If you’re investing your time and energy in social media for posting content, interacting with your audience, and trying hard to grow your brand, you probably want to know whether all your efforts are actually turning out how you want them to or not. Like, are people watching your post? Liking, commenting, or clicking or not? 

And at this point, social media analytics tools enter the show. With the help of these tools, you can track your performance on social media, learn about what’s working and what’s not, and adjust your strategy by improving it and moving further. 

For your help, here are 5 of the best tools for social media analytics you can use to check and enhance your performance on social media. Each tool has its own strengths and importance, so you can select the one that fits great with you. 

1. Sprout Social

Best for: Watching everything in one place and getting deep and useful insights. 

See, Sprout Social is the same as a center that controls your social media. It connects with various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and many more. With the help of this, you can watch the performance of your posts, compare the outcomes of different platforms, and also watch your competitors. 

What it helps you with:

1. Tells you about the performance of your posts—likes, comments, shares, reach, and more. 
2. Shows you which platform is actually best for you. 
3. Helps you in organizing your content with hashtags so that you can track what kind of posts give the best results. 
4. Helps you in comparing your number with other businesses. 

Sprout Social can also create beautiful and attractive reports for you to show your boss or client. 

Cost:

It starts at $249/month. Yeah, it’s quite expensive, but its features are completely reasonable; it’s honestly a great option for businesses and agencies. 

2. Hootsuite Analytics 

Best for: Handling many accounts and group collaboration 

Hootsuite is one of the most famous tools on social media. It helps you in scheduling your posts, replying to texts, and checking analytics all from a single dashboard. 

What it helps you with:

1. It helps you in tracking how each of your posts is performing in terms of likes, clicks, and engagement. 
2. Let you customize your dashboard so you won’t see unnecessary data. 
3. Make group work easier—you can assign work to different members of the group. 
4. With the help of this tool, you can also listen to what your audience is saying about your business. 

If you’re handling so many social media accounts, with the help of Hootsuite, you can organize all things very easily.

Cost:

It starts at $99/month. And at a higher level of plans, you’ll get more features.

3. Google Analytics (plus UTM tracking)

Best for: Watching how social media brings people to your website 

Firstly, Google Analytics is not only for websites—it’s a very useful way to see how your social media is actually affecting the goals of your business, like sales, sign-ups, or page visits. 

What it helps you with:

1. It tells you about how many people are going on your website from each platform. 
2. With the help of UTM tracking, you can easily see which of your posts is sending more traffic. 
3. Shows what people are doing on your site after clicking—are they purchasing something, reading a blog, or just leaving? 
4. Provides you insights into who your audience is and what their behavior is. 

It’s honestly very perfect for you if you want to connect your efforts on social media to real outcomes like sales or leads. 

Cost:

It’s completely free. However, it requires some time to set up, but later it’s totally worth it. 

4. Brandwatch

Best for: Tracking your brand reputation and online conversations

Brandwatch helps you listen to what people are talking about about your brand or business or about your competitors online—even without tagging you. It’s generally best for those who want to protect their reputation or learn from feedback from the audience. 

What it helps you with:

1. Monitoring mentions of your business or product on the internet. 
2. Helps you in understanding whether the rumors are positive or negative. 
3. Provides you trendy topics and keywords of your industry.
4. Identify those influencers who are talking about your business and help you in promoting it. 

This tool will be best for you if you want to stay aware of the opinion of your audience, identify problems quickly, or find new opportunities for marketing. 

Cost:

Its cost is based upon the size of your business and needs. This tool is best for medium- to large-scale businesses. 

5. Later analytics 

Best for: Tracking visual content performance, Instagram, and TikTok

Basically, Later is a user-friendly tool that is good for you if you post lots of photos or videos on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. It commenced as a simple scheduler, but along with time, it started offering a solid analytics tool. 

What it helps you with:

1. Tracks engagement for your stories and posts. 
2. Shows you the best time to post according to your audience’s activity status.
3. Helps you track the number of clicks you get from Instagram descriptions. 
4. The clean design of this tool makes it very convenient to use, even if you’re not an expert. 

Cost:

It begins at $25/month. But there’s also a free plan that has limited features.

Final Thoughts 

You are not supposed to be a data geek to get genuine insights from your social media. 

With the presence of these tools, it’s very easy to see what’s working and adjust what’s not and increase your audience instantly. 

If you’re a beginner, then Google Analytics and Later are the best budget-friendly tools for you. And if you’re handling a growing brand or many accounts, then tools like Sprout Social and Hootsuite will be best for you.

Remember that your goal is to stop guessing and start developing smart decisions based on actual events. When you completely understand your numbers, you’ll naturally know what the exact content your audience likes most is. And how can you provide them with more of it?

Let your content work for you, not just sit online. And these tools will help you there a lot.