From Data to Insight: Exploring the Best 7 Social Media Analytics Software

“Maximizing your social media may be impossible without the power of analytics tools.”

Tami from Buffer told us, and we agree with her.

After all, without valid measurements, how can you tell you’re implementing the right social media marketing strategy for your brand? Or if your current strategy is working?

The truth is, it’s hard to understand the full impact of your brand’s online presence without social media analytics tools.

These powerful tools can provide insights and metrics, from tracking engagement rates to understanding audience demographics. As a result, they promote business intelligence and ensure better results with your online strategy.

We’ll review the best social media analytics tools that can provide you with a deep understanding of your data and unlock the full potential of your online strategy.

What Is Social Media Analytics Software?

Social media analytics tools are platforms that help you track and analyze the performance of your social media accounts. 

They allow you to gather data on metrics like engagement rates, follower growth, and post impressions. 

This data can help you optimize your strategy, improve your content, and make informed decisions about your marketing campaigns.

Why Is Social Media Analysis Important? 

Tracking and analyzing the performance of your social media posts and campaigns can provide valuable insights. These insights can help you optimize your content, stay ahead of the curve, and make informed decisions about your strategy. 

Get Valuable Insights

With the help of social media analytics tools, you can access valuable data points that can provide details about your audience, content, and overall social media strategy.

For example, you can track metrics like engagement rates, post impressions, and follower growth to see how your content performs and its impact on your audience. 

You can also analyze demographic data to understand your target audience and what content they’re most likely to engage with. 

Optimize Your Content 

With social media analytics tools, you can understand better which types of content are performing well.

You can also tell which ones may need some tweaking through social engagement analytics, like engagement rates, impressions, and click-through rates.

For example, let’s say you run a fashion blog and you’ve been experimenting with different post types, including outfit photos, product reviews, and fashion news updates. 

You can track engagement rates using social media analytics tools for each content type and see which gets the most likes, comments, and shares. Then, you can focus on the ones that are performing best.

Moreover, social media analytics tools can help you identify trends and patterns in your data that can improve your content strategy.

For example, you may notice that certain types of posts perform better at certain times of the day or that some topics are more popular with your audience than others. 

This information can help you align your content to meet the needs and interests of your audience, ultimately leading to better engagement and more followers.

Stay Ahead of the Curve

In today’s fast-paced business world, staying ahead of trends is essential for success. 

Businesses can stay relevant and competitive by keeping a finger on the pulse of the latest industry trends and consumer preferences.

Social analytics tools can help you achieve this, as it allows you to track emerging trends and identify patterns as they happen.

For example, say you run a marketing agency, and your clients are all in the beauty industry. 

Social media analytics tools can help you track popular hashtags, mentions, and engagement rates. This way, you can know which beauty trends are in vogue.

Do You Need Social Media Analytics Software? 

Yes, social media analytics tool is a must if you want to grow your social media presence. Here are a few reasons why you should consider investing in social media analytics software:

• Gain a better understanding of your audience and their preferences
• Track the performance of your social media posts and campaigns
• Optimize your content strategy based on real-time data
• Stay ahead of the competition by tracking emerging trends and thought leaders

By leveraging the power of social media analytics tools, you can take your social media game to the next level and drive results for your business.

Best Social Media Analytics Software: Our Top 7 Options 

The best social media analytics tools combine all the best features in an easy-to-use platform. We’ll review seven of them below. 

1. Hootsuite Insights: Our Top Choice for Comprehensive Social Media Analytics

Hootsuite is one of the best examples of a social media analytics tool that turns data into insight. 

Its AI-powered analyst cuts through the fluff, not only showing you the numbers but also uncovering trends and conversations you might ordinarily miss. 

With this, you can stay ahead of your competition, identify thought leaders, and protect your brand. 

There’s more.

Hootsuite is also an all-in-one social media management platform.

So, you can get the best insights while managing your social accounts without changing platforms.

Here are some of its best analytical features.

What We Like

• Real-time monitoring: Hootsuite Insights tracks mentions and conversations about your brand, in real-time, across various social media platforms.
• Sentiment analysis: The tool uses natural language processing to determine the sentiment behind social media mentions and conversations, enabling you to understand how your customers feel about your brand.
• Customizable dashboards: Hootsuite Insights allows you to create customized dashboards that provide a snapshot of vital metrics and KPIs, making it easier to track performance and identify areas for improvement.
• Competitive analysis: With Hootsuite Insights, you can monitor and analyze the social media activity of your competitors, enabling you to stay ahead of them and identify growth opportunities.
• Influencer marketing: Hootsuite Insights can help you identify influential users on social media who are talking about your brand, helping you engage with them and leverage their reach to increase brand awareness.
• Data visualization: The tool offers access to several data visualization options, including charts, graphs, and heat maps, to understand and communicate your insights to key stakeholders.
• Historical data analysis: Using Hootsuite, you can analyze historical data, providing valuable data into long-term trends and performance.

What to Consider 

• Learning curve: Hootsuite Insights is a powerful tool with many features, but it can also be complex and require some time to learn and use effectively.
• Limited data sources: While Hootsuite Insights can monitor multiple social media channels, you may not get access to all the data sources that you need to monitor or analyze.

Should You Choose Hootsuite Insight?

If you’re looking to track your social presence while managing your social platforms, using Hootsuite insight can be a valuable asset.

2. Google Analytics: Best Free Analytics Solution 

Access Google’s data insights using the free Google Analytics solution. 

Google uses machine learning capabilities that can help you read data and present them as valuable insights. 

However, this Analytics tool isn’t a dedicated social media analytics tool.

Instead, it can provide valuable data on your social media performances by tracking website traffic and user behavior from social media referrals.

Here’s why we think it’s a great tool for social media analytics.

What We Like 

• Social media referral traffic tracking: You can track the traffic coming to your website from social media platforms and understand which platforms drive the most traffic and conversions.
• User behavior analysis: By using UTM tracking codes, you can measure user behavior on your website from social media platforms. This includes the pages they viewed, the time spent, and their actions on the site.
• Social media ROI measurement: Google can help you understand the ROI of your social media campaigns by tracking conversion rates and revenue generated from social media referral traffic.
• Social media goals monitoring: You can set goals in Google Analytics to track user behavior on your website, such as signups or purchases. 
• User demographics analysis: Google Analytics can provide insights into the demographics of your website visitors coming from your social media platforms, including their age, gender, location, and interests.

What to Consider 

• Lack of real-time data: Synchronizing data on Google Analytics may take up to 24 hours, which may not be ideal if you need up-to-the-minute insights for your strategy.
• Limited social media platform support: Google Analytics may not support tracking for all social media platforms, so if you’re using a less popular or niche platform, you may not be able to track your analytics using it.

Should You Choose Google Analytics?

If you’re primarily interested in tracking website traffic and conversions from social media, then Google Analytics could be a good fit. It’s also a free tool and could be attractive if you’re on a tight budget. 

3. Sprout Social: Best Easy-to-Use Software

Sprout Social combines the complexity of the best social media analytics functions in a simple-to-use manner. 

So, you can get and understand insights, track the progress of your social media strategy, and deliver reports on results like a pro without actually being one. 

And thanks to its intuitive interface, brand monitoring, scheduling, and high-level graphical reports, you can achieve more while putting in less effort. 

Here’s what we liked after testing Sprout Social.

What We Like 

• Reporting and analytics: Sprout provides reporting and analytics that enables you to track and measure your social media performance across multiple platforms. 
• You can view metrics such as engagement, reach, impressions, and follower growth over time and generate custom reports to share with your team or clients.
• Listening and monitoring: You can monitor your brand’s social media mentions and track relevant keywords, hashtags, and industry trends. 
• This way, you identify opportunities to engage with your audience, track sentiment around your brand, and keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.
• Publishing and scheduling: There’s a publishing and scheduling tool on Sprout that enables you to schedule and publish social media posts across multiple platforms from a single dashboard. 
• This is one of our favorites, as you can preview your posts before publishing, optimize your content for each platform, and analyze the performance of your posts after they’re published.
• Team collaboration: Sprout Social makes it easy to collaborate with your team and manage multiple social media accounts from a single dashboard, which is impressive. 
• You can assign tasks, approve content, and track your team’s performance across different platforms.
• Customer engagement: Never lose a moment with your followers using Sprout’s features like chatbots, automation, and message tagging. 
• You can also track customer interactions and measure customer satisfaction over time.

What to Consider 

• Customization limitations: If you love to control how your dashboards look, you might find Sprout Social lacking.

Should You Choose Sprout Social?

