Best Social Media Analytics Software

Yukta Rustagi
YR
Researched and written by Yukta Rustagi

Social media analytics software provides functionality for gathering and reporting on data related to social media accounts. Social media analytics products are used by social media, marketing, and communications teams that use social analytics tools to identify successful practices, target demographics, and analyze real-time consumer practices. Data scientists and researchers may also utilize social media analytics tools to gather information about regions, practices, and tendencies. Social media analytics tools allow businesses to gain a greater understanding of customer desires and responsiveness. The products aim to grow businesses by measuring the effectiveness of social media campaigns. With increased awareness of customer sentiment and business practices, teams can strategize to create more effective campaigns while improving customer satisfaction and brand awareness. Social analytics products often provide information that benefits social media monitoring software. Monitoring functionality can also be found within social media management software as a feature or social media suites as either a feature or standalone product.

To qualify for inclusion in the Social Media Analytics category, a product must be able to:

Create business goals that can be measured with data indicators
Provide tracking and sharing data
Evaluate audience size, engagement, and demographics
Aggregate social media statistics
Compare data from individual campaigns, posts, or pages
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Featured Social Media Analytics Software At A Glance

G2 takes pride in showing unbiased reviews on user satisfaction in our ratings and reports. We do not allow paid placements in any of our ratings, rankings, or reports. Learn about our scoring methodologies.

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303 Listings in Social Media Analytics Available
(6,205)4.4 out of 5
9th Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
View top Consulting Services for Sprout Social
Entry Level Price:Starting at $199.00
(6,696)4.3 out of 5
8th Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
View top Consulting Services for Hootsuite
Entry Level Price:$199.00
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(2,883)4.6 out of 5
3rd Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
Entry Level Price:Free
(4,009)4.5 out of 5
10th Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
View top Consulting Services for SOCi
(3,317)4.5 out of 5
12th Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
View top Consulting Services for Semrush
Entry Level Price:Free
Entry Level Price:$79.00
Entry Level Price:Free
(915)4.5 out of 5
2nd Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
Entry Level Price:Free
(277)4.8 out of 5
7th Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
View top Consulting Services for YouScan
Entry Level Price:$299.00
(2,387)4.6 out of 5
5th Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
(183)4.4 out of 5
15th Easiest To Use in Social Media Analytics software
Entry Level Price:Contact Us

Learn More About Social Media Analytics Software

What is Social Media Analytics Software?

Social media has become a necessary marketing resource over the past decade, evolving well beyond a basic brand awareness tactic. Social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook have developed into viable sources of leads, particularly with the help of social advertisements. In addition, these networks are great places to engage prospects or current clients to help bolster relationships. Employees can quickly and easily become brand advocates and influencers by posting and engaging on social media.

Just as social media usage has exploded in recent years, so has the need for a business to harness and understand its company data—and social media data is no different. It is crucial for social media managers and marketing teams to know how social media campaigns are performing across all social channels, how and why accounts are growing in followers and engagements, and even track how competitors are performing. As companies continue to spend more money on social advertisements, the need to know which campaigns are performing well (and which are not) becomes all the more critical.

Seeing this data and information is great, but with social media analytics software, users can digest all of this data and metrics in easy-to-understand visualizations. This is not only beneficial for social media managers or marketers that do not have data analysis knowledge, but also for their managers or chief marketing officers who may be trying to better judge the results of their hard work. Having this data readily accessible is a powerful tool for businesses and employees alike.

With social media analytics software, you can:

  • Monitor and report on overall social media performance to track performance and justify social media as a viable marketing channel
  • Understand social media following through audience demographics
  • Identify the content that best resonates with audiences to use as a basis for future marketing strategies
  • Discover influencers to tap into as potential brand advocates
  • Track performance of paid social media campaigns to determine ROI
  • Gain insights on competitors through competitive analysis functionality

Why Use Social Media Analytics Software?

There are a number of reasons to use social media analytics beyond the obvious need to track the performance of social media posts and campaigns; one example is the ability to form data-driven strategies around social media. By leveraging social media analytics, social media managers and companies can accurately decipher which posts or paid campaigns generate the most interactions and engagements. Understanding why certain initiatives are successful allows users to build strategies that they know will perform well.

