What is the exact function of Google Analytic's "Social Settings"?

Question

I recently discovered the "Social Settings" section under Google Analytic's Admin section.

Google's explanation of this is very vague despite the fact that it apparently limits and alters how some of the reports work.

I understand the instructions: add the full URL for your social platforms AND your main domain (both the www and non-www versions I've ready elsewhere). What I don't understand is exactly WHAT doing this would change.

So my questions are: What does the social settings track? Visits to social pages, links to social pages, etc?

Exactly what reports would this effect? Just the "Social" report under "Acquisitions"?

Answer 1

I thought Google's documentation gave pretty good insight as to what the social interactions in Google Analytics does.

In short, you can implement social interactions to measure the sharing of content on your website to social networks such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and suchlike.

You can then use the data reported in Acquisition, Social as you see fit such as analysing what content on your website is most shared or most popular with your readers.

A good overview of this with implementation steps can be read at Social Media Examiner.

An advanced configuration of this can be configured from the Social Settings tab in Google Analytics. This configuration affects how Google Analytics collects social activity data for a web property and is where you can assign data from particular networks to particular web properties or exclude data as you see fit.