I’ve been a little quiet this week, due to being very busy with monthly and quarterly reports… I ❤ data!

Even if you don’t do regular reporting (which I do recommend) the end of the first quarter of the calendar year is a great time to take stock of your digital and social media progress.

Look at:

Your website:

• is traffic trending upwards from the dip that many business websites experience over the festive break?
• are there any patterns in visitation? For example does your website attract more traffic on the weekend or weekdays?
• if there are traffic spikes, what was the cause? Was it a particular piece of content, email campaign etc, and can it be replicated this quarter?
• where is most of your traffic coming from? Organic search, referral, social… And which group appears to be the most engaged? You may get a smaller amount of visitors from social, but if they’re the ones spending longer on site, enquiring, buying etc, then they are very valuable! It’s not all about quantity…
• what pages are being viewed most? If particular blog posts are standing out, could further blog posts about the same topic be created and shared?
• if you have Goal tracking set up, how’s it going? If not, what goals could you set up onsite? eg online enquiries, document downloads, subscriptions, purchases etc

Your social channels:

• have likes/followers/subscribers grown over the quarter?
• how many times have you posted updates to each channel? If it’s a bit erratic, set a plan to regularly publish updates this quarter (and beyond)
• what types of updates are getting the best responses? And look at the non-visual metrics like link clicks as well. Many people read useful articles that businesses share on social without liking
• or commenting. Plan to create/collate/share more of the types of content that are doing well with your communities, and keep in mind that they may differ on different channels.
• and this is more housekeeping than metrics, but are all of your social profiles up to date? Now is a great time to review your bio/about info, and refresh your profile or header pic.

Finally, looking at the numbers is great, but not if you don’t DO anything with it! Try to select a couple of actions you can take based on the past quarter’s results.

And here’s to an awesome next quarter!