Last night, Google Analytics and crew announced the feature of tracking social interactions within Google Analytics. The new feature lets you track people who socially engage in your content, from +1s to Facebook Likes, to commenting and Tweeting the content.

Google adds a new option to the new Google Analytics interface for “social” under the Visitors menu. The features include:

The Social Engagement report lets you see how site behavior changes for visits that include clicks on +1 buttons or other social actions. This allows you to determine, for example, whether people who +1 your pages during a visit are likely to spend more time on your site than people who don’t.
The Social Actions report lets you track the number of social actions (+1 clicks, Tweets, etc) taken on your site, all in one place.
The Social Pages report allows you to compare the pages on your site to see which are driving the highest the number of social actions.

I enabled it late last night and this morning some of the late traffic to this site showed up with social metrics. You can see some Facebook like tracking and I even enabled “commenting” as a social interaction.

Social Engagements Overall:

Social Actions:

Social Pages:

Honestly, I can’t wait to see the data after a full day of tracking.

How do you do this? There are instructions for Google +1 here and for other social tracking here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.