Social Media Analytics for Genealogists: What Are They Actually Telling You?
Have you ever opened your social media analytics and immediately wondered what you were supposed to be looking at?
Reach. Views. Impressions. Engagement. Watch time. Clicks. Followers. Percentages. Little green and red arrows.
There's a lot happening on that screen.
And if social media isn't your full-time job, it's easy to decide that understanding all those numbers can wait for another day.
But here's the good news: you don't need to understand every number to learn something useful from your analytics.
In fact, before we spend any time talking about what reach means or whether impressions still matter, I think we need to start somewhere else.
We need to change the way we think about analytics.
Your Analytics Aren't a Report Card
One of the easiest traps to fall into is treating social media analytics like a grade.
Reach went up? Great!
Followers went down? Uh-oh.
That post only received four likes? Apparently nobody cared.
But those numbers don't tell you whether you're good or bad at social media.
They're clues about how people are interacting with what you're sharing.
And for those of us sharing genealogy and history online, those clues can be incredibly useful.
A family historian might discover that relatives rarely respond to posts about research findings but suddenly start commenting when an old family photograph appears.
A professional genealogist might notice that a simple post explaining a common research problem gets shared more often than a post promoting a service.
A genealogical society might discover that people scroll past another meeting announcement but enthusiastically respond when they're asked about the surnames they're researching.
None of those results automatically means you should stop sharing research findings, promoting services, or announcing meetings.
Instead, they give you something much more valuable:
a reason to get curious.
Start Asking Why
This is where analytics become interesting.
Instead of looking at a successful post and thinking, That one did well, ask yourself:
Why?
What was different about it?
Was there a photograph?
Did you tell a story instead of simply sharing information?
Did you ask people a question?
Was the topic particularly helpful?
Did people share it with others?
Did it spark memories or make someone want to tell their own story?
Sometimes the answer will be obvious. Other times, you'll need to watch what happens over several posts before you begin seeing a pattern.
That's okay.
You're not trying to solve a math problem.
You're learning about the people on the other side of the screen.
What Can Analytics Help You Learn?
Once you stop looking at analytics as a score, they become much more interesting.
You can start looking for patterns.
And those patterns can help you answer some surprisingly useful questions about the people you're trying to reach.
What Makes People Stop Scrolling?
Think about your own social media habits. You probably scroll past dozens of posts without giving them much thought. Then something catches your attention.
Your audience does the same thing.
Maybe an old photograph consistently gets more attention than a graphic filled with text. Perhaps personal stories get people talking. Maybe short research tips are frequently shared or saved.
Your analytics can help you spot those patterns.
That doesn't mean every post needs to look exactly like your most popular one. It simply gives you another clue about what catches your audience's attention.
What Gets People Talking?
For me, this is especially important in the genealogy community.
We're not just trying to collect likes. We're trying to create connections and conversations around family history.
Pay attention to the posts that make people respond.
Did you ask a question about childhood memories?
Share an ancestor's story that reminded someone of their own family?
Ask what everyone is currently researching?
Invite people to share a surname or location?
Those conversations tell you something that a follower count never could. They show you what your community wants to talk about.
What Does Your Audience Find Helpful?
Sometimes people don't comment at all, but they're still telling you something.
They may save a research tip for later. Share a resource with another genealogist. Click a link to read an article. Watch your entire video without leaving a comment.
That's why it's important not to judge a post by likes alone.
A post with five likes that sends ten people to a helpful resource might be more valuable to you than a post with fifty likes that doesn't lead anywhere else.
It all depends on what you wanted that post to accomplish.
What Should You Do More Of?
This might be my favorite thing analytics can tell us.
You don't always need another new content idea.
Sometimes the answer is already sitting in something you've shared.
If people responded well to a post about an ancestor's occupation, could you share another occupational story?
If a cemetery research tip was saved and shared, is there another cemetery tip you could teach?
If your followers loved seeing something from your society's collection, what else could you bring out of the archives?
Instead of constantly asking:
What am I going to post next?
Your analytics can help you ask:
What has my audience already told me they'd like more of?
And that can make creating social media content a whole lot simpler.
What Analytics Can't Tell You
There's another side of this that I think is important, especially for the genealogy community.
Not everything valuable can be measured.
A family member might see an ancestor story you shared and never click Like, but call you three weeks later because it reminded them of something Grandma used to say.
Someone might discover a genealogical society through Facebook, quietly follow for six months, and eventually decide to become a member.
A potential client might read several of a professional genealogist's posts before ever reaching out for help.
None of that necessarily appears neatly in your analytics.
That's why I don't want us spending September learning how to chase numbers.
We're learning how to use the information we have without allowing the numbers to become the goal.
Social media is ultimately about people.
Analytics simply give us another way to understand how those people are connecting with what we share.
Your Five-Minute Analytics Check
After all this talk about analytics, you might be expecting me to send you off to start recording numbers in a spreadsheet.
Not yet.
Your first step is much simpler.
Choose one social media platform you use regularly and find its analytics or insights.
Then give yourself five minutes to explore.
Don't worry about understanding everything you see. Don't compare your numbers to someone else's account. And don't start deciding which posts were good or bad.
Just look around.
Notice what information the platform gives you.
Can you see which posts reached the most people?
Can you tell which posts received comments, shares, saves, or clicks?
Can you see anything about the people following you?
Are there numbers or terms you don't understand?
That's enough for this week.
The goal isn't to become an analytics expert in five minutes. It's simply to become a little more comfortable opening that dashboard and looking around.
Because next time you open it, it won't feel quite so unfamiliar.
We're Just Getting Started
Throughout September, we're going to keep building on what we learned today.
We'll look at where to find analytics on the different social media platforms, what some of those numbers actually mean, and eventually, how to take what you've learned and use it to make decisions about future content.
One step at a time.
Because understanding your analytics shouldn't make social media more complicated.
It should help make social media simpler.
And before you go, I could use your help.
What's Confusing You?
What's the one thing about social media analytics that you don't understand or wish someone would explain more simply?
Maybe you don't know the difference between reach and impressions. Maybe you're wondering whether follower count really matters. Or perhaps you aren't even sure where to find your analytics.
Leave a comment or send me a message and tell me.
I'll use your questions to help shape the rest of this month's analytics series.
And until then, remember this week's Simple Shift:
Your analytics aren't a report card. They're clues.
Start looking for what they're trying to tell you. 🔎
Comments