Without analytics, you have no idea what aspects of your social media strategy are working — and which are not. All social media platforms have some kind of built-in analytics, but most of these (with the exception of Facebook) are quite basic and only provide you with limited information. Plus, you need to check every account separately to check your analytics. A better option is to use some of the top social media analytics tools. There are many to choose from: free and paid and with a variety of different features. Within this list of social media tools, you should be able to find something that works with your budget and meets your analytics needs.
1. Agorapulse
For publishing, collaborating, monitoring, and analytics all in one, Agorapulse is a great option. In terms of analytics, the tool helps you identify the best-performing content, find trends in social media activity, and check the response times of individual team members. You can create custom reports for metrics that matter to you and even schedule the tool to generate periodic reports.
Price: Free for three social profiles and one user.
2. Sprout Social
It can be important to know how social media results compare across various channels. With Sprout Social, you can receive cross-channel analytics on aspects like tags, trends, and competitor performance to make these comparisons. The tool also allows you to create standard reports for presentations. If you need to create custom reports for a specific KPI, you’ll need to add Premium Analytics to your plan.
Price: Starting at $99 per user per month with a 30-day free trial available.
3. Buffer Analyze
Analyze from Buffer is aimed at online brands that want simple analytics they can act on. The tool is ideal if you’re new to social media marketing, as the large amount of metrics and features on other social media analytics tools can be confusing. Buffer Analyze works with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, giving you recommendations about what to post, offering insights about your audience, posts, and Stories, and enabling you to create reports fast.
Price: Starting at $35 per month with a 14-day free trial available.
4. Keyhole
With Keyhole, you’ll learn about what your customers want from you on social media (including what grabs their attention), when they’re active, and their demographics. The tool is also useful for identifying potential influencers by looking at what kinds of engagement rates they have with particular audiences. You can even reach out to influencers within the tool.
Price: The free version gives you 1,000 posts. For additional posts, prices start at $99 per month, with a 20-percent discount if you pay for the whole year.
5. Hootsuite Analytics
You can see the metrics of all your social media posts and profiles in one place with Hootsuite Analytics. Choose what you want to track with the customizable templates and then export the data to the file type of your choice to share reports with stakeholders. You can also analyze team performance through metrics for productivity, response time, and resolution time.
Price: Starting at $19 per month, with a 30-day free trial available.
6. TapInfluence
A social media analytics tool specifically for influencer marketing is TapInfluence. The tool supports you in both finding and working with influencers. When searching for influencers that are likely to be right for your brand, the tool tells you their reach and engagement, how much they’re likely to charge, and the demographics of their audience. Then, to make sure your influencer campaign is paying off, you can use the tool to monitor performance in various ways, including by comparing it to industry benchmarks.
Price: Unknown — users need to contact TapInfluence for current pricing.
7. ShortStack
If a major part of your social media strategy is running contests, you need a solution to see how users are engaging with your campaigns — to make future contests more appealing. ShortStack has all the tools you need to run hashtag, comment, and retweet contests on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. It provides real-time metrics about views, traffic sources, entry times, and more. Plus, it integrates with services like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel.
Price: Free for 20 entries and 100 views per 30 days.
8. Meltwater
For a combination of social listening, media monitoring, and influencer management along with analytics, Meltwater is the solution. You’ll receive real-time reports on a variety of metrics, including ROI of influencers and metrics that quantify PR. You can also receive alerts to your email if the tool detects something important.
Price: Unknown — users request a demo and then receive pricing.
9. Shield
Many of the above tools offer analytics for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter — but what if you’re targeting an audience on LinkedIn? Shield is an ideal option. Just for LinkedIn, it provides real-time data on all the most important metrics to show you month-over-month growth.
Price: Starting at $12 per month for one account and $24 per account per month for teams with multiple accounts. A 10-day free trial is available.
10. Zoho Social
Another option for LinkedIn is Zoho Social — although this also provides analytics for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Much more than just an analytics tool, Zoho Social is a suite of software offering scheduling, a content calendar, and a dashboard that allows you to check your performance at a glance. It’s designed for both businesses and agencies — in the case of the latter, you can manage all your clients on the same dashboard and assign custom roles to users.
Price: Starting at $10 per month.
11. Google Analytics
Although Google Analytics is primarily for monitoring user behavior on your website (it’s arguably even the best tool for web analytics), it’s also useful for social media. Specifically, Google Analytics shows you how many users from social media channels make up your website traffic and leads. These insights can tell you which platforms are contributing the most, what content is bringing users to your website, and whether you’re targeting the right users to drive qualified traffic. All this also gives you a more accurate picture of your social ROI.
Price: Free.
12. Oktopost
A solution for social media management and analytics for B2B companies is Oktopost. The tool has features that B2B brands specifically can benefit from, such as for employee advocacy, along with integrations with other tools you use all the time, including Marketo, Salesforce, Google Analytics, HubSpot, and Zapier. It’s partnership with Keyhole means that Oktopost also now offers social listening and research capabilities.
Price: Unknown — customers book a demo and then receive pricing.
13. Sendible
To manage most (if not all) your social media accounts with a single tool, you may like Sendible. The tool provides insights for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Google My Business. Plus, it has a huge number of integrations, including WordPress, Medium, Google Analytics, Dropbox, and Slack. It’s easy to make professional-looking presentations in Sendible with the drag-and-drop tool. Plus, you’ll receive suggestions for content that are likely to resonate with your audience.
Price: Starting at $29 per month with a 15-percent discount if you pay for the whole year. A 14-day free trial is available.
14. Reputology
In addition to posting content, you likely use social media platforms to generate reviews for your brand. It’s important to monitor reviews, since a single bad one can have a big impact, even if you have a number of positive ones. Reputology allows you to monitor and analyze reviews from various social media platforms in one place. You can also use the tool to check how your team members are responding to ensure they are providing excellent customer service.
Price: Starting at $10 per month per location for multiple locations and $29 per month for a single location. A free trial is available.
15. Rival IQ
It’s critical you know what your competitors are doing for your social media performance. Rival IQ allows you to compare your social analytics on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn with those of your competitors. You can check how you compare with others in your industry in terms of metrics, hashtags, and content.
Price: Starting at $199 per month to track up to five companies (with the option to pay $50 more for each additional company). A 14-day free trial is available and you can save 15-percent by paying for an annual plan.
Social media marketing is already a time-consuming activity. Learning how to use one or more of the above social media analytics tools, generating reports, and then adapting your strategy according to your findings will require even more time and effort. A better option is to have a virtual assistant manage all your social media for you. Receive a 10-percent discount on a virtual assistant for social media from MYVA360 — and on all our other virtual assistant services — when you schedule a consultation.
