By now, most advertisers understand that social media marketing is no longer an option but a must-have integrated part of the digital marketing mix. Yet, digital marketers face a difficult task: justifying investment with results.
Although social media advertising is the second biggest market within digital marketing, clients are asking for arguments whenever they have to withdraw money from their wallets.
Suppose you’re a social media manager looking for analytics software to help you back up your speech with data and graphics. In that case, this list of the best free and paid social media analytics tools will offer you options to choose from.
In this post, we’ll examine the best 20 social media analytics tools and compare and contrast them so that you can find the right tool for your needs. Pricing tiers (yearly plans) are for reference only, as they frequently change their subscription fees.
What is the best way to track social media analytics?
While most social networks will provide you with basic performance metrics and audience data, the information they give is limited. That’s why using another analytics tool for in-depth data would be better to help you take actions based on insights to grow your social presence, interact with followers, and drive sales. In other words, ROI.
The best social media analytics tools will deliver reports with performance metrics, audience demographics data, insights, and guides to optimize content and better connect with your audience.
Read our list and pick your favorite analytics tool.
Best 20 Social Media Analytics Tools of 2024 (Paid & Free)
- Google Analytics – best for tracking social media traffic
- Buffer Analyze – best for a cost-effective solution for SMBs
- Hootsuite Analyze – ideal for agencies juggling multiple clients and platforms
- Sprout Social – perfect for enterprises with a multi-user social media team
- Hubspot Analytics – best at monitoring leads and automating sales pipelines
- BuzzSumo – ideal for marketing teams and creators wanting to create high-quality content
- Zoho Social – ideal for startups and SMBs needing customer management help
- TapInfluence – best for adding influencer marketing to their digital strategy
- Sendible – best for agencies with a powerful set of social media management tools
- Facelift Data Studio – Quintly – suited for companies of all sizes in need of in-depth analysis reports
- Audiense – best for brands focusing on building their presence and community on X
- Shield app – best for brands on LinkedIn aiming for organic growth
- Agorapulse – best for competitor benchmarking and analysis in academia
- Iconosquare – best Instagram analytics tool
- Sprinklr – best for omnichannel analytics
- Cyfe – best for data integration and white-label reporting
- Tailwind – best for eCommerce analytics
- Brandwatch – best for advanced social media analytics
- Keyhole – best for real-time tracking and sentiment analysis
- Rival IQ – best for competitor benchmarking
Google Analytics
Best for tracking social media traffic
PRICE
Free
PROS
- Free tool that provides insights into website performance
- Advanced features for event tracking
- Enhanced e-commerce insights into user interactions and product performance
- Integrations with other Google products
- Cross-platform user identification across devices and browsers
CONS
- Privacy concerns regarding the collection of personal data without ensuring user privacy
- Migration challenges from Universal Analytics to GA4 for the less tech-savvy users
- Limited reporting
- Users complained of approximations and inaccuracies in data tracking
Though it’s not solely a social media analytics software, Google Analytics is a great tool to track traffic from each social media network to your website. And it’s also free.
Google Analytics can provide extra insights into how social media works for your business.
Here is how Google Analytics can help you analyze the traffic coming from social networks:
Google Analytics enables you to understand social media impact on your business. It reveals:
- Top social platforms driving website traffic.
- Most effective content for each network.
- User behavior from social media.
- Conversion rates (buy/subscribe/sign up) from social visitors.
- Demographics, interests, and audience relevance.
- ROI from social media efforts.
Overall, GA4 enhances strategy and boosts engagement, conversions, and sales if you have good strategies and practices in place.
However, Google Analytics should be a complementary tool for monitoring social media performance. It will not provide all the necessary information, so you’ll need to use another analytics software and consult both for better results.
Top 3 Features
- Event-based data tracking provides more flexibility and accuracy in data collection and reporting and enhances conversion tracking.
- Enhanced measurement tracks pageviews for single-page apps, improving data accuracy and insights for businesses.
- Machine Learning integration involves ML algorithms to fill data gaps and improve data accuracy, enabling predictive analytics and audience segmentation.
About the Company
Google, the tech mammoth founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, acquired Urchin Software in 2005, laying the groundwork for Google Analytics. Launched in November 2005, Google Analytics initially used Urchin’s technology to provide detailed website traffic analysis.
Over the years, Google Analytics underwent significant transformations, transitioning through different generations like Urchin Analytics, Classic Analytics, Universal Analytics, and finally, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), which became the default installation.
