fans that you’re not focused solely on promoting your business.

#9 Share Content from Other Channels
Select content, videos, and images from your other social platforms (YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and so on) and share the best with your Facebook fans (and vice versa).

#10 Go on, Have a Giggle
Please lighten up!  Show some personality. Don’t overthink it. Keep your audience’s interests in mind and make sure the humour is relevant and appropriate.

In the vein of practising what I preach (also see #6), I compel you, please, for the love of digital, get in touch. It can be about anything: the weather, your favourite brew or if you need more help in the area of social media engagement. You can also get more hands-on help at our Learning Week conference.  Remember we are here for additional consultancy too. Contact us to discuss.

Shout out to www.socialmediaexaminer.com

The post Social Media Engagement appeared first on Culture Republic.

Google Analytics is a great way to help you grow your audience and generate new bookings, review your content strategy and provide insight into your campaigns. We all want to truly find our audience, Google Analytics can help. You should be using it daily, but are you? Make that change today, here are some handy tips:

Know the lingo

Ever feel a bit left out of the conversation? Get to know the lingo – it’ll help you understand what GA can do and help you make informed decisions on what the key measures mean. I’ll start with two of the basic measures that often confuse people. Bounce vs. Exit rates.

• Bounce Rate – The bounce rate has nothing to do with a ball. It’s the potential customers on your website and they might be leaving your site without finding out more about you. This is the percentage of people who go to just one page on your site and then leave. If you have a high bounce rate, there’s not enough interesting things or tabs to keep them clicking on other pages to find out more about you.
• Exit Rate – Exit rate is the page that is the percentage of people that left your site on that specific page. It could be the 1st or 31st page on your site they have looked at but, importantly, it’s the page they left on. That’s what makes it different from the bounce rate. Exit rate is useful because you can identify if pages on your site are putting people off your organisation. Or it might even flag a technical problem with the page e.g. ‘sorry this page is not loading’. Check your exit % out today.

Does your content need work?

Google Analytics is a great tool to measure the behaviour of people looking at your website. This is especially useful for your Newsletters. On Google Analytics: Click Behaviour – Site Content – All Pages. On All Pages you can search for keywords on your URL for a specified time period. You can drill down to what content is most popular on your site, what pages put people off, what is the average time spent on the page, how many unique visitors you’ve had. It’s golden information. Everyone has an idea about what content they think works for their audience, THIS IS YOUR EVIDENCE. It helps to shape content strategy going forward.

Top Tip – Give your URL pages unique names. E.g. If you are promoting ‘Google Analytics Advice’ have your URL as www.culturerepublic.co.uk/trends/googleanalyticsadvice (I’ll be checking open rates for this news piece and hope you don’t bounce or exit here, so don’t hurt my feelings :( ) not www.culturerepublic.co.uk/1234242 – this will help you to run a search for it on GA.

Set Goals on Google Analytics

Goals will tell Google when something you wanted to happen actually happens. So your websites are likely to be used to generate leads, and/or ticket sales. If you have a website where you sell tickets, you’ll want to create a final thank you or confirmation booking page for visitors to land upon once they have completed a purchase. By setting up a goal to track the thank you page – you can tell as and when someone buys your tickets. Useful for finding out your key sale times and plan to promote events accordingly.

Getting more with Google

If you would like to find out more about Google Analytics, let’s talk at the Learning Week in November.  I’d be happy to take a look at your site and give you some advice. Remember we are here for additional consultancy too. Contact us to discuss.

The post Getting more from Google Analytics appeared first on Culture Republic.

Top tips for Facebook

Here are some top tips that we’ve found useful on Facebook so far #sharingiscaring 

• Comments and shares will boost EdgeRank (Facebook’s algorithm for news feeds) more than likes or reactions
• Avoid using ‘like’ or ‘share’ in your copy
• Try to avoid bursts and lulls of activity –work on content to fill seasonal gaps
• Go for comments and shares –encourage activity with friends e.g. tagging
• Post content at the optimum time of day (6pm onwards for you)

Whether your objective is to generate leads, educate customers or raise awareness, a good strategy coupled with engaging content is the pivotal place to start on social media.

Be S M A R T:
S – Specific.
M – Measurable.
A – Attainable.
R – Relevant.
T – Time-sensitive.

