Business

Businesses today compete globally, and social media can help your organization stay ahead. Size matters less online: you can find analytics tools for your budget that bring results.

Understanding Social Media Analytics

Netbase, a premier analytics platform for global enterprise, defines social media analytics as the process of gathering and evaluating online data to advise business decisions.

The process has 3 parts:

  • Identifying your business objectives
  • Specifying metrics
  • Gathering and analyzing social data

Social media analytics applications help make sense of the numbers–here is a Netbase selection of the best tools.

5 Top Built-in Social Media Analytics Dashboards

Most social networks offer free analytics. These tools are great to begin discovering more about your audience, and they meet any budget.

  1. Facebook Insights

Insights let you understand page performance and your audience’s behavior. Access organic and paid content statistics, and results for competitor’s pages too.

  1. Twitter Analytics

Find data on your audience’s profile and get detail on tweets as well as comparisons over time. Includes special metrics for current events and hashtags.

  1. Pinterest Analytics

With a free business account, Pinterest provides information about your followers and their preferences. The data includes impressions, repins and clicks.

  1. Instagram Insights

A business account is required, but the tools are worth the step. You can see views, impressions and reach, as well as metrics on followers and high-traffic times.

  1. YouTube Analytics

Youtube offers analytics through their Creator Studio. Data includes watch time, demographics, devices, revenue, and real-time stats.

12 Free Social Media Analytics Tools

These tools manage multiple platforms, and each have premium plans.

  1. Boardreader Compiles data on reviews and forum posts, and lets you filter results and detect trends.
  2. Buffer For scheduling posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
  3. Followerwonk Twitter-only tool for social growth, providing in-depth bio search and social authority ranking.
  4. Google Alerts Effective tool for brand management and topic discovery.
  5. Hootsuite The free plan is a good way to begin managing multiple platforms. Includes 150+ apps including Netbase.
  6. HowSociable This app rates your brand’s magnitude on up to 12 platforms.
  7. Likealyzer An easy-to-use Facebook tool that recommends pages and offers suggestions for growth.
  8. Social Oomph Scheduling, monitoring and “interest channel” curation. Free for Twitter.
  9. SumAll Automation and analytics for Facebook, Twitter and 1more accounts.
  10. Twitonomy In-depth analysis on Twitter.
  11. TweetReach Search-like Twitter app that provides estimates of reach.
  12. Zoho Social Monitoring and team collaboration for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

4 Paid Social Media Analytics Tools

Heavy-duty tools give you greater integration with other information sources. For savings, check for trial periods and demos.

  1. NetBase

A quality leader in social media intelligence, Netbase focuses on consumer sentiment as the driver of engagement. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), Netbase offers superior analytics to optimize brand health.

  1. Likeable Hub

A popular app for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, with features to manage content and measure growth.

  1. Sprout Social

Monitor trends and discover content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

  1. Tailwind

Pinterest and Instagram scheduler with analytics.

Conclusion

Free may be all you need, but no platform is perfect. Paid apps may get you further faster, but all of these tools go in the right direction. If you want more in depth in social media marketing I recommend taking a Udemy online marketing course, it’s free!