How Social Media Analytics Can Inform Content Strategies

Abstract

Social media has become a strategic tool for businesses and nonprofit organizations to connect with audiences. However, no comprehensive framework exists to support the continued improvement of social media outcomes. This work draws on prior studies related to social media analytics and user engagement to develop an overarching, analytics-driven process for social content strategy development and improvement. The process provides firms with a set of procedures to regularly assess competitors’ and possibly their own content topic posting activities. It then outlines steps to measure the influence of content topics and post characteristics on engagement outcomes and use the garnered insights to drive future posting activities. A proof-of-concept case in the healthcare context is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed process.