Social Interactions

This developer guide describes how to measure social interactions using the Google Analytics SDK v4 for Android.

Overview

Social interaction measurement allows you to measure a user's interactions with various social network sharing and recommendation widgets embedded in your content.

Social interactions have the following fields:

Field Name	Type	Required	Description
Social Network	String	Yes	The social network with which the user is interacting (e.g. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.).
Social Action	String	Yes	The social action taken (e.g. Like, Share, +1, etc.).
Social Target	String	No	The content on which the social action is being taken (i.e. a specific article or video).

Social interaction data collected by the Google Analytics SDK v4 for Android is available via custom reports and the Core Reporting API.

Implementation

To send a social interaction to Google Analytics, use SocialBuilder as in the following example:

// Get tracker.
Tracker t = ((AnalyticsSampleApp) getActivity().getApplication()).getTracker(
    TrackerName.APP_TRACKER);

// Build and send social interaction.
t.send(new HitBuilders.SocialBuilder()
    .setNetwork(getSocialNetwork())
    .setAction(getSocialAction())
    .setTarget(getSocialTarget())
    .build());

See Advanced Configuration for details on the getTracker method.

See a Code Snippet from the Sample Application

The following snippet is an example Fragment that sends a social interaction:

package com.google.android.apps.mobileplayground;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import com.google.android.apps.mobileplayground.AnalyticsSampleApp.TrackerName;
import com.google.android.apps.mobileplayground.MobilePlayground.UserInputException;
import com.google.android.gms.analytics.GoogleAnalytics;
import com.google.android.gms.analytics.HitBuilders;
import com.google.android.gms.analytics.Tracker;

/**
 * Class to exercise Social hits.
 */
public class SocialFragment extends Fragment {

  @Override
  public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
      Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    View view = inflater.inflate(R.layout.social, container, false);

    final Button sendButton = (Button) view.findViewById(R.id.socialSend);
    sendButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
      @Override
      public void onClick(View v) {
        try {
          // Get tracker.
          Tracker t = ((AnalyticsSampleApp) getActivity().getApplication()).getTracker(
              TrackerName.APP_TRACKER);

          // Build and send social interaction.
          t.send(new HitBuilders.SocialBuilder()
              .setNetwork(getSocialNetwork())
              .setAction(getSocialAction())
              .setTarget(getSocialTarget())
              .build());
        } catch (UserInputException e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
        }
      }
    });

    final Button dispatchButton = (Button) view.findViewById(R.id.socialDispatch);
    dispatchButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
      @Override
      public void onClick(View v) {
        // Manually start a dispatch (Unnecessary if the tracker has a dispatch interval)
        GoogleAnalytics.getInstance(getActivity().getBaseContext()).dispatchLocalHits();
      }
    });
    return view;
  }

  private String getSocialNetwork() throws UserInputException {
    String result =
        ((EditText) getView().findViewById(R.id.editSocialNetwork)).getText().toString().trim();
    if (result.length() == 0) {
      throw new UserInputException(getString(R.string.socialNetworkWarning));
    }
    return result;
  }

  private String getSocialAction() throws UserInputException {
    String result =
        ((EditText) getView().findViewById(R.id.editSocialAction)).getText().toString().trim();
    if (result.length() == 0) {
      throw new UserInputException(getString(R.string.socialActionWarning));
    }
    return result;
  }

  private String getSocialTarget() {
    return ((EditText) getView().findViewById(R.id.editSocialTarget)).getText().toString().trim();
  }
}