Know your audience: age, sex, location, preferences, education, income…

Engaging content = generates affinity + creates impact + relates well to the times.

Top tips for Twitter

• Tweets with hashtags get double the engagement of those without
• Use no more than 2 hashtags per tweet
• Use hashtags only on tweets relevant to the topic
• Focus on the copy of the tweet first, and hashtags second –this will help you make sure the hashtags are relevant
• Always research the topic first!
• When you read the hashtag on its own does it still make sense?

Liked on LinkedIn Tips:

 Here are some of the keys to feeling loved on LinkedIn

•  Showcase your expertise: Let people out there know that you are great. There’s no use being a shrinking violet. LinkedIn is your online CV. It shows you in your best professional light. Audiences buy into knowledge and organisations with strong characters.

• Don’t be shy: When you’ve met someone at  an important meeting for the first time, link in with them. It’s normal practice and shows initiative to work with them in the future.   

• Tell, don’t SELL!: When you link in with someone, give them space to find out about you and your expertise and interests. Share content and blogs that are relevant and helpful to your audience. If you are going to private message an individual, introduce yourself. DON’T start with a sales pitch – not cool! Organisations should plan to have content that is useful and relevant to an audience. Pushing your products in connections face will backfire.

• It’s not Facebook: You can keep it professional and have fun but no-one wants to know what you had for dinner last night on LinkedIn.

See you soon on Facebook!
#loverevolution

The post We’re on Facebook! appeared first on Culture Republic.

Used well, social media can be the best tool for raising brand awareness, driving your audience to take action and telling a story which makes them connect with you. But how can you make sure that you’re picking the right channels, and that you’re posting content your audience wants to engage with?

In this interactive session with expert trainer Tala Byrne, you’ll learn how to choose the right social media channels for your organisation, best practices and tricks of the trade for making sure your content has impact on your chosen channels, and how to juggle social media tasks in your workload.

At this session, we will:

• Examine the social landscape in 2016 – we’ll look at the Snapchat phenomenon, ask is Facebook really ‘dead’ and other burning questions
• Explore the strengths and weaknesses of the main social media channels, and how to choose the right ones for you
• Learn about the main functions of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram
• Learn the rules of engagement and how to manage comments/messages effectively
• Discover what makes good content, how to choose visuals and copy that will resonate with your audience
• Create your daily toolkit – hints and tips for managing social media profiles day to day and with multiple team members
• Learn about paying to play – getting started with social media advertising to drive results
• Find out what success looks like: key metrics and benchmarks for social media results

This is the fifth in the series of Know How sessions from Culture Republic, providing practical insights for content marketers in arts and cultural organisations. 

You should attend if:

• You are in charge of social media for your organisation
• You want to refine your technique to improve your impact
• You are familiar with the different social channels but want to be more strategic
• You are looking to diversify the social media channels you’re using but are not sure which are right for you

Better practice will help you to meet your organisation’s objectives.

Just 25 places available so don’t miss out!

Agenda
1215 Registration and lunch
1250 The Social Landscape
1310 The Channels and Main Functions
1425 Rules of Engagement
1440 Content Best Practice
1520 Break
1530 Daily Management Techniques
1550 Social Media Advertising
1620 Measuring Success
1640 Q&A
1700 Finish

Meet the Trainer

Tala Byrne has over 6 years agency experience in digital marketing. Her background includes experience in all digital marketing disciplines, as well as PR and offline marketing, but her specialism and extensive experience is in social media. With experience in every aspect of social media from large scale campaigns, to influencer outreach and paid advertising across a range of platforms, Tala is always up to date with the latest social media trends.

As Social Media Manager at digital agency Dog, Tala manages the social media team.  She works across managing social media accounts for clients, delivering high quality specialist training, strategy and advertising for social media. Tala works across a wide spectrum of industries at Dog, including clients such as Curves International, DF Concerts, T in the Park, L’Oreal, Scottish Enterprise and various theatre and arts venues in Scotland.

FAQs

What can I bring to the event?

Please bring your own devices to get online.

Where can I contact the organiser with any questions?

If you have any questions prior to the event please contact us on [email protected]

What is the refund policy?