If you’re looking for a comprehensive social media analytics tool with several pro features that you can quickly learn through, Sprout could be a good choice. 

4. Buffer Analyze: Best Solution for Smart Work

Buffer Analyze could be your best partner if you’re looking for that one analytics software that will help you work smarter. 

Buffer’s analytics solution is changing the game by providing an exceptional AI-powered assistant that can improve your workflow. 

For instance, you can schedule and publish posts, track brand mentions, create AI-powered social media copies, and collaborate with team members. 

When we took this software for a spin, here are some of its best features we loved. 

What We Like 

• Customizable dashboards: First, we love how you can customize your dashboards to display the metrics and data that matter most to you. 
• Performance metrics: Another impressive feature is Buffer’s detailed metrics that provide insights into your social media performance, including engagement, reach, impressions, follower growth, and more.
• Competitor analysis: Track your competitor’s performance, including engagement rates, follower growth, and content strategy. 
• This can help you benchmark your performance and identify opportunities to improve.
• Audience Insights: Align your content and messaging to suit your audience by learning about their demographics, including their age, gender, location, and interests.
• Report generation: Buffer Analyze allows you to generate and customize reports and summarize your performance over time.

What to Consider 

• Limited platform support: As much as we love Buffer’s solution, it currently only supports Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, which is limiting if you use other social media networks.

Should You Choose Buffer Analyze?

You can choose Buffer Analyze if you need a smart working partner for your social media analytics and reporting. 

5. Brandwatch: Best Enterprise Solution

Before anything else, Brandwatch is a holistic social media analytics that provides enterprise solutions for big brands like Carlsberg, Unilever, and other brands like yours that aim for the top. 

While testing out Brandwatch, we discovered that it uses advanced natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to analyze social media data and identify trends. 

So, it can help you understand what people are saying about your brand, products, and competitors on social media, which is a great way to inform your marketing strategy.

Here are some of the best Brandwatch features we found.

What We Like 

• Social listening: Put your ears to the ground by tracking conversations about your products, services, and industry across several social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.
• Sentiment analysis: Not just a bunch of codes, Brandwatch uses machine learning to analyze social media data and identify how your customers feel regarding your brand, product, or topic. 
• Audience insights: Become a master of your audience and know how to target them effectively through insights into their demographics, interests, and behaviors. 
• Competitor analysis: You can learn about your competitors while gaining insights into their social media performance, including their share of voice, sentiment, and engagement metrics.
• Trend analysis: Brandwatch helps you stay on top of your game by helping you identify trends and opportunities for content creation and engagement.

What to Consider

• Complexity: Brandwatch solution was designed to provide advanced analytics and reporting as enterprise software, not a conventional analytic tool.

Should You Choose Brandwatch?

Brandwatch requires some expert handling and might be overwhelming if you’re new to using social media analytics platforms or don’t have the time to invest in learning how to use it.

So, we can recommend it for businesses with dedicated in-house or professional marketing teams. 

6. Talkwalker: Best Solution for Real-time Monitoring 

Talkwalker is one of the best consumer intelligence acceleration platforms with a powerful analytics tool for tracking real-time data across your social media platforms.

There’s no better way to say it, but Talkwalker gets a vital aspect of social media analytics you might find lacking in other options: competitor benchmarking. 

With Talkwalker, you can do more than analyze posts. You can compare your insights to your competitors using IQ apps and draw meaningful comparisons while exploring gaps.

Here’s an overview of the best features of Talkwalker.

What We Like 

• Sentiment analysis: Talkwalker’s sentiment analysis, like Brandwatch, uses natural language processing (NLP) to determine the sentiment of social media posts and comments, whether positive, negative, or neutral. 
• Although we found it’s not as accurate as Brandwatch, it can still help you track the overall sentiment of your brand, products, or services on social media.
• Image recognition: As a fashion or beauty brand, Talkwalker’s image recognition feature has you covered. For instance, it can notify you when your brand logos or images appear on social media, even if you’re not tagged or mentioned in the post.
• Competitive analysis: Employ Talkwalker as your super spy and infiltrate your competitors’ camp to track their engagement, reach, and sentiment.
• Influencer marketing: While identifying the right influencers can help you build valuable relationships, Talkwalker influencer identification walks you to the doors of relevant thought leaders whose talk rakes in high followers and engagements. 
• Crisis management: You can stay ahead of bad reviews and mentions when you have a system with a crisis management feature that monitors social media for mentions of your brand during a crisis or emergency.
• You can use this feature on Talkwalker and quickly respond to negative comments or issues.