As of 2019, Google Analytics was the most widely used web analytics service globally. By July 2023, GA4 replaced Universal Analytics as the primary platform.
Rating
Users from G2 and Capterra rate Google Analytics 4 positively, giving GA4 a high rating of 4.5/5 out of over 6,300 reviews, indicating a strong satisfaction level.
Buffer Analyze
Best for a cost-effective solution for SMBs
PRICE
Start at $5/channel/month
PROS
- Clear overview of your social media performance
- Tracks key metrics like engagement rate, reach, and audience growth
- Integrates with Buffer’s social media management platform
- Clean, user-friendly interface
CONS
- Limited to Buffer’s supported social media platforms
- It may not provide the depth of analytics compared to dedicated tools
The world’s most popular social media tool comes with an incredible built-in analytics tool.
Buffer Analyze helps you measure your brand’s performance across multiple social media platforms. It also provides precious audience insights for each channel so you can optimize your strategy to grow your reach, engagement rate, and sales.
Just like its whole platform, Buffer Analyze is extremely easy to use. Its analytics dashboard is so intuitive that tracking performance is enjoyable. Reporting to managers or clients is also fun and easy, thanks to its fully customizable and exportable reports.
Buffer is perfect for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a cost-effective solution. If you’re the marketer of an enterprise-level company, you may want to consider more complex tools. Keep reading!
Top 3 Features
- Engagement analytics to track likes, comments, shares, and clicks across your social media posts.
- Audience growth to monitor your follower growth and audience demographics over time.
- Optimization suggestions for recommendations on the best times to post and content types to improve engagement
About the Company
Buffer introduced Reply in 2016 for social customer service but discontinued it in 2020 due to evolving market demands. Buffer Analyze was launched in 2019 to provide social media analytics, followed by Buffer Engage in 2021. Their latest addition, Start Page, designed for creating mobile-friendly landing pages, was unveiled in October 2021.
In 2022, Buffer focused on enhancing the Start Page platform and introduced features such as TikTok video scheduling, Instagram Reels auto-publishing, and Google Business profile integration.
Rating
According to user reviews on G2 and a comparison between Buffer and Hootsuite, Buffer outperforms Hootsuite in all categories as users find Buffer easier to use, set up, and manage.
Hootsuite Analyze
Ideal for agencies juggling multiple clients and platforms
PRICE
Start at $99/user/month
PROS
- Real-time monitoring of social media activity
- Custom reporting and data visualization
- Integrates with Hootsuite’s social media management platform
- Team collaboration
- Workflow management
CONS
- Basic analytics compared to dedicated tools
- Requires a Hootsuite subscription to access the analytics features
- More expensive compared to other tools
- Users complained of poor customer service
Hootsuite Analyze is probably one of the best social media analytics software on the market. With Hootsuite, you have a 360-degree view of your social media accounts’ performance in one place. The tool makes it easy to compare results across channels and make changes accordingly.
Hootsuite’s analytics tools are particularly useful for agencies juggling multiple clients, as it offers customizable reporting and team collaboration features. You can also explore more social media management software options tailored for agencies here.
Their competitors’ reporting tool allows you to peek over the fence and see how your competitors are doing, helping you to stay competitive at all times.
As a marketer, I’m sure you care about your brand’s reputation. With Hootsuite, you can monitor your brand’s name mentions and tags and handle negative comments before they escalate into something unpleasant.
It’s an excellent tool for small—to medium-sized businesses, marketers, and even agencies. However, the tool doesn’t have a free plan, so you must determine whether your social media ROI is worth a subscription plan.
Top 3 Features
- Real-time monitoring tracks social media activity and mentions in real-time
- Custom reporting outlines specific metrics and KPIs.
- Team collaboration allows for team collaboration and workflow management within the platform
About the Company
Hootsuite, founded in 2008 as BrightKit, evolved into a leading social media management platform. By 2010, Hootsuite had integrated Facebook and LinkedIn, reaching 1 million users that year. In 2012, Hootsuite raised $20 million in funding, valued at $200 million, and acquired competitor Seesmic.
As Hootsuite continued its rapid growth, reaching 10 million users by 2014, it focused on developing its analytics capabilities.
Rating
Hootsuite scores 4.4 out of 5 on Capterra, with over 3,600 reviews expressing an overall positive interaction with this analytics tool.
