Imagine unlocking the secret formula to creating viral content, boosting engagement, and staying one step ahead of your competition—all from the data already at your fingertips. That’s the power of social media analytics.

Social media analytics offers a powerful way to understand your audience, fine-tune your content strategy, and make every post count. Every like, comment, and share holds valuable insights that can transform how you connect with your followers.

This guide will walk you through essential tools and techniques, empowering you to harness the power of analytics and turn data into actionable strategies for sustainable business growth.

What is Social Media Analytics?

Social media analytics involves collecting and analysing data from social media platforms to understand and optimise how content performs on these channels. It helps businesses, marketers, and content creators make informed decisions about their social media strategies by providing insights into various aspects of social media engagement. 

Why Should You Have Social Media Analytics?

Having social media analytics is essential for any business or organisation looking to maximise the impact of its social media efforts. Here’s why integrating analytics into your social media strategy is crucial:

• Measure Performance. Social media analytics help you track the performance of your content. You can identify what resonates with your audience and adjust your strategy accordingly.

• Understand Your Audience. Analytics provide insights into your audience’s demographics, preferences, and behavior. This allows you to create targeted campaigns that speak directly to your audience’s needs and interests.

• Optimise ROI. Social media analytics can help you allocate your budget more effectively and maximise your return on investment.

• Enhance Content Strategy. Analytics reveal which types of posts perform best. This information is invaluable for refining your content strategy and ensuring consistent engagement.

• Monitor Competitors. Social media analytics often include tools for competitor analysis. Thus, you can identify gaps in your strategy and areas for improvement.

• Track Trends and Spot Opportunities. Keeping an eye on trending topics and hashtags through analytics allows you to join conversations at the right time, increasing visibility and relevance.

• Improve Decision-Making. Data-driven insights reduce guesswork, enabling you to make informed decisions about your social media marketing efforts.

• Monitor Campaign Effectiveness. Social media analytics help you track ad performance in real time if you run paid ads. This ensures you can tweak campaigns to get better results.

• Demonstrate Value. For marketers, analytics provide tangible evidence of success. You can showcase metrics to stakeholders or clients to justify strategies and budgets.

• Stay Ahead of the Algorithm. Social media platforms frequently update their algorithms. Analytics help you adapt by showing how algorithm changes impact your posts, allowing you to tweak strategies and maintain visibility.

9 Essential Tools for Social Media Analytics

As discussed above, social media analytics tools are indispensable for marketers aiming to gauge the success of their campaigns, understand their audience, and refine their strategies. However, the range of tools available can serve various needs and expertise levels.

For beginners, learning these tools could be difficult. Thus, you need to find the perfect tool to make analytics easier. That said, here’s a breakdown of nine essential social media analytics tools, categorised by user proficiency:

Beginner-Friendly Tools

Here are three beginner-friendly social media analytics tools that are ideal for those just starting out in managing and understanding their social media performance:

1. Hootsuite Insights

Hootsuite Insights is part of Hootsuite’s broader social media management suite. It offers a user-friendly interface designed for beginners and presents an all-in-one dashboard that tracks metrics across various platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 

Features:

• Real-time updates on social media mentions and conversations.
• Detailed sentiment analysis to gauge the tone of the content about your brand.
• Customisable reports that can be automated to save time and effort.
• Key performance indicators such as reach, engagement rates, and audience growth.

Best For: This social media analytics tool is perfect for small to medium-sized business owners and marketers who oversee multiple social channels and require a comprehensive tool to track and respond to social dynamics.

Pricing: Hootsuite offers several plans, starting with the Professional plan at AUD $76 per month, including basic analytics. The Team plan at AUD $278 per month provides more advanced analytics and additional team collaboration features.

2. Buffer Analyse

Buffer Analyse is Buffer’s analytics platform, providing streamlined and straightforward analytics. It’s designed with beginners in mind, focusing on clear visual reports and essential metrics like engagement data, campaign results, and audience growth.

Features:

• Insightful reports on post-performance include metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and overall engagement.
• Audience demographics and growth analysis to better understand and expand your follower base.
• Recommendations for optimal posting times based on historical engagement data.
• Ability to compare data across different time frames to assess campaign effectiveness.

Best for: Entrepreneurs and marketers who need a simple tool for analytics and effective social media management (posting and scheduling).

Pricing: Buffer offers FREE plans. However, the analytic features are only available in their ESSENTIALS plan, which starts at $5 per month. For more advanced features, the Premium plan is available at $10 per month or $1000 if you are an agency.

3. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a robust tool that offers extensive data on web traffic and user interactions. It is useful for tracking how social media campaigns drive traffic to your website. Although it can be complex, Google offers resources and tutorials to help beginners get started.

