Social media analytics helps companies understand customer sentiment and trends from social media interactions to better meet customer needs. It allows companies to form, understand, and leverage online communities for business goals. Some key factors analyzed through social media analytics include engagement, reach, demographics, traffic sources, and interactions. The analytics process involves extracting relevant social media posts and profiles, participating to advance strategic goals, analyzing the data, and assimilating findings to identify best practices. While many companies don't fully understand how to effectively use social media analytics, areas like marketing, communications, and PR are mostly responsible for social media strategy development.