Social Media Analytics Tools 2021 Good social media managers know how to use the right analytics tools, whether they’re free or paid, to measure and compare their results against competing brands and companies. A good social media analytics tool is a business’s way of learning where its efforts are most efficient. It probably comes as no surprise that using social media in a business capacity requires analytics capability.
Those in search of a complete, integrated social media analytics package need look no further than the leading prospects in this category. Among the names at the top of this list is an extremely robust set of analytics tools for managing your social media presence. One of my favorite aspects about the platform is that it isn’t dependent on social media platforms: rather, you can use it in tandem with your own analytics and spreadsheets to determine actionable next steps. And if you’re just not sure where to start out with free social media analytics tools 2021 , don’t worry. There are plenty more recommendations on this list!
Social media is one of the most important aspects of marketing because it allows you to get in touch and engage with your audience. When it comes to social media, social media analytics tools are extremely important for every business. But there are so many choices for social media analytics tools nowadays with many claiming to be “the best social media analytics tools”.
The best free social media analytics tools help you understand the impact and overall performance of your social media marketing efforts. With so many different metrics available, tracking social media results can be a challenge. The great thing about many of the top free social media analytics tools is that they allow you to track major social networks from one dashboard.
What is Social Media Analytics Tools Software?
Social Media Analytics Tools are used by marketers to identify and interpret data on buyer interactions with their content as well as other social trends.
Followerwonk
Followerwonk helps you explore and grow your social graph. You can dig into your Twitter analytics to learn who your followers are, where they’re located, and when they tweet. The app creates actionable visualizations that enable you to compare your social graph to others, as well as find and connect with influencers.
Buffer
Buffer is a great tool that will help you in two main ways. You can write a few of posts at a time and choose which social profiles to send them to, and then Buffer will spread them throughout the day or week so that you don’t have to be at a computer all the time in order to have a social media presence. It also shortens your links and tracks engagement so you can see how many people clicked on them.
SumAll
SumAll helps guide your decision making by connecting all your key online marketing and e-commerce data in one interactive chart. Features include real-time data monitoring, goal tracking, viewing new vs. returning customers, and trendlines that project future performance.
Quintly
Quintly is a social media benchmarking and analytics solution that tracks and compares the performance of your social media marketing activities. Whether you are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, or all of them, their tool visualizes and checks your social marketing success, benchmarking your numbers against your competitors or best practices.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a comprehensive social media management and monitoring tool that provides a host of enterprise-level options. Its cross-channel social listening features you perform a contextual and qualitative analysis of topics, hashtags, and keywords. You can tell how your content is performing on various social networks from its visual and intuitive reports.
3 cool features:
- Analyze paid campaign performance across networks
- Get group report of your social media profiles
- Analyze your team’s performance (task performance, response rates, etc.)
Social media channels:
What analytics you get for free:
- All features for 30 days
- Report builder
- Reports for each social media channel
- Reports for internal team performance
Paid options: $99, $149, and $249 per month
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a great combination of social media management, listening, publishing and analytics tools. It helps you ascertain what kind of content is working for you, increase the reach of your posts, improve the effectiveness of your ads, and get your whole social media team working in tandem. It has in-depth analytics features that give you a clear understanding of your performance across all social platforms.
3 cool features:
- Customize reports by choosing from over 200 metrics and export them in PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint formats.
- Measure your customer care team’s response and resolution time on Facebook and Twitter.
- Track brand mentions better by integrating with specialized tools like Brandwatch and Talkwalker.
Social media channels:
- YouTube
What analytics you get for free:
- All features for 30 days
- Overview of key metrics
- Unlimited real-time reports
- Team performance measurement
Pricing options: $19, $99, $599 per month, and enterprise pricing
Zoho Social
Zoho is a unique and powerful software suite that has CRM, collaboration, and other SaaS options that take care of your entire operational workflow. Zoho Social is the part that enables you to understand your social media audience and how they engage with you. You can listen to multiple channels from a single dashboard and respond in real-time. You can also dig deeper into each post to measure their reach and engagement.
3 cool features:
- Create intuitive reports from a huge list of pre-defined segments based on demographics of your fans, influencers, or people reached.
- Get a breakdown of the content formats that your connections are engaging with and compare it to those that you publish.
- Compare fans vs. other people reached for every post.
Social media channels:
What analytics you get for free:
- All features for 15 days
- Stats for individual posts
- Analytics for content type, best time to post, etc.
Pricing options: $10, $25, $200, and $300 per month (annual pricing)
Sendible
Sendible is a social media management tool with considerable monitoring, listening, and reporting features. It gives you ready-to-use insights into post content and engagement, mentions, and audience profiles across digital channels. Sendible also lets you track what’s being said about your brand on various web and social platforms, and identifies mentions that might need your attention or response.
3 cool features:
- Create presentation-quality reports with a drag-and-drop builder.
- Measure response times and track team performance in responsiveness.
- Get notified of reactions and engage with multiple social profiles across networks from a single dashboard.
Social media channels:
- YouTube
What analytics you get for free:
- All features for 30 days
- Report builder
- Reports for each social media channel
Paid options: $29, $99, $199, and $299 per month
Google Analytics
Key benefit: See how much traffic and leads flow to your website from your social media channels
Paid or free: Free tool
Skill level: all skill levels
Best for: all social media professionals should be familiar with Google Analytics, but especially those who work for a web-based business
You’ve probably heard of Google Analytics already. That’s because it’s one of the best free tools to use to learn about your website visitors. And if you’re a social marketer who likes to drive traffic to your website, then it’s an invaluable resource to have in your back pocket.
While it’s not a social media reporting tool per se, you can use it to set up reports that will help you:
- See which social media platforms give you the most traffic
- See what content drives the most leads and traffic on which social networks
- Get to know your audience with demographic data
- Calculate the ROI of your social media campaigns
With these data points, you’ll be able to get the most out of your social media campaigns and effectively strategize for the future. No social media strategy is complete without Google analytics.
UTM parameters
Key benefit: See how much web traffic and conversions your social media channels and campaigns generate (to be used with a web analytics platform like Google Analytics).
Paid or free: Free tool
Skill level: intermediate
Best for: all social media managers
UTM parameters are not a standalone social media analytics tool, but they are essential in helping you set up Google Analytics (or another web analytics platform) to best measure social performance.
Put simply, UTM parameters are short pieces of code appended to the links you share on social media. They very precisely tell you how many people interact with your content and end up on your website.
In the screenshot above, the UTM parameter is everything that comes after the question mark.
UTM parameters aren’t essential if you’re only concerned about reporting on social media performance in terms of engagement, followers, etc. But if you want to take it to the next level, UTM parameters + Google Analytics will give you more precise data on which social media content and channels drive traffic and conversions.
Pro tip: You don’t need to know how to write code to include them on your social media posts. If you use a social media management platform like Hootsuite, you can automatically generate UTM parameters in seconds.
Brandwatch
Key benefits: Track and analyze data from more than 95 million sources, including blogs, forums, and review sites, as well as social networks
Free or paid: Paid tool
Skill level: Beginner to intermediate
Best for: PR and communications teams, social media marketers who focus on engagement and brand monitoring
Brandwatch is a powerful tool with five easy-to-use social media analytics report templates:
- Summary: A high-level view of social conversations about your brand, competitors, or keywords.
- Trends: A report on the conversations and accounts influencing a specific topic or hashtag, including mentions per hour or minute.
- Reputation: A checkup on sentiment trends you might need to monitor or address.
- Influencers: A report to help you identify influencer marketing opportunities relevant to your brand and analyze their activity.
- Competitor comparison: Benchmarking social media data for conversation volume, sentiment, and share of voice.
ManyChat
Do you run Facebook Ads for your business? The native Facebook Ads Manager (and Facebook Analytics) tool shares key information about your campaign performance.
However, ManyChat has an analytics dashboard that gives you actionable insight into your campaigns. You can collect audience data, build Facebook Custom Audiences, and improve ad targeting for your campaigns. Our integration pulls your most important data, and allows you to create customized reports. It’s a must-have for any agency looking to share those reports with its clients.
Price: starts at $15/month. Free plan available.
Social Media Metrics, Defined
Marketing decisions should be based on data. Below are some key social media metrics every marketer should know before choosing a social media analytics tool. 95
Total engagement
It represents the sum of likes, comments, and shares.
Engagement rate per post by followers
It divides the average engagement by the number of followers the page has and multiples everything by 100. The average engagement is the total engagement of the posts (likes and comments) divided by the number of posts.
Engagement rate per post by reach
It is calculated as percentage of likes and comments divided by total number of posts for a specific period of time, all divided by reach.
Reach
Measures how many unique users have seen your content.
Impressions
Represents the total amount of time your content has been displayed. 80
Followers growth
Shows the ratio between gained and lost followers.
Conclusion
The demand for social media analytics and social media statistics tools is increasing day by day. As businesses there are so many advantages of using these tools and generate your own useful insights without hiring expensive social media consultants.
Social media has permeated all aspects of our lives. It’s an essential tool for many businesses, as they use it as a way to build their brand image, interact with their customers, and push out information in a timely manner. In order to keep up with their social media profiles, you need some great free social media analytics tools to hand.