Powered by BackType, a social analytics company Twitter recently acquired, Twitter Web Analytics provides users with three primary benefits:
1. How much traffic is generated by Twitter.
2. The performance of Tweet buttons.
3. How much of their content is being shared through the platform.
This program, currently in beta testing with a small group, is free and will be available to the public in a few weeks, along with an API for developers.
So how can you use this tool to your law firm’s advantage, and how is it different from your current social media analytics? Most likely, you use tracking on any links you share (if you don’t, you really should get on that!). However, this goes beyond tracking just the links that have been opened. This tool will be able to track what content from your website is being shared on Twitter, regardless of who sent it. And while Google Analytics could show you Twitter traffic, it couldn’t show you how it got to Twitter to begin with. Now, you can see who is sharing your content and the methods they are using to do so. This could provide some great insight as to what is really driving traffic your way and how you can capitalize on this.
With regard to the other two primary benefits, these are already easily accomplished by Google Analytics. However, with your Twitter stats now coming directly from Twitter, there may be something deeper to be gleaned from the information, so we’ll just have to wait and see if there is added benefit that could somewhat weaken the Google powerhouse.
Twitter recently made another move to edge in on Google: teaming up with Facebook to link profiles, notably excluding Google+ from the equation—no pun intended. Google+ is Google’s way of adapting to the world of social media, but it will be interesting to see how Google Analytics adapts to Twitter Web Analytics. Google Analytics could adapt by providing more detailed information on social media, or if the goliath does nothing, Twitter Web Analytics could steal a piece of the market. With Twitter’s 100 million users and continuous growth, (a data center will be added in Atlanta to create even more server space,) it may prove to be a force to be reckoned with.
Yet one of the biggest issues with Twitter, and social media in general, is that it can be somewhat difficult to show true ROI. Now, with Twitter Web Analytics, Twitter is making it that much easier for a legal marketer to illustrate exactly what social media is producing for their law firm as well as helping them focus their efforts where they can get the most bang for the tweet.