Let’s face it: Social media is here to stay, and day by day it continues to encroach on nearly every aspect of our online lives. But to publishers, promoters, advertisers and site owners, there’s one essential question left hanging in the air long after the race to join the social media crowd: “Is it working?”Lollapalooza Music Festival is using Event Tracking and Google Analytics to find out.Social Media Applications C3 Presents , (the folks behind Lollapalooza) came up with some good ways to capitalize. This year’s lineup page alone features a Facebook Connect application to maintain and share personal lineups, MySpace blog, bulletin and site postings, Twitter updates and email sharing, and AddThis social bookmarking.Questions to Answer Who’s using these sharing and social media outlets? Are they benefiting? Which ones are being used the most and what are their applications? Does social media make a visitor more likely to buy a ticket? Are we driving more traffic to our site as a result? Are we driving more sales and revenue? WebShare , a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant, was brought in to help implement and configure Google Analytics to help answer these questions. Measuring the impact of social media for Lollapalooza has two sides:The impact on those who use social media applications while on the site The impact of those who arrive at the site as a result of social media The Implementation Event Tracking *Actual values have been modified *Actual values have been modified Campaign Tagging *Actual values have been modified The Results Over 2/3 of the traffic referred from Facebook, MySpace and Twitter is a result of sharing applications and Lollapalooza’s messaging to its fans on those platforms. Users of the social media applications on Lollapalooza.com spend twice as much as users that don’t. “Fan Engagement” metrics such as time on site, bounce rate, page views per visit and interaction have seen significant boosts across the board as a result of social media applications. digital marketing blog .Other Resources WebShare , a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant
