Social media success is often misinterpreted as rigorous posting. If you are a social media agency that handles multiple clients and believer in more posting, then there are chances of you missing out on your ROI targets.
That’s because digging into the metrics to observe patterns is much more crucial than blind posting. You need social media analytics tools to help you craft strategies addressing key differences between your approaches and their outcomes.
But what are social media analytics tools?
Social media analytics tools are software programs designed to help you analyze and measure the performance of your social media marketing campaigns. These tools allow you to monitor and track the performance of your social media accounts, measure engagement levels, and identify trends.
Also, if you are buzzed with questions about your daily social media performance and whether it’s worth the time and money, then a social media analytics tool is a must.
You can leverage wide-ranging tools like social media schedulers, competitor analytics tools, social media tracking tools, and social media metrics tools for diversified insights.
These social media analytics and reporting tools can assess the massive data heap collected every second, so you gain actionable insights for impactful branding.
Top social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have their analytics dashboards built in. These analytics dashboards are designed to offer various analytics insights. Some examples of important metrics from social media analytics include conversion rate, click-through rates, engagement rate, impressions per mile, and leads.
If your social presence is limited to these avenues, these free social media analytics tools will measure ROI to provide an excellent starting point toward understanding your audience.
But they have limited scope, and users may find themselves with heaps of data from individual social media platforms without proper processing.
That’s why you must have robust social media analytics software to accurately measure the reach, impact, and potential of social media marketing. Here are our top picks for the best paid and free social media analytics tools worth exploring.
Agorapulse schedules posts, analyzes performance, and monitors hashtags and keywords. Though it doesn’t really qualify as a social media analytics tool per se, its analytics and reporting feature makes it an excellent tool for beginners to get a clear picture of overall social media performance. So, you cannot have a social media analytics tools comparison discussion without this tool.
Agorapulse also has an asset library, so you can reuse the same assets for multiple posts. It also has team collaboration features for regulating workflows.
Pros
Verified Agorapulse User
The inboxing feature is something our team enjoys the most.
Cons
Alex F
Unfortunately, the reporting is pretty weak. We actually use another third-party app to pull .csv files for loading into Google Sheets and Google Data Studio. Agorapulse will allow you to export mostly PowerPoints (which aren’t that pretty) and some .csv files for very basic social metrics. I’m also not sure there are any real metrics for paid advertising as well.
Social Status is a dedicated social media analytics tool perfect for agencies and digital marketers who need multi-channel reporting and the ability to white label and customize their reports to suit different clients. The dashboard contains all the metrics you need in real-time.
Reports can be exported to CSV, PDF, PowerPoint, and Google Slides.
This social media audit tool also tracks Facebook Ad Accounts for reporting on paid campaigns. You can also benchmark performance against influencers and measure your influencer marketing campaigns too.
Pros
Genesis B
I like that I have all of the tools I need to build a report in one place. It reduces the amount of time for me to build a report. It also highlights the most important facts about my report.
Cons
Glenn L
I have had occasions in the past where reports took quite a while to generate, particularly if you were doing one over a longer period of time. However, this seems to be less of an issue now.
Google Analytics is one of the best ways to track social media campaigns and even helps you measure social ROI.
But is Google Analytics actually a social media tool?
Google Analytics has an image of being an SEO analytics tool. However, it is also used as one of the most valuable social media reporting tools for analyzing the trend of social media traffic.
You can also find out the most effective network that’s yielding you the best results for your campaigns. There are also several custom filter options for diversified reporting.
Pros
Esra K.
Google Analytics provides us meaningful insights about our website to improve it accordingly, attract new visitors and increase our potential customers.
Cons
Christi A.
Financially not an option at times. Although I know it increases traffic, I feel Google has complete control and can redirect according to who pays. Google used to be good, but now they are only loyal to money and could care less about helping small businesses. I’m thinking Yahoo is better.
If hosting contests on social media platforms is your thing, then ShortStack is the best social media metrics tool for you. It lets you manage everything, starting with entry data to long-term campaign performance.
It allows visitors to fill in their details on the page and unlock special offers, including e-books, discount codes, or giveaways. It also has customizable features like landing page templates in various colors and eye-catching fonts, widgets for forms, polls, and galleries.
Pros
Shelley F
ShortStack is a very robust and easy-to-use tool. There is a bit of a learning curve on all the widgets, but once you figure them out, it makes developing your entry site a snap.