Features:

• Detailed reports on website traffic sources, including direct navigation, search engines, and social media referrals.
• User behavior analytics include how long visitors stay on your site and their actions.
• Conversion tracking measures the effectiveness of social media campaigns in achieving specific goals like sales, sign-ups, or other actions.
• Ability to set up custom goals and funnels to track user journeys from social media.

Best For: Suitable for businesses of all sizes that want to integrate their social media efforts with broader digital marketing strategies to understand ROI.

Pricing: Google Analytics offers a free version, which is quite comprehensive for most users. For enterprises requiring more advanced features, Google Analytics 360 is available, but pricing is custom and typically starts at around $12,500 per month, which includes additional support and features.

Comprehensive Analytics Platform

If you are looking for more extensive platforms, here are three comprehensive analytics platforms that offer robust social media analytics tools. These are perfect for businesses and marketers who require deep insights and broad functionality to enhance their social media strategies:

4. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is known for its depth of analytics and ability to integrate multiple social media platforms. It offers detailed insights into social media performance, audience demographics, and content success, making it a powerful tool for serious social media marketers.

Features:

• Comprehensive dashboard for monitoring social media engagement, reach, and growth.
• Detailed reports on individual post performance and overall campaign effectiveness.
• Listening tools to track brand mentions, competitor analysis, and industry trends.
• Automated publishing, customer relationship management (CRM) features, and team collaboration tools.

Best for: Medium—to large businesses or agencies managing multiple brands or clients who need extensive reporting and analytics capabilities.

Pricing: The Standard plan starts at around AUD $149 per month, with more advanced features available in the Professional plan for about AUD $249 per month and the Advanced plan, which includes more sophisticated tools and customisation options, costing about AUD $399 per month.

5. Brandwatch (formerly Falcon.io)

Brandwatch is a leader in the social media monitoring space, offering advanced analytics and data visualisation tools. Its ability to capture and analyse large volumes of data across social media and other digital platforms is particularly strong.

Features:

• Real-time social listening across multiple platforms to gauge audience sentiment and trends.
• Detailed audience insights, including demographics, interests, and behaviors.
• Content performance analytics and optimisation recommendations.
• Crisis management tools and competitor benchmarking.

Best For: Large enterprises and agencies that require real-time analytics and detailed reporting to inform complex social media strategies.

Pricing: Brandwatch does not publicly list specific pricing as it offers custom solutions tailored to each organisation’s needs, but entry-level access generally starts at about AUD $1,000 per month.

6. Emplifi.io

Emplifi, formerly Socialbakers, uses artificial intelligence to provide insights into audience preferences, content performance, and competitive benchmarks. Its user-friendly platform provides actionable insights that help marketers optimise their social media content and strategies.

Features:

• AI-powered analytics to predict content performance and suggest the best times to post.
• Audience analysis to segment followers and personalise content.
• Comprehensive competitor and performance benchmarking.
• Integration with major social media platforms for cohesive management and reporting.

Best For: Marketers, social media managers, and businesses of all sizes looking for an AI-enhanced tool to drive engagement and effectively measure social media ROI.

Pricing: Socialbakers offers various pricing tiers starting from approximately AUD $200 per month, with more advanced features and greater capacity available at higher price points.

Specialised Tools for Specific Insights

For businesses and social media managers seeking specialised tools to gain specific insights into their social media campaigns and performance, several platforms offer unique features that cater to distinct needs. Here are some specialised tools that provide detailed analytics for particular aspects of social media management:

7. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is primarily known for its capabilities in content insights. It allows users to analyse what content performs best for any topic or competitor across social platforms. This tool is especially useful for content strategy and creation, influencer identification, and competitive analysis.

Features:

• Content discovery and performance analysis to identify the most shared content across social networks.
• Influencer identification and tracking to monitor the most influential profiles relevant to specific topics.
• Alerts for brand mentions, competitor content, or any keywords of interest.
• Detailed reports on content trends, engagement rates, and more.

Best For: Content marketers, social media managers, and PR professionals who need to stay on top of trends and understand content engagement.

Pricing: BuzzSumo usually offers several plans starting with a free limited plan, which provides basic features and limited searches per month. Analytics, however, is only available through their paid plans. This typically begins at around $99 per month and can go up to $299 per month.

8. Keyhole

Keyhole specialises in hashtag analytics and social listening. It provides real-time monitoring of hashtags, keywords, and accounts on Twitter and Instagram. It’s ideal for tracking campaign performance and understanding audience sentiment.

Features:

• Hashtag tracking and analysis for campaigns and events.
• Account tracking to monitor competitors and influencer performance.
• Sentiment analysis to gauge the emotional tone of social media posts and mentions.
• Advanced reporting tools for measuring reach, engagement, and the impact of social conversations.

Best For: Marketers and agencies needing to measure the impact of specific social media campaigns, particularly those heavily reliant on hashtag usage.

