Product development is an all-encompassing procedure that takes an idea from its inception stage to its complete life cycle of development, implementation, and market availability.

Social Media Analytics for Product Development

A new product idea should be well researched every step of the way to ensure that its feasibility in the market is relevant at all times.

The process of developing an idea into a product goes through several phases of its life cycle, such as:

1. Generating and screening ideas – collecting new ideas and screening them to eliminate non-feasible ones.
2. Concept testing – check for patents or other legalities involved in developing the idea.
3. Designing the idea
4. Development – starts with a minimum viable product of the idea wherein the core concept of the idea is developed first.
5. Testing and validating the new product
6. Marketing strategy – developing a strategy on how to market the new product.
7. Business analysis – which includes building a system of metrics to measure and monitor the progress of your product.
8. Test marketing – test the business strategies in a limited set of markets.
9. Commercialization – introduction of the new product in the market.

In this article, we will see how the influence of social media analytics affects the product development process. Social media analytics involves collecting and analyzing data from various social media sites and blogs to make a business decision. Social media analytics help spot trends and discern what is working and what is failing about a given product.

Role of Social Media Analytics in the Growth of your Product

Social media is a powerful tool when harnessed and put to good use. It’s important to understand how social media analytics can help in gauging the power of various platforms for the growth of your business.

The metrics that are derived from these platforms help spot trends and develop a comprehensive strategy on how to take your business forward.

Analyzing multiple metrics and combining them with experience and expertise can help you understand the needs of your customer better, which in turn helps improve your efficiency in serving your customers.

Advantages of using social media analytics include:

1. Delivering a personalized customer experience.
2. Making informed business decision-making capabilities.
3. Streamlining operations
4. Mitigating risks and setbacks ahead of time.
5. Enhancing security.
6. Monitoring the competition

Many metrics are derived from the data obtained from social media, which can help grow your business.

Product Metrics

Key product metrics that can be used to measure product development using social media analytics can be broadly divided into Awareness metrics, Engagement metrics, Conversion metrics, and Customer metrics.

Awareness Metrics:

These metrics help identify your current and potential audience.

1. Brand Awareness – highlights the attention that your post or brand receives across social media for a specified period. This metric is derived by monitoring the number of shares, likes, mentions, and impressions received for each post. There are brand monitoring tools available to help track this metric.
2. Audience Growth Rate – measures the rate at which your brand or post attracts followers. This metric is also calculated for a specified period.
3. Post Reach – indicates the number of people who have seen the post or site since its launch.
4. Social Share of Voice – measures the number of people who have mentioned your post or site on social media, which can be either directly (by using @ tag) or indirectly (without @ tag).

Engagement Metrics: These metrics indicate how people interact with your post or the content of your site.

1. Applause Rate – measures the number of likes on your content, monitored for a specific period. This metric helps in determining the percentage of your followers who value your content or post.
2. Average Engagement Rate – measures the number of engagement actions on the post, such as shares, likes, or comments, in comparison to the total number of your followers. A high engagement rate indicates that you are very popular among your followers.
3. Amplification Rate – is the measure of shares per post to the total number of followers.
4. Virality Rate – measures the ratio of the number of people who shared your post to the number of unique views received during a specified period.

Conversion Metrics:

These metrics indicate the effectiveness of your social engagement.

1. Conversion Rate – number of visitors who took actionable steps on your site or post. Actionable steps include subscriptions, downloads, and registrations, for example. This metric is compared to the total number of visitors to the page.
2. Click-through Rate (CTR) – measures how often people click on an actionable link on the site/post. This value is not the same as the number of shares, likes, or comments on a post. It’s specific to a link that takes the visitor to additional content on the site/post.
3. Bounce Rate – indicates the measure of your social media traffic. It indicates the percentage of visitors who leave the page immediately without performing any actionable steps—the lower the bounce rate, the better.

Customer Metrics:

measures the pulse of the customer about your site or post.

1. Customer Testimonials are customer reviews, endorsements, and comments.
2. Customer Satisfaction Score: or CSAT score is a measure of customer satisfaction or happiness score about your product.

Conclusion

Social media analytics can help improve the performance of your company, product, and customer engagement. Armed with the right information, you can march forth and conquer the market with the right strategies at the right time.

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