What to Consider 

• Limited customer support: Trying to contact Talkwalker’s customer support team can be a rather frustrating effort, as you might get a late or no reply
• However, they seem to offer better attention to those on paid plans.

Should You Choose Talkwalker?

Combining all of Talkwalker’s features, we have no doubts that it can help you deliver detailed analytics and report for social media ROI to your partners.

7. Agorapulse: Best Social Media Manager with Powerful Analytics

Agorapulse brings in all the buzz from your social media channels, measures that against top KPIs, and turns the result into value-packed insights you can use to improve your strategy.

Even though it’s not a dedicated analytics tool, its intuitive design makes it easy to create and extract actionable reports from your favorite social networks, including its latest inclusion, ticktock.

And above all, Agorapulse customer support is top of the bar. 

We contacted them while testing the software to ask a few questions, and the response was swift, as much as it was on point. 

Meanwhile, we’ll list some of its features that are great to miss. 

What We Like

• In-depth post analytics: Agorapulse provides detailed insights into the performance of individual posts, including engagement metrics like likes, comments, and shares, as well as reach and impressions.
• Competitor analysis: You can track your competitors’ social media performance, engagement rates, follower growth, and top-performing content.
• Custom reporting: Access customizable reporting features that help you create reports tailored to your business needs and goals.
• Team collaboration: Assign tasks, monitor progress, and bridge the gap in your workflow using Agorapulse collaboration features that enable teams to work together on social media analytics and reporting.
• Social listening: Agorapulse allows you to monitor mentions of your brand or industry keywords across social channels, providing useful insights into customer sentiment and feedback.

What to Consider

• Basic Functionality: Agorapulse isn’t a dedicated social analytics tool. So, you might find its reporting features basic, especially if you want to gain deeper insights into your social media marketing efforts.

Should You Choose Agorapulse?

We recommend Agorapulse for small businesses looking to do more with fewer resources since it doubles as an analytics software and a social media management tool.

What to Consider When Buying Social Media Analytics Software 

Here are four vital factors to consider before buying social media analytics software:

Features

When choosing a social media analytics tool, consider the features it offers. This is because different software will have their strengths and specializations. 

So, you’ll want to choose one that aligns with your specific social media goals. 

Here are some key features to look for:

• Data collection and analysis: Look for a tool to collect and analyze data from multiple social networks in real time.
• Reporting and visualization: The software should be able to generate custom social media reports and visualize data in easy-to-understand formats, such as graphs and charts.
• Competitor analysis: It’s helpful to choose software that can track and analyze the social media activity of your competitors.
• Influencer identification: If influencer marketing is vital to your strategy, look for software to identify and analyze influencers in your industry or niche.
• Social listening: Choose software to monitor conversations as well as analyze brand mentions, sentiment, and customer feedback across major social networks.

Considering these vital features, you can choose a social media analytics software that best meets your needs and helps you achieve your social media goals.

Ease of Use 

Using less complicated social media analytics tools can ensure easy navigation and access to information without spending too much time or effort. 

So, consider tools with intuitive dashboards, drag-and-drop functionality, and customizable social media reports.

Also, consider those that offer tutorials, training, and customer support to help you get started quickly and easily. 

Integration

When choosing a social media analytics tool, look for one that can connect to various social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. 

Also, consider integrations with other marketing tools, such as email marketing platforms, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and marketing automation tools. 

With these integrations, you can easily access data from all your marketing channels in one place and understand your overall marketing efforts.

Customization 

Customization can help you set up your social media tools to give you maximum results by adjusting several parameters toward your business goals,

So, look for software that allows you to:

• Create customized reports to meet your specific needs and goals
• Customize dashboards that provide a comprehensive view of your social media performances
• Choose the metrics and data sources that are most important to your business
• Create alerts and notifications for specific metrics or events

Wrapping Up 

Social media analytics tools can provide the lens to view and understand your audience, track overall social media performance, and make data-driven decisions. 

However, finding the right software that is easy to use, has brand-specific features, and can be customized is crucial for making the most of your social media marketing efforts. 

That’s why we recommend Hootsuite Insights as the top choice. 

With its comprehensive features and customizable reports, Hootsuite Insights makes it easy for you to succeed in your social media efforts.