Pricing: Keyhole pricing generally starts with a basic plan that might cost around $49 per month. More advanced plans that include additional tracking options and analytics features can range from $199 to $599 monthly/

9. Quintly

Quintly is a professional social media analytics tool that allows for detailed benchmarking and analytics across multiple social media platforms. It is highly customisable, making it suitable for businesses that require tailored analytics solutions.

Features:

• Customisable dashboards and metrics for comprehensive social media benchmarking.
• Automated reporting and data exports in various formats.
• In-depth competitor analysis and historical data comparison.
• Integration with major social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Best for: Medium—to large businesses and digital agencies that need to analyse data deeply and conduct extensive competitive benchmarking.

Pricing: Quintly is known for its custom pricing model, which depends on the size of the social media profiles and the depth of analytics required. 

10. Talkwalker

Talkwalker is a powerful social listening and analytics tool that uses AI technology to analyse social, online, and print data to provide comprehensive insights into brand reputation, competitor performance, and consumer trends.

Features:

• AI-powered sentiment analysis to understand consumer feelings towards brands or topics.
• Image and video recognition technology to track brand logos and content across media types.
• Virality map feature to track how content spreads across the web.
• Real-time analytics to keep up with fast-changing trends and sudden reputation shifts.

Best For: Large corporations and brands focused on maintaining a robust online reputation and tracking extensive online presence across multiple media types.

Pricing: Talkwalker offers its analytics services primarily through custom pricing tailored to the scale and specific requirements of the company. 

Techniques for Effective Social Media Analysis

As mentioned above, effective social media analysis empowers businesses to identify what works, refine their strategies, and maximise their return on investment. Below are key techniques for conducting insightful social media analysis to help your business thrive.

Goal-Setting for Analytics

To conduct meaningful analysis, it’s essential to start with clear, measurable objectives. Define what you want to achieve through your social media efforts, such as building brand awareness, increasing website traffic, or driving conversions. Once goals are established, identify specific key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with these objectives.

Examples of KPIs include:

• Engagement Rate. Measures how actively your audience interacts with your posts.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR). Tracks the percentage of users clicking on your links.
• Conversion Rate. Indicates how many users complete desired actions, like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.

Setting these benchmarks ensures you have clear metrics to measure success and helps you identify areas for improvement.

Audience Analysis

Knowing your audience is the cornerstone of a successful social media strategy. A detailed audience analysis ensures that your content is relevant, engaging, and tailored to your target market.

Thus, analytics tools like Meta Insights, LinkedIn Analytics, or Google Analytics can be used to dive into audience demographics such as age, gender, location, and language. Beyond demographics, explore interests, behaviors, and online habits to understand what content will resonate with your audience.

Techniques for audience analysis include:

• Social Listening: Monitor online conversations about your brand or industry to gain insights into customer sentiments and trends.
• Segmentation: Group your audience into categories based on shared characteristics to deliver personalised content.
• Behavioral Tracking: Study how your audience interacts with your posts, such as video completion rates or preferred content types.

Content Performance Tracking

Not all content performs equally, so it’s important to track which types of posts resonate most with your audience. Analyse metrics like impressions, clicks, and engagement to determine the effectiveness of your content. This data enables you to focus on high-performing formats like videos, infographics, or carousel posts while phasing out less effective ones.

Key methods for tracking performance include:

• Heatmaps: Identify the most engaging areas of your posts or landing pages.
• A/B Testing: Experiment with different headlines, images, or formats to see which version performs best.
• Trend Analysis: Spot seasonal or recurring trends to plan future content.

Engagement Metrics Monitoring

Engagement metrics are a direct reflection of how your audience interacts with your content. These metrics include likes, comments, shares, saves, and reactions. Each of these offers unique insights:

• Likes. Measure overall content appeal and audience interest.
• Comments. Reflect on how well your content sparks conversation or resonates emotionally.
• Shares. Indicate the shareability and viral potential of your posts.
• Saves. Suggest that your content provides long-term value or relevance.

Tracking these metrics over time helps you identify trends in audience behavior, optimise posting times, and refine your messaging to encourage more interactions.

Competitor Benchmarking

Analysing competitors’ strategies provides valuable insights and helps you identify opportunities for differentiation. That said, try these strategies. 

• Monitor Competitor Performance such as Follower growth rate, Engagement rates, Popular content types, and posting frequency.
• Perform a SWOT Analysis and evaluate competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 
• Identify gaps and opportunities, analyse where your competitors fall short, and explore opportunities to provide unique value.
• Learn from competitor’s successes and analyse their visuals, messaging, and timing to understand what resonates with their audience.

Conclusion 

The numbers don’t lie—social media analytics is the key to smarter marketing and measurable success. It gives you the clarity to understand your audience, optimize your content, and achieve your goals in a competitive digital landscape.

Now is the time to take control of your social media strategy with data-driven insights. Flexisource IT’s digital marketing team is here to help you get started. Contact us today to make your analytics work harder and smarter for your business!