We have a 48hr cancellation policy.  If you are unable to attend the event please let us know 48hrs in advance of the event.  After this time you will not be eligible for a refund.  

The post Archived: Getting Smarter with Social Media appeared first on Culture Republic.

When you think of live streaming in the arts you might think of the pioneering work of Pilot Theatre or the live events in cinemas* from NT Live and the Royal Opera House. But the technology has come a long way in a short space of time and you can do much more with it than broadcast a performing arts event.

You don’t have to be tethered to a physical internet connection anymore. Streaming video has gone mobile, just like everything else in the digital world. Now it is a viable marketing option for businesses of all sizes.

Live streaming is a new a tool in the communications kit. Is it the right tool for the job you need to do? Here’s a laundry list of the kinds of jobs that it’s good at. Arts marketers might want to consider using live streamed video when:

• You’ve got something really significant with a broad general interest or an enthusiastic niche interest – like a celebrity appearance. It is no accident that Facebook launched Live to celebrities first, before they opened up to people and brands.
• You’ve got something important and time limited – such as a festival or a launch. For instance the Spotify House was live streamed at South By Southwest on Meerkat. The Met has been using Facebook live to build buzz and launch new exhibitions.
• You can create drama around something that has the potential to go viral. The best example so far is surely Buzzfeed using rubber bands to make a watermelon explode. Yes that happened.
• There’s something special that you can share from behind the scenes. The British Museum have given pre-launch exhibition tours via Periscope.
• It widens access. Culture Republic has been using Periscope to make our monthly First Wednesday available to people who can’t travel to the live event. We’re getting good feedback from this effort.

Just like an in-person performance, live events add a sense of urgency and risk because anything can happen. This allows your audience to enjoy the feeling of being part of something as it unfolds. They can participate from a distance, watching from anywhere and on the device that they choose.

The technology had been trickling out into the marketplace. Now the trickle has become a torrent. A benefit is that marketers don’t need to go outside of the social networks they’ve worked so hard to nurture. Let’s look at some of the newer and more mobile friendly players to the live streaming game. The leaders  are (mostly) the main players online:

• YouTube: All you need is an active YouTube channel. Because it’s a Google product, the analytics are especially strong.
• Periscope: The live streaming app from the good people who brought you Twitter. User numbers are high for Periscope. Its integration with the social network will be the biggest benefit to organisations that have built up a significant Twitter following.
• Meerkat: It was the first to launch. Meerkat is an independent live streaming app and as a result has a smaller community.
• Facebook Live: It is the newest kid on the block in the live video game. Because of the enormous number of active users it commands, organisations willing to give it a go could see real impact. Plus, Facebook help you to pre-schedule and promote streams in advance to build awareness.
• Livestream: We need to mention it because it was the pioneer in this space. It is an embeddable player that can be used on your webpage. It is not primarily a mobile to mobile tool like some of the other players above.
• Not to fall behind, Vimeo is planning its own live streaming product later this year.

Make your decision based on where your community is, or where the community you want to serve is. Each channel offers different features and benefits, but it’s all a bit of an arms race. Expect constant change and innovation around these services. It’s likely  that even if the channel you’ve chosen doesn’t offer specific functionality this may be only temporary.

To get started you don’t need much in the way of special experience or equipment. A phone or tablet with the app installed for Facebook, Meerkat or Periscope. YouTube takes a bit more effort but they explain it all. You absolutely need a reliable, strong wifi or phone signal. For novice broadcasters, Poynter has a top ten list with great advice on the basics.

Streaming is a playful new tool that’s still developing, which means there’s lots of room for low risk trial and error. Arts marketers that know their audience will have an advantage deciding whether to, when to and how to use live streaming video. If you want to learn more about your on and offline audiences we can help. Just get in touch.

*If you are interested in the wider impact on audiences from live streaming into cinemas, try the Arts Council England review Understanding Event Cinema and watch for the upcoming research report on the live-to-digital market for theatre.

The post Live from your mobile! appeared first on Culture Republic.

So, we all know it’s important to have a presence on the platform but how do you make the most of your tweets and ensure your content is heard above everyone else’s? For the first in our series of Know How events we invited Stephanie Lindsay, Head of Marketing at Dog, to show us how.