Cons
Magnus H
It’s a very complex piece of software to program, and the workflow isn’t always intuitive. It left me with a few customer grievances, unfortunately. Doors opening at the wrong time and people missing out on offers.
Keyhole can provide real-time performance analysis of the industry. It’s one of the best social media dashboard tools in the market that helps brands understand which hashtags are trending among followers.
Businesses can leverage Keyhole’s social listening and monitoring features and even track campaign-specific analytics on Twitter and Instagram. You can also use social media reporting tools like this to keep an eye on your competitors.
Pros
Fatima M
The metrics given on Keyhole are unmatched and help us in setting KPIs and measuring results accordingly. The layout is also very user-friendly, and everything is exportable, so that’s wonderful.
Cons
Ben K
I felt like it broke A LOT. Sometimes info would not be pulled, the reports would be screwed up, etc. When I requested help, I was made to feel like I was the one making mistakes when I was a pretty savvy user (imo).
Hootsuite is perhaps the first name that comes to mind for paid social media analytics. It lets you know which content performs the best or worst, so you make smarter decisions. Its price point varies on business needs.
It is the go-to platform for experienced marketers. While it has been in the market for a long time, this social media dashboard tool is a complex one to use. So we recommend using user-friendly Hootsuite alternatives.
Pros
Matt R.
It makes things easier to view with everything on one dashboard. I can see messages, comments, and replies all in one place.
Cons
Bill R.
Slow to change. Unresponsive to the needs of social managers. Horrible analytics. It doesn’t allow for reporting on key engagements such as saves/shares.
As the name suggests, Rival IQ is a source for getting social media competitor analysis. The tool also analyzes your brand’s performance on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.
It has a robust competitor benchmarking that allows marketers to understand their clients’ social stats compared to their competitors. The analysis from the platform enables marketers to quickly gauge trending content and tweak their strategies for maximum impact.
Pros
Brendan B.
The insights from Rival IQ inform a lot of how we plan and execute our social media strategy. To be able to see a snapshot of our competition across the league is invaluable as well.
Cons
Verified Rival IQ Reviewer
I found that the data that we wanted was sometimes not available through the software, and we either had to go into the platform directly, such as Facebook, to get it.
Sendible is one of the popular social media reporting tools primarily meant for larger agencies and teams. It has features like post publishing, analytics, and community management built in.
This social media audit tool focuses on collaboration and has easy approval protocols to ensure the swiftness of social media management. It also supports integrations with popular blogging platforms for easy content management.
Pros
Meredith K.
My organization really enjoys how organized Sendible is. By assigning each other particular tasks, we are able to increase our workload.
Cons
Caitlin L.
This software is so glitchy. I often have to log out and back in to make features work. Sometimes they disappear altogether, or when I click them, they don’t fire. The users and accounts in the administration settings only work about 20% of the time.
Mention is another social media analytics tool that monitors keywords, does competitive analysis, and finds relevant influencers in your niche. A popular feature of Mention is its ‘alerts’ system that notifies you in real-time whenever set keywords are mentioned.
It also mails you your analytics report every day. It gives you instant access to all your brand mentions and lets you filter analytics to focus on specific metrics.
Pros
Elizabeth M.
I love that Mention goes beyond normal links in articles and blogs and even searches through comment sections. It’s a great way to hear customer feedback, not just from our customers but from your competitors as well. The interface is beautiful, intuitive, and easy to use for all tasks.
Cons
Verified Mention User
I don’t know why my activity is reported sometimes and not others. I have no one at Mention who can guide me on how to get relevant/the best results with their platform. I get a lot of irrelevant Mentions concerning people with the same name as me. There should be a way to exclude their activity from being reported to me.
Brand24 is one of the popular social media data collection tools that helps you to improve your social media presence. It offers features like competitive analysis, tracking campaign analytics, overall social media performance, and more.
Its sentiment analysis feature is top grade. Brand24 segregates all of your brand mentions under positive and negative sentiments to understand your brand impact online.
You can even download reports in PDF and Excel formats and share them with your team and clients.
Pros
Roberto S.
The platform has a very good and widely renowned capability to optimize a marketing strategy building process, it can be integrated solidly and very quickly. The program has definitely coordinated a follow-up process to market needs.
Cons
Samara H
It would be ideal if Brand24 had faster results and a more specific opinion filter, it would also be good if the team considered supporting the development of analysis and audit reports. There are some things that can be improved. I also find that certain functions are not that intuitive to find.
