Whether you are new to the social media marketing game or not, one huge aspect that you need to be familiar with from the get go is analytics.
Why use social media analytics tools?
According to a recent report from Demand Metric and Netbase, marketers find social media analytics tools most valuable for helping with campaign tracking, brand analysis, and competitive intelligence. 66% of the respondents say that the most valuable insights from social media analytics tools are those that are used to help assess the degree of engagement. A large number also use social media analytics tools for customer care (36%), product launches (32%), and influence ranking (27%).
The long and short of it is that analytics can be used to help you dial in your social media strategy by learning important key factors about how your audience behaves. Paying close attention to what your audience desires to consume will help put you ahead of the game.
There are a many great analytical platforms and tools out there. You should take your time when deciding and see what is right for you and your needs. Most of these tools offer a free trial version, which is advantageous for starting your social media analytics endeavor.
These 5 tools, in no particular order, are a must try for any social media marketer.
Simply measured has the ability to track analytics for many different social media platforms. These platforms include Facebook, Vine, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube. The reports supplied by Simply Measured are extremely user friendly, easy to read, and navigable. They can be exported as a PDF, Excel, or even PowerPoint for easy visual sharing. They offer a free or trial version that will allow up to three free reports in a 24 hour period.
2. SproutSocial
SpoutSocial offers a variety of different reports which should make your marketing team (or yourself if you are a one man show) giddy with delight. They also offer a built in customer relationship management (CRM) feature with helpdesk functionality. This makes it ideal for companies that have a greater need for organizing their CRM questions, complaints, and follow ups. This add-on is a paid feature offered by SproutSocial.
3. HootSuite
Similar to the first two, HootSuite will manage all your social accounts from it’s dashboard allowing you to schedule your social media posts with ease. In addition to scheduling posts and following up with your social media efforts, the build in analytic tools will keep you up to date on where you stand.
4. TweetDeck
Unlike most of the other tools that we have discussed, TweeDeck comes with both a web and desktop application to help with monitoring of analytics of your Twitter account. Thier sole focus, however, is your Twitter account. TweetDeck’s dashboard can be customized with many different variations to see all the most important factors of using Twitter in one place. This is an awesome tool if you are a heavy Twitter user, or your social media efforts are predominantly focused on your Twitter account.
5. Buffer
Buffer is a terrific and very popular social media scheduling application. Buffer allows you to stagger posts throughout the day in order to keep your social media feeds busy, alive and fresh. They also have in depth analytics that will show you a range of metrics anywhere from engagement to the read of your posts.
Both developing and launching a social media strategy can be a daunting task, especially if you really don’t know what works. The above tools are out there to help you manage your time and figure out what works best for your company’s social media plan.
If the above weren’t enough, here is a list of a few more you should check out.
-
Followerwonk – Twitter specific that shows detailed breakdowns of your followers and activity. See stats like when your followers are online, when you typically post, and how your followers fall into categories like social authority, activity, total tweets, and follower count.
-
ViralWoot – Pinterest specific tool that schedules pins, promotes your pins, and gains followers via ViralWoot. The free plan shows new followers, new pins, and new likes. The paid plan users have the option to receive pin alerts when content from your website gets pinned.
-
GoogleAnalytics – Great for analyzing website traffic. The tool also allows you to dig into the referral stats of your social media marketing as well.
-
SumAll – Ability to manage all your major social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc). SumAll analytics can either be viewed on it’s web dashboard, or inside of a daily or weekly email report.
-
Tailwind – Another Pinterest specific tool that helps with optimization and scheduling of pins. Tailwind also gives you insights into both your Pinterest profile and the Pinterest popularity of your website.
Which social media analytics tools do you use for your marketing?
Do any of these appeal to you enough to try them out?
We would love to hear your insights into what’s working for your business. Feel free to share your tips in the comments below.
One thought on “5 Must Try Social Media Analytics Tools”