Trending hashtags allow a company to gather valuable metrics, metrics that can then be used to make decisions. It is important to listen in on social media in an effective way. After listening, a company can move on to set goals and benchmarks in order to monitor and measure their social media efforts. (Module 3, n.d.). I will be discussing the trending #SFGiants used in the example Twitter snapshot report on Unionmetrics.com (Union Metrics Support, 2017). I will look at what the data says about the topic and what it means to the company. I will also talk about recommendations moving forward.
There is a credible way to listen in to conversations on social media in order to glean valuable information from the metrics. Using trending hashtags you can observe which communities are talking about you and what they are saying. You can observe what your fans think you are doing right and how you can make improvements. Most importantly, listening will allow a company to set goals moving forward (Module 3, n.d.).
For the #SFGiants topic, we learn that the reach is 1,813,508. This is the number of unique Twitter accounts that received information containing the SF Giants hashtag (Union Metrics Support, 2017). While this is impressive, you have to be careful not to let high numbers for to your head. This is a vanity metric, a metric that only makes you feel like you are doing well but has no translation to success unless tied to another metric. For example, you reached 1,000,000 people and 10,000 of them followed the link you shared therefor you had a 1% click-through (Harper, 2015).
Tweet activity is a helpful metric because you can observe at what time of day your followers are most actively talking about you. For #SFGiants the most active time was 11pm. (Union Metrics Support, 2017). Knowing this, you can make sure someone from your company is live on Twitter to interact with fans at that time. Finally, it is important to track your contributor metrics. This shows you who is most actively talking about your hashtag, and how many potential people will receive your message based on their following. It was not surprising to see that the top contributor for #SFGiants was @SFGiants, because self promotion is important on social media. Knowing the next top contributors will help @SFGiants know who can be potential influencers. (Union Metrics, 2017).
After listening in to who is talking about #SFGiants on Twitter, I would recomment that @SFGiants be active on Twitter around 11PM and also during events like games and drafts. I would recommend they focus on their top contributors and see what they are talking about using the hashtag, and encourage them to promote the brand. I would not focus on total impressions.
Harper, B. (2015, April 09). Social vanity metrics: The top 4 worst offenders. Retrieved from Social Media Today website: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/2015-04-09/social-vanity-metrics-top-4-worst-offenders
Module 3: Module Notes: Basic Social Media Measurement. (n.d.). In Excelsior College. Retrieved from https://excelsior.instructure.com/courses/15614/pages/module-3-module-notes-basic-social-media-measurement?module_item_id=1347131
Union Metrics Support. (2017, October 5). Union Metrics Help. In Union Metrics. Retrieved from https://unionmetrics.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201201556-Understanding-the-TweetReach-snapshot-report
DJ Snickel 