Sprout Social
Perfect for enterprises with a multi-user social media team
PRICE
Start at $249
PROS
- Various analytics features and reports
- Competitor benchmarking and analysis
- Custom report creation and data visualization
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- More expensive compared to other tools
- Some users find the learning curve steep
- Expensive subscription to access the full range of features
With Sprout Social’s Analytics Tools ,you can also see the full picture of your social media strategy across all networks. The platform offers advanced measurement of all important metrics for both organic and paid posts, allows you to measure your team’s performance, understand how you stand against your competitors, and get customizable reports.
But they take analytics a step further thanks to their Listening Tool. This feature enables you to track and analyze conversations on relevant topics to understand your industry’s trends. It also helps you identify and engage influencers and trendsetters as brand advocates.
Yet, all these premium tools come at a high price. Sprout Social may be too pricey if you’re a start-up or small business; their monthly plans start at $249.
Top 3 Features
- Social media analytics dashboard to comprehensively view your social media performance with customizable dashboards.
- Competitor analysis to benchmark your performance against competitors and identify opportunities for improvement.
- Custom reporting to track specific metrics and KPIs relevant to your business goals.
About the Company
Sprout Social, founded in 2010, has grown to serve over 30,000 customers worldwide. In 2011, the company launched its social media management platform, which included analytics capabilities to help businesses measure their social media performance. Over the years, Sprout Social has continuously enhanced its analytics tools, leveraging user feedback and industry trends.
By 2023, Sprout Social’s analytics suite had become a comprehensive solution, providing insights into audience growth, content performance, competitor benchmarking, and more. The company’s focus on innovation led to the development of advanced features like AI-powered analysis and custom reporting, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions to grow their social media presence and impact.
Rating
Sprout helps businesses and enterprises with a hefty budget, as reflected in user reviews on Capterra, where Sprout Social scores 4.4 out of 5.
Hubspot Analytics
Best at monitoring leads and automating sales pipelines
PRICE
Free plan available
PROS
- A holistic view of marketing performance across channels
- Insights into lead generation and ROI from social media
- Integrates with other HubSpot tools for a seamless experience
- Customizable reporting and dashboards
CONS
- May be more expensive compared to standalone social media analytics tools
- Limited free plan
- Learning curve for users unfamiliar with the HubSpot platform
HubSpot’s analytics tool is part of its Marketing Hub, an all-in-one marketing software. This means you can have all your marketing tools and data under one roof. This is a lifesaver solution for big companies whose marketers struggle to juggle multiple marketing tools and scattered customer data.
To be more specific, because HubSpot integrates with your CRM, you can see the visits, leads, and customers that social media networks bring to your company. This will give you a broader view of your marketing strategy and help you determine which tactics work best for your business.
If you’ve already decided to try HubSpot, be ready to take a considerable amount of money out of your wallet.
Top 3 features
- Social media performance tracking of key metrics like reach, engagement, and clicks for your social media posts.
- Lead attribution to understand how social media contributes to lead generation and sales.
- Custom reporting to track specific KPIs and measure the ROI of your social media efforts.
About the company
HubSpot, founded in 2006, offers a robust analytics tool providing detailed insights into website traffic and customer interactions. Its analytics tool, designed to provide detailed insights into website traffic and customer interactions, has significantly developed.
This social media analytics tool tracks metrics like sessions, page views, CTA clicks, and events, updating most data every 40 minutes and within five minutes for social media interactions. HubSpot’s Analytics API enables developers to access marketing performance data with a v3 Reporting API in development.
Rating
The company’s knowledge base provides extensive resources on using its analytics tools, including creating custom reports, managing dashboards, and understanding different chart types. Users find Hubspot one of the best social media analytics tools, scoring 4.4 out of 5 based on almost 6,000 reviews on Capterra.
BuzzSumo
Ideal for marketing teams and creators wanting to create high-quality content
PRICE
Start at $199/user/month
PROS
- Free trial to test the tool’s features
- Insights into trending topics and popular content
- Identifies influential voices and potential influencer partnerships
- Competitor analysis and benchmarking
CONS
- Pricing can be high for small businesses and individuals
- Less focus on analytics compared to dedicated social media analytics tools
- Requires a subscription to access the full range of features
BuzzSumo may not be a classic social media analytics tool, but it provides valuable information, especially for content teams. Their features focus on content analytics: brand monitoring, social listening, and influencer research.
What this platform can help you with is:
- Content discovery. The tool helps you find trending topics to use to create content for your website.
- Content analytics. Get data about social shares of your content.
- Brand monitoring
- Influencer marketing. BuzzSumo scans the web and identifies truly valuable influencers who can represent your brand.
However helpful this tool may be for marketing teams and content creators, you will need some other social media analytics tools to monitor social networks.