Here, we’ve summarised some of Stephanie’s guidance on creating engaging tweets and planning ahead for an effective Twitter strategy. We’ve also included some examples from Scotland’s cultural sector to illustrate Stephanie’s advice:

Increasing engagement

Getting your message across in 140 characters can be tough but Stephanie recommended keeping it even shorter. According to Twitter, tweets of less than 100 characters perform better than longer ones. Images, videos and links will also help you to stand out in people’s feeds and boost your engagement. In fact you’re 35 percent more likely to be retweeted if you include a photo. Using popular hashtags is another great way to spread your message further. But don’t use too many or you’ll create too much clutter and risk annoying followers – keep it to no more than three per tweet.

This tweet from Glasgow Tramway, which generated close to 300 retweets and 253 likes, is a great example of how to do a lot in under 100 characters. The message is clear and succinct. They’ve also included an eye-catching image and have used two well established hashtags, bringing in an even wider audience:

#TurnerPrize 2015.. The winner is assemble… Congratulations from #Glasgow pic.twitter.com/COLQxIUIsZ

— Glasgow Tramway (@GlasgowTramway) December 7, 2015

Unlike some other social media platforms, such as Facebook, the more you post the better. Because Twitter is so fast-paced, you can share more on it. Stephanie advocated tweeting at least 3 – 8 times a day. She also said that we shouldn’t be afraid to duplicate tweets as 90 percent of all engagement happens in the 60 minutes of a tweet’s life. If your tweet doesn’t get any engagement in the first hour it probably won’t get any at all. In this instance Stephanie suggested rewording it slightly and resending it at a later time.
Content Planning

To ensure that you have an interesting and active Twitter feed you need to think in advance and schedule in a content plan ahead of time. The first thing is to identify your audience. Stephanie stressed the need to think about the people you’re currently communicating with, as well as those you aspire to talk to. Use analytics to find out what your followers are interested in, where they come from and how they engage with Twitter. Then use this information to inform your planning.

You should also set some objectives. What are the products, events or activities you want to raise awareness of? When planning your content themes it’s also crucial to consider what your target audiences are interested in and what they want to know from you. Stephanie recommended thinking about seasonal themes and how you can tap into them too. Check out our recent blog on marketing calendars for some useful resources to help with this.

Last year Edinburgh Book Festival planned ahead to make the most of the festive period with a “12 books of Christmas” give-away on Twitter. The competition incentive helped to generate 364 retweets:

DAY3 of our 12 Books of Christmas comp! Flw + RT before 5pm to win Robert Douglas-Fairhurst's The Story of Alice pic.twitter.com/OUArnqHV5s

— Edinburgh Book Fest (@edbookfest) December 3, 2015

Whilst it’s good to plan ahead as much as possible you can’t prepare for everything. Stephanie emphasised that Twitter needs to be reactive and spontaneous too. You’ll have to develop content in reaction to feedback and questions from your followers too. Interacting with your online audiences is a great way of saying thanks for their support and encouraging their loyalty.

In this example Scottish Book Trust reacted quickly to the news of David Bowie’s death:

David Bowie's top 100 books. Another gift left behind on earth by a truly great artist: https://t.co/gDh9tqYN9a. pic.twitter.com/FmAjSBpycf

— Scottish Book Trust (@scottishbktrust) January 11, 2016

This tweet resulted in an impressive 836 retweets and 1,495 likes. Importantly, Scottish Book Trust managed to become part of the wider conversation on Twitter in a way that was relevant to their brand and followers.

Our Know How series continues on Tuesday 22 March with a practical, hand-on session exploring podcast production. Led by expert trainers from Inner Ear this session will show you how to use podcasts as an effective tool to captivate your audience.

And don’t forget we’re here to help. If you’re looking to measure the reach and impact of your social media activity, or want to identify who your online audiences are get in touch – we’d love to hear from you.

The post The recipe for success in 140 characters appeared first on Culture Republic.

The good people at Experian have published their annual Marketing Insights Calendar and it’s free for you and me (after you share a few personal details – they are marketers after all) to download and use.

