Twitter has grown into the third largest social networking site after Myspace and Facebook. It has become a very successful online marketing tool that is generating lots of website traffic and growing brands worldwide. But how do you measure and improve your success on Twitter? Thanks to Twitter’s open API, several free tools for Twitter analytics are now available that help analyze and improve your performance. These are the first generation of Twitter analytics tools, which will continue to mature and grow as adoption and demand increases.
Here are 5 Analytics Tools You Need to Succeed on Twitter:
Web analytics measures how visitors reach and interact with your website. It is popular and important to measure quantitative data such as the number of visitors to your site. Google Analytics and most other web analytics packages focus on this aspect.
Yet qualitative data is often neglected. It can be collected through surveys, feedback forms, direct, and online social interaction. It tells you so much about your visitors that quantitative web analytics cannot. If you don’t collect it and use it to optimize your website, you are missing a big opportunity.
So how do you measure and use qualitative web analytics?
As the mobile web continues to grow, individuals and organizations are increasingly adding mobile as a core marketing communications channel. A strong benefit of the digital channel is detailed measurement about how visitors interact. It is of no surprise then that the demand for mobile web analytics continues to grow proportionally to the popularity of mobile. Some major technical hurdles are being smoothed out, and the mobile web analytics space is beginning to mature. If you are starting out or involved in the mobile channel, identifying the right analytics vendor is one of the top priorities.
Here is an overview of the leading Mobile Web Analytics Vendors today:
The great thing about open source systems such as WordPress and Firefox is the community that creates very useful plugins, extensions, and add-ons. Open source eliminates the barrier in understanding and solving the needs of the user base. It is of no surprise that WordPress has become a huge success, with their community created extensions filling any gaps in their core offerings.
Web analytics plugins having been gaining more attention and traction on WordPress. Here are four great WordPress Web Analytics Plugins:
These are the best online marketing blogs I have come across on the web. This list continues to grow with marketing resources I find particularly useful. The list is divided into SEO, Web Analytics, Social Media, and General Internet Marketing.
SEO
Daily SEO Tip - Informative SEO Tipcs by Ann Smarty and Loren Baker
Graywolf SEO - Popular and unique SEO blog by Michael Gray
SEO Book - Good readability, design, and content for SEO
SEOmoz - A dominant and very popular SEO blog
Alltop - Search engine headlines and articles from major SEO blogs
Search Engine Roundtable - The pulse of the search marketing community
Search Engine Land - A popular news site about search engines and search marketing
SEO Scoop - A community based SEO blog
Search Engine Journal - A search marketing journal updated several times each day
Web Analytics Blogs
Google Analytics Blog - The latest news, tips, and resources straight from the Google Analytics team
Occam’s Razor - My favorite web analytics blog by Avinash Kaushik
Immeria - An immersion in web analytics by Web Analytics Advocate Stephane Hamel
Web Analytics Demystified Blog - A leading education, guidance, and thought leadership blog
Omniture - The official blog of the leading web analytics tool in terms of market share
Web Analytics World - Manoj Jasra has some great insights and posts on web analytics
Anil Batra’s Web Analytics - Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising blog
Marketing Productivity Blog -Web analytics blog by a web analytics leader
Social Media
Mashable - By far my favorite social media blog, updated frequently and full of unique content
TechCrunch - Profiles, reviews, and news a wide range of interesting digital media products and companies
Read Write Web - Web technology analysis, reviews, and news
The Foush - The adventures of a new media strategist involved with the Obama campaign
Social Media Today - A social media and web 2.0 blog
PR 2.0 - The latest in social media, PR, and Web 2.0
The Viral Garden - Mack Collier’s influential marketing/social media blog
General
TopRankBlog - My favorite general internet marketing blog on the intersection of digital PR, social and search engine marketing
Seth Godin - One of the most popular blogs on the internet (with good reason), covering many marketing aspects
ProBlogger - Darren Rowse offers blogging strategies and tips for both novice and veteran bloggers
Copy Blogger - Copywriting tips for online marketing success
