Marketing on social media sites has become an important way for you to build brand recognition, bring traffic to your website and engage with your customers.

However, while utilizing these sites is a good strategy to incorporate into your total marketing plan, you really don’t know how well they work until you analyze the available data with social media analytics tools.

Netbase Provides A List Of 22 Analytics Tools

Netbase understands how important social media analytics are to your business.

Which is why they have compiled a list of 22 free social media analytics tools that will work for both large and small companies.

1. The first 5 are built-in analytics tools directly on each social media platform
2. The next 13 consists of free but external analytics tools you can use to supplement the built-in ones.
3. The last 4 are paid analytics tools you can use.

Netbase stands by the philosophy that the data from social media sites should help guide the strategies of your business. Do you agree?

5 Built-In Analytics Tools For Social Media Channels

You can learn a lot about your audience by just starting with the free data that is offered. They include the following:

1. Facebook Insights: Allows you to export data so that you can analyze metrics such as video views, post engagements, page likes, and pageviews. You can also watch your competitors with this tool.
2. Twitter Analytics: Supplies a large amount of useful data. You can break down your analysis by interests or gender. You can also see which current trends are popular.
3. Pinterest Analytics: Requires you to have a business account. You can see who people follow and examine their interests.
4. Instagram Insights: Gives you access to demographics, profile views, reach and impressions.
5. YouTube Analytics: Offers analytics like watch time, revenue reports, devices, demographics, and audience retention.

13 Free Analytics Tools For Social Media Channels

While you can learn a lot about your audience from free social media analytics tools, there are a number of other tools that can deepen your knowledge so you can make better business decisions based on data.

Netbase dives into the following 13 tools in detail here.

1. Boardreader
2. Buffer
3. Followerwonk
4. Friends+Me
5. Google Alerts
6. Hootsuite
7. Likealyzer
8. Social Oomph
9. SumAll
10. Twitonomy
11. TweetReach
12. Zoho Social

By taking the time to browse the list, you’ll have a better idea what tools are best for your specific business.

Paid Analytics Tools For Social Media Channels

5 paid tools also made their list:

1. SmarterlQueue (LadyBossBlogger’s personal favorite)
2. Netbase
3. Likeable Hub
4. Sprout Social
5. Tailwind

These tools offer even more insight into the analytics of your audience than the free tools. Each option in the paid tools section has information pertaining to the benefits of each tool.

Some of the information that you can gain from these tools includes:

• Understanding hashtag trends on Instagram
• Receive alerts about reputational threats
• Analyze trending topics on Pinterest

Deciding On A Tool For Your Business

If you want to stay ahead of the competition, utilizing an analytics tool is a must. If anything, you should begin by using one of the free options.

When you require more information and it fits your budget, you can always upgrade one of the free tools or try a free trial of one of the paid tools.

To really create a full picture of your visitors, you may need to utilize different aspects of various tools.

Although, if you do have the ability to utilize a paid tool, it may quickly pay for itself if you are at that point with your business.

Comment with what tool you find is the most helpful for your business!