What we like about it is, it’s focused on the UK market rather than the USA (setting it apart from many other planners you find floating around the internet). Plus, in addition to major holidays and nationally significant events, each month features useful reminders drawn from Hitwise: an Experian  data product that measures online trends and provides data on visitor and search behaviour. Lateral thinking arts marketers can put their creativity to work on the more obscure titbits – April’s upturn in searches for ISAs, anyone? But you don’t have to contort your brain very much to see the relevance of May 23rd’s note that there’s an uptick in searches for travel planning or June 6th’s that “online research for music festivals begins”.

People will be travelling to your town and may be looking for your event – make sure your website and search optimisation are ready! Help those early bookers by making sure your tickets are available to buy online, and in a perfect world you’ll make sure your payment interface doesn’t create barriers for international bookers. Make sure your location and phone number are tickety boo on Google Maps and that you’ve provided great driving, parking and public transport information.

Don’t forget to plan for local audiences and events too. If you make family friendly work or have courses for young people, you’ll want look out the school holidays calendar and make sure you’ve got something on for those families searching for something fun to fill the afternoons. As it’s almost Valentines Day and because we love you here are links to Scotland’s six city’s school holidays: Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Stirling. You’re welcome.

Other marketing planners are out there, and you might want to mix and match. The team at Cognique have a nice mix of cultural and sporting events in their 2016 planner and the Creative Composite include a helpful mix of multicultural holiday dates in their calendar, which you won’t want to forget.

We don’t yet know when the European referendum will be but it’ll likely come to us in either June or September so don’t forget to plan for that one once it’s set. And, none of these planners include the Scottish Parliamentary Elections on 6 May either – so don’t forget to pencil that one in.

Holidays and polling days like these as well as international sporting events like this summer’s Olympics and Paralympic Games in Rio will provide major media (social and the normal kind) flashpoints. The savvy content marketers amongst you can start thinking now if there are any creative content tie ins or promotional opportunities to be had from these. Perhaps one or more of this summer’s athletes are from your town? Or maybe you can offer a killer dinner-and-a-show package for Mother’s Day? Now’s the time to plan to make the most of these opportunities.

You can get more ideas by poking around Google Trends. It’ll tell you what the biggest stories were from 2015 and give you insights into the key search terms in your area of work. Our favourite is the graph for festivals. The seasonal zig zag chart tells you everything you need to know about when festivals are at peak relevance – and when they’re not.

Happy planning!

The post What’s the plan Stan? 2016 marketing calendars to plan your work appeared first on Culture Republic.

Keep your data clean:

It’s important to filter out your own IP address and any Spam Traffic. This ensures that your analytics are an accurate reflection of your website’s reach and impact. If you don’t you’ll be measuring irrelevant visits to your site and important stats, such as Bounce Rates and Conversions, will become skewed.

Make it easier for yourself:

Google Analytics has lots of features that make it easier for you to find, and make sense of, data that’s relevant to you.  Dashboards, for example, provide a single page overview of your key reports so you can quickly visualise the data. They’re straight-forward to create and customisable so you can set them up for what matters most to you.

Annotations are another simple way of ensuring your data is easily understandable. This function allows you to mark notes on your analytics showing when important events took place, such as an email campaign or a website outage. This means that when you look back over time you’ll be able to attribute any spikes or dips in your traffic to those specific events.

Dig into your data:

Within Google Analytics you can also drill-down further to get more detailed analysis. Secondary Dimensions, for instance, are a simple to use filter that instantly puts more context on your data. You can also segment your data to isolate and compare different users, or set up custom reports from scratch to get a greater breakdown of data. There’s a wealth of detailed audience information available once you know how to find it.

Do more with your data:

There’s not much point collecting and analysing all these figures if you don’t then use them to inform your marketing strategy. There are lots of functions within Google Analytics that can help you with this. You can set-up and track specific events, goals or transactions, allowing you to measure website engagement in relation to your business objectives.  You can even assign monetary value to your goals giving you a more tangible way of measuring changes and improvements on your site. By tracking interactions in this way you will identify the high value content on your website, meaning you can make informed decisions about how you spend your time.

Brian emphasised that whilst the amount of information available on Google Analytics might seem overwhelming at first, it’s worth pursuing as the possibilities are endless!

If you would like support with your website tracking, or are looking to develop your website and don’t know where to start, get in touch.

The post How to REALLY use Google Analytics appeared first on Culture Republic.