Additionally, social media managers can analyze how certain pieces of contain attract engagement on posts. Pushing content marketing through social media has become a much more popular way to spread brand awareness and provide a useful, beneficial piece of content to a potential prospect, customer, or user. Knowing which headlines attract certain demographics or target markets helps inform content marketers of what they should be writing about. Again, repeating these successful tactics is made possible by leveraging social media analytics solutions.

Honing in on specific social media strategies ensures a business can grow brand awareness and influence other key performance indicators and metrics, such as traffic or lead generation. Social media analytics tools also track attribution, so social media managers can monitor the click path of users that come to the company website from social media posts and eventually determine if they were able to convert into a customer. This is a great way for social media managers and marketing teams to justify paid social ad spending.

Who Uses Social Media Analytics Software?

What was once a very niche user base has expanded greatly, as the need for analytics and the growth of social media marketing efforts for businesses has increased exponentially in recent years. The employees most commonly utilizing social media analytics are social media managers. Many businesses, particularly mid-market and enterprise companies, have dedicated social media managers on their marketing teams to run all social accounts. Social media analytics tools are an excellent way for social media managers to track their goals and metrics. These products also help inform the decisions and strategies of social media managers. Marketing managers, marketing directors, or chief marketing officers may choose to use social media analytics products to track how well their social media manager is growing their presence on different outlets. It is also an easy way to ensure they are hitting goals and driving leads and traffic.

For small businesses that might not have the resources to hire a social media manager, social media management might be allocated to a general marketer who wears many hats. Therefore, social media analytics software can be an easy, fast, and straightforward way of tracking social media campaigns for marketers who do not have the time to deep dive into performance. Because social media analytics tools have digestible visualizations, it is very simple for marketers to track metrics.

Additionally, brand influencers and industry thought leaders may use social media analytics tools to track their interactions and engagements. Influencers are always trying to grow their followings; social media analytics solutions enable this through performance tracking and utilizing social media best practices. Brand advocates may also put out sponsored content for companies; justifying and defending their tactics to those companies is much easier with the help of social media analytics software.

A customer service manager is another role that might take advantage of social media analytics. More and more customers are connecting with companies on social media when they are having issues with products or services. Oftentimes, it can be faster to tweet or direct message a company and explain the problems you are experiencing than it is to phone a call center and wait for a representative to assist you. Customer service teams can track complaints that come in through social media and ensure that issues are taken care of promptly.

Social Media Analytics Software Features

Analytics tools are meant to make the understanding and analysis of data easier; social media analytics software has the same purpose, but with features that are specific to measuring social media data. These features include:

Competitor analysis — Many social media analytics products allow users to track the performance of not only their own social media campaigns, but of their competitors’ social media accounts as well. This is beneficial for social media managers who want to increase followers or interactions in relation to competitors, or use rivals as a benchmark for overall performance. It may be advantageous to tap into a competitors’ audience to grow followers and engagement.

Follower analysis — The ability to glean insights into how your followers interact with your posts is important, but social media analytics software also provides insights into followers’ demographics and location. This can be valuable for understanding how certain demographics interact with specific pieces of content or posts. By having a better knowledge of followers, social media managers can target and personalize content for higher levels of engagement.

Content engagement analysis — Similar to follower analysis, knowing who engages with certain pieces of content is valuable because it helps inform content marketing teams. Social media analytics solutions can offer insights into which headlines attract the most followers, likes, or engagements. Personalization is a major aspect of social media strategies, so pinpointing how content performs allows for a more targeted approach to audience engagement. This is also important for paid social ads to determine what is worth spending money on to grow followers and audience.

Influencer identification — Some social media analytics offerings may provide the ability to identify which followers have the largest networks. Once these followers are identified, marketers, social media managers, or even C-level employees can target these influencers as potential brand advocates to promote company content or posts. Tapping into followers’ networks is an efficient way to increase one's own following and audience.

Attribution — Marketers are constantly utilizing attribution solutions to ensure they are properly tracking lead generation. Social media analytics tools provide attribution capabilities to make sure social media managers or other marketers are tracking which customers were converted from social channels. Understanding the click path of users that eventually converted into customers enables repeat strategies or campaigns to hopefully replicate the end result.

Reporting — Reporting is always a challenge, but analytics tools help improve the reporting process by providing a dedicated reporting tool instead of using spreadsheets. Social media data is easily organized and exported from social media analytics software so that it can be presented in a clean and easily understandable fashion. This is particularly useful when showing key metrics from social media data to higher-level employees.