Whether you run a marketing agency or work as an in-house marketer, Whatagraph is a social media audit tool that has everything you need to report your results. You can use it to create functional, professional looking reports in as little as a few minutes.
With more than 40 data sources available and 95+ templates, you’ll have all the tools you need to create a report for your client or manager. Social media, e-commerce platforms, SEO and SEM tools – Whatagraph covers it all.
Pros
Stephany
I love how easy this tool is to use, everyone on the team finds it much more user-friendly than other dashboards. Integration was easy, we sent some example reports to the team who duplicated these for us. We literally had to log in and send it to our clients!
Cons
Dimitry
The development cycle is aimed at pleasing the greatest number of people, which means very specific requests might never make it.
Final Words
Businesses need to manage multiple accounts and constantly have an eye on social analytics. A cross-platform social media analytics and reporting tool will make this task incredibly easy by aggregating high-volume data from various platforms and presenting them in downloadable reports.
From the social media analytics tools comparison above, we can say that investing in the right social media analytics and reporting tool like SocialPilot can help you benchmark your efforts. The best part is you can take a 14-day free trial before making a long-term commitment.
This one-stop solution for your social media marketing is guaranteed to save you time and ditch all manual labor for good. So wait no more and get started now!
Social media analytics is important to measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts. It lets you know if your strategy is working or needs some tweaking. You can also find out which social media site is working best so you can take steps towards improving your presence there.
Social media analytics is used for tracking and monitoring social media metrics such as reach, impression, clicks, website visits, likes, replies, tags, mentions, etc. You can even compare them against your competitors to find the engagement gaps and take strategic actions to fill in those.
Social media analytics tools help you analyze your complete social media accounts from audience growth, post-performance, demographics, hashtag analysis, the most engaged people on your profiles to competitor profile analysis.
SocialPilot is one of the best social media analytics tools out there. The tool makes it quite simple to track metrics for social media campaigns for each of your profiles separately. You can track content engagement, audience growth, demographics, and influencers. Also, with this social media analytics software, users can plan, publish, promote, and create reports under social media banners.
Thankfully, almost all social media platforms offer free social media analytics through their built-in social media and analytics dashboard. For Facebook and Instagram, you can consider using the insights section of the dashboard, whereas you can try out the Analytics section for Twitter and Pinterest.
SocialPilot, a robust tool that offers powerful publishing and insightful analytics, is more beneficial to businesses and digital marketing agencies than Hootsuite. Apart from costing you less, you get additional features such as publishing carousel posts, audience targeting, and Canva integration when you opt for SocialPilot.
About the Author
Manvi Agarwal
Manvi is a Marketing & Communication Manager at SocialPilot. Social media & content marketing is Manvi's niche area in which she employs an interactive user-oriented strategy. Besides this, Manvi loves experiencing new things and trying new food!
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SocialPilot has emerged as one of the most straightforward social media analytics tools to use. This tool lets you post on multiple social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Business, Pinterest, Tumblr, and VK. SocialPilot makes it quite simple to track metrics for social media campaigns for each of your profiles separately. You can track content engagement, audience growth, demographics, and influencers.
With this social media analytics software, users can plan, publish, promote, and create reports under social media banners. SocialPilot keeps your content, scheduling calendar, and social media analytics in one place so you can effectively consolidate your digital campaigns.
When you add an account to SocialPilot, it pulls in analytics data eliminating the need for a manual setup. The tool is also constantly updating its features allowing users to get the best out of the platform. Or eg – the newest reels posting and analytics feature. All of this is a big plus if you’re a busy social media marketer.
Some other SocialPilot’s social media analytics and reporting features include:
From novices, intermediate experts to advanced users, SocialPilot fits a diverse range of users, making it a highly versatile tool for social media analytics and reporting besides scheduling and publishing. You can also analyze your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google Business Profile accounts with SocialPilot.
What do our users say?
Luis Ignacio C.
I am surprised by the kindness that it offers me. Anyone who works in digital marketing, looking for a reliable tool, is what I have received since I implemented SocialPilot as the main tool. They also offer you a complete section of analytics, which allows you to show the orderly evolution of your work.
Cindy C
SocialPilot is amazing! This social media analytics software frees up my time immensely, even providing me with analytics for each one of my social media accounts which is great.