10 Best social media analytics tools

In the competitive and ever-tightening filed of social media marketing, the question now is not whether to take benefit from social media analytics tools, but the real problem is, “Which social media analytics tools to use.”

It is a frustrating task to choose the bests among tens of tools, old and new, advanced and amateur, cheap and expensive.

In this article, we have gathered the information about 10 best social media analytics tools, based on their popularity among users and standard performance metrics for such tools.

Stay with us, read to the end, and decide the best for your business and brand.

9 best social media analytics tools

1- Iconosquare – Social media analytics you can trust

With its advanced analytics metrics, Iconosquare has won a respectable place among competitors. Using graphs and data, this social media analytics tool gives you insights about over 100 industry benchmarks. Iconosquare also gives you tools to compare your performance to your competitors in the targeted industry.

Features:

• 14 days of free trial
• Industry Benchmarks for over 100 industries
• Graphs and diagrams
• Impressions history
• Insights about the impact of promoted posts on your social media performance (for users on Advanced or Agency plans only)

Pros:

• No payment information needs to be given for using the free trial;
• Instagram Stories analytics
• In-depth engagement insights
• Tags and Mentions Analytics

Cons:

• Does not work with personal Instagram accounts
• Is set only for Instagram (business) and Facebook pages

2- Crowdfire – Measure, Track, understand your ROI

Looking for an easy peasy social media analytics tool? Crowdfire is yours to go. You will fall in love with its user-friendly and straightforward interface and functionality. Although the metrics and data provided by Crowdfire are not that advanced and complicated, it is a “worth using” tool for new and small businesses and personal social media accounts.

Features:

• 14 days of free trial
• Report builder for almost all social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram. Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest)
• Competitor Analysis
• Advanced Analytics
• Analytics Overview
• PDF and PPT exporter
• Chrome extension to share articles

Pros:

• Simple and user-friendly interface
• One-click sign-up (no credit card required to start the free trial)
• Very Low pricing

Cons: none that we find fatal!

3- Agorapulse – Social Reporting Metrics That Really Matter

Agorapulse is a well know social media analytics and management tool of which you have definitely heard. They are mostly famous for their experimental blogs, giving users valuable information and knowledge. To put it better, they have gathered all this useful blog information and awareness through their unique and advanced social media analytics tool. Let’s see what this valuable tool has got.

Features:

• 15 days of free trial
• Ready reports on your added social media accounts
• Easy to understand progressive diagrams and graphs
• Recommendations on the best day and time to post
• Hashtags report to determine which tags drive the most engagement
• Facebook Competitors visual report
• Report for Instagram Stories

Pros:

• No payment information needs to be given for using the free trial;
• Providing some free tools for social media marketing

Cons:

• Significantly expensive pricing plans compared to similar services

4. Loomly – Build a successful brand with your team

Loomly’s primary function is scheduling content for social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn). But they provide you with advanced analytics data for the posts scheduled by Loomly on your social media platforms. Similar to crowdfire, the best thing about Loomly is its simplicity and being to the point. With just a few clicks, you can get your posts scheduled for different social media accounts and receive analytics information about them.

Features:

• 15 days of free trial
• Analytics information about posts scheduled and published by Loomly
• Separate analytics data for different social media accounts
• Divided sections for each social media account
• The possibility to craft ads right from the Loomly website

Pros:

• No credit card required for the free trial
• Simplicity and easy to use interface
• Beautiful design

Cons:

• Analytics are available only after publishing five posts by Loomly.
• Only business Facebook and business Instagram accounts are allowed on Loomly.

5. Hootsuite – The Best Way to Manage Social

 Trusted by more than 18 million users worldwide, Hootsuite is one of the primary to go options for large businesses, regarding social media management. Users sign up to Hootsuite from more than 175 countries, which is an indication of the platform’s outstanding performance and user satisfaction.

Features:

• 30 days of free trial
• Key performance metrics
• Exportable reports
• Visual graphs and diagrams of social media accounts’ progress

Pros:

• Very advanced analytics
• Monitoring tools

Cons:

• Too complicated for new and/or small businesses
• Needs billing information starting the free trial (which cannot be eliminated from the website if the user no longer wants to use Hootsuite)

6. Sproutsocial – Drive strategic decision-making with social media analytics

Incepted in 2010, Sproutsocial is another outperforming social media analytics tool out there. Old and trustworthy as it is, the tool has proved to be the platform of big companies’ tastes. With a comfortable and user-friendly interface, precise metrics monitoring and scheduling tools, Sproutsocial is a must-try social media analytics tool.

Features:

• 30 days of free trial
• Detailed graphs and diagrams of social media account progressive growth
• Separate reports for different social media accounts connected to Sproutsocial
• Supporting personal social media accounts
• Monitoring and scheduling tools

Pros:

• Easy sign-up procedure
• No credit card information required
• Beautiful and friendly design

Cons:

• The analytics tool doesn’t work for Instagram without Sproutsocial app installed on your phone
• Scheduler doesn’t work for personal social media accounts

7. Buffer – Get in-depth insights to grow your brand on social media

Another powerful social media analytics tool, which provides posts and stories analytics, aggregated metrics, and audience demographics, is Buffer. This tool concentrates on business profiles on social media, so it means that personal social media accounts have nothing to do with Buffer, which is popular mostly among large businesses.

Features:

• 14 days of free trial
• Content performance analyzer
• Stories and posts analytics
• Audience demographics
• aggregated metrics
• Report builder
• Downloadable reports

Pros:

• Easy to set up and use
• No credit card required for the free trial
• Separate analytic reports for different social media accounts
• Works for Instagram personal accounts

Cons:

• Buffer’s mobile app must be installed for the tool to work
• To connect Buffer social media analytics tool to the Instagram business account, the account must be connected to Facebook

8. Keyhole – Plug into the Internet

Keyhole’s monitoring and hashtag analytics provides the users with an easy to use report builder about each and every social media accounts you have connected to the tool. Keyhole is most popular among small businesses and brands.

Features:

• Advanced analytics
• Reports for separate social media accounts
• Media monitoring API
• YouTube and Twitter tracker

Pros:

• With free trial
• No payment information required for the free trial

Cons:

• Not a really easy sign-up process

9. Netbase – social media analytics software

With the use of a powerful AI, Netbase has been successful in delivering a great user experience to small businesses and brands in the field of social media analytics. This tool is a little complicated to use, but once you get used to it, Netbase becomes your best social media assistant!

 Features:

• With free trial
• Consumer behavior monitoring
• Competitor insights
• Customer preference
• Content performance

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Visual social media analytics
• Location-based customer feedback

Cons: none that we find fatal!

Over to you

There are 10’s of more and less famous social media analytics tools out there that you can give a try. To a brand, what is most important is to gain a face on social media and build up a solid base of relationships with their audience. Take your time and analyze each social media analytics tool with patience. We tried to give you the best of our information and experience. Hopefully, this information will be of help.