Wouldn’t it be nice if all of the content you created was always successful in bringing in the prospects you need each month?
Yeah, that would be great.
Unfortunately, that’s not possible! But you can get pretty darn close with an awesome social media strategy!
The power doesn’t lie only in your strategy, though. The most important part of any strategy is the reflection and analysis. Without it, there is no improvement.
This week, we’d like to share our top 5 social media analytics tools with you (in no specific order). We’ve found that there isn’t a platform that works best for all social media networks at once, so we like to mix it up and do what works best for our brand and social media strategy.
Alright, without further ado, here are our top 5 analytics tools right now:
- Mention
- Sprout Social
- Google Analytics
- Publishing Platforms
- In-House Analytics
Mention
Mention is a social media and web monitoring tool. It allows users to publish content, track competitors, review past analytics, and even keep a close eye on online influencers. (Where have you been hiding all this time, Mention?!) There’s another reason Mention stood out to us: they understand that social media marketing is all about driving conversation. It’s one of the very first things you see on their website.
We have very few complaints about this platform, to be honest. There’s one catch though… the price!
But if we’re being honest, the price isn’t a big deal when you see everything this platform can do. The good news? Mention provides a 14-day free trial for first-time users!
Sprout Social
Like Mention, Sprout Social is a social media monitoring platform. They also allow you to manage most of your accounts in one place.
Sprout Social is big on helping brands of all sizes manage their social media accounts. For the most part, Sprout Social and Mention do the same thing, it just comes down to which platform works better for your company. Both platforms offer free trials so we highly recommend trying them out before deciding.
If cost is the deciding factor for your company, Mention might work a little better for you. Just remember: tools like this are more of an investment! They’ll save a lot of time and frustration in the long run!
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics tool offered by Google. This means it easily connects to your website to track everything from page speed to social media traffic. If we’re being honest, there’s a little bit of a learning curve to get your social media analytics set up here. But once you figure it out, it’s a wonderful tool, especially considering your website analytics are displayed in the same place!
There’s a bonus to using Google Analytics, though. You can track your website and social media platforms for free! They also offer a paid version, but the free one usually covers it all.
Publishing Platforms
If you work with social media, you probably already use a publishing platform to get your content out. We’ve tried Hootsuite, Buffer, Planoly, and so much more. They all have their pros and cons, but there aren’t any we would never go back to. They’re all good at what they do.
These platforms help to schedule and manage your content, but some even provide analytics to help you optimize your posts. If you’re already using a publishing platform, you should definitely be using these analytics to your advantage!
In-House Analytics
Lucky for you, most social media platforms actually offer analytics in-house. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest (and almost everything else) have an insights/analytics tab somewhere on the home page. And they’re free, y’all!
The only downside? You have to view analytics on each platform individually. But in terms of cost, who cares!
If this is your go-to method, then having a really good social media strategy helps out. Check out this social media strategy template from one of our old blogs!
There are so many more awesome social media tools out there, so we’re going to share a few more in our newsletter later this month. Stay tuned and subscribe if you haven’t already!
In the meantime, check out this article from Keyhole for a few more epic social media analytics tools.