Top 3 features
- Content discovery to find the most shared content on social media for specific topics or keywords.
- Competitor analysis of your competitors’ content and performance on social media.
- Influencer marketing to identify influential voices in your industry and potential influencer partnerships.
About the company
BuzzSumo, established in 2013, has become a prominent player in content marketing and social media analytics. The platform’s journey to develop its analytics tool began with a focus on assisting users in analyzing content engagement, tracking trends, and identifying outreach opportunities across various social media platforms and search engines.
By providing real-time insights into content performance, including metrics like shares, likes, comments, and backlinks, BuzzSumo empowers businesses and individuals to optimize their digital strategies effectively.
Rating
Over the years, BuzzSumo has expanded its features to include trend tracking, influencer identification, and brand monitoring, catering to the evolving needs of content creators and marketers in the digital landscape. BuzzSumo received a rating of 4.5 out of 5, though the reviews are significantly fewer (under 200) than most competitors.
Zoho Social
Ideal for startups and SMBs needing customer management help
PRICE
Start at $15/user/month
PROS
- A good range of analytics features and reports
- Competitor benchmarking and analysis
- Custom report creation and data visualization
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- May not offer the depth of analytics compared to dedicated tools
- Users complained of bad customer support
- Not very suitable for Instagram
You may know Zoho, the platform that offers integrated CRM solutions for small—to large-sized businesses. Their social media analytics tool, Zoho Social, covers all the basic needs to measure performance across the most important social networks. It also provides demographic data about audiences so you can laser-target your campaigns.
Plus, social media monitoring is included, so you can monitor brand mentions and understand how customers perceive your brand.
With Zoho, you get custom and in-depth reports of your brands’ performance across the networks.
Do use Zoho’s analytics tool if you decide to go for a Zoho subscription plan!
Top 3 Features
- Social media analytics dashboard to gain insights into your social media performance with customizable dashboards.
- Competitor analysis to benchmark your performance against competitors and identify areas for improvement.
- Custom reporting to create tailored reports to track specific metrics and KPIs relevant to your business goals.
About the Company
Zoho, founded in 1996, has grown to offer a suite of over 45 online applications for businesses. In 2008, Zoho launched its social media management platform, Zoho Social, to help companies to manage their social media presence.
By 2022, Zoho Social had become a comprehensive solution, offering features such as custom reports, audience analysis, content performance tracking, and competitor benchmarking.
Rating
Zoho’s focus on innovation and user feedback has driven the development of Zoho Social, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions to optimize their social media strategies. Consequently, users rate Zoho Social favorably with a 4.7 score out of 3,122 reviews.
TapInfluence
Best for adding influencer marketing to their digital strategy
PRICE
From $1,999/month
PROS
- Large database of vetted influencers across multiple niches
- Insights into the performance of influencer marketing campaigns
- StreamlineS the influencer outreach and collaboration process
- Campaign management tools to simplify workflow
CONS
- Very expensive compared to other influencer marketing platforms
- Learning curve for users unfamiliar with the platform
This is a social media tool unlike any others we’ve discussed before. Because influencer marketing is such a massive part of today’s digital marketing, with brands investing billions of dollars to be represented by top influencers, new tools specialized in finding and connecting with influencers have emerged.
TapInfluence is probably one of the most recognized platforms for influencer marketing and prides itself on working with top brands worldwide.
If you’re one of the marketers looking to add influencer marketing to your digital marketing strategy or even consider replacing classic display ads campaigns with influencers, here’s what you can get with TapInfluence.
First, the influencer search section allows you to discover influencers by domain and audience. You can also see the influencers’ past performance and project rates and even get an estimated “cost per engagement.” The platform has a base of 100.000 influencers.
Next, you can contact influencers and make project propositions using the influencer outreach option. Everything happens within the platform.
Once you get a deal with an influencer, you can set up your campaign through the platform.
Of course, TapInfluence’s analytics tool section lets you measure the performance of your influencer campaigns.
One crucial area in which TapInfluence could improve is the onboarding process. Navigating the platform is currently very difficult.
Top 3 Features
- Influencer discovery to search for and vet influencers based on various criteria like niche, audience demographics, and engagement rates.
- Campaign management to streamline the influencer outreach, collaboration, and content creation process.
- Performance tracking to monitor the reach, engagement, and ROI of influencer marketing campaigns.
About the Company
TapInfluence, founded in 2013, has evolved from its initial name, Blog Frog, to become a prominent player in the influencer marketing space. The company, headquartered in Mountain View, CA, has developed a robust influencer search engine that allows