My understanding and from what I can tell it is true social networking / social media tracking, everything from Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ Circles, Digg, Redit, etc.  Just when you thought there was nothing new in web analytics, this comes along, and it was about time.  Despite the fact that I am not that keen on using social networking, tracking how well they are working is critical to understanding if they work at all, because there is sometimes  evidence sometimes it does not work well for ecommerce, but that is to be determined.

So next time you see the LIKE button on a website, and you click it, and you are logged into a social network, that information will automatically be tracked in Google.  I guess what is next is they will know when we wake up and fall asleep… maybe.

How do you see these new analytics in Google Analytics?

You have to switch over to NEW VERSION.     I noticed this click-able highlighted line in red at the top of my browser while looking over Google Analytics this morning.  Once you click over to the new version, you have to select an existing site you have in the system.  Once you click on a site, you will see a new layout of the data and that is where you will notice new stuff on the left and a different layout.  It’s under VISITORS, that you will see the word SOCIAL.  If you click on SOCIAL, you will see a couple new areas that represent “Social Engagement”.  They break it down to Engagement, Action and Pages.  I am still trying to figure this out, but apparently if somebody clicks that “LIKE” button for Twitter, Facebook and Google then you have socially engaged them…  This means that all your previous traffic is not social engaged.

That’s it for now!  Good luck figuring out how to analyze your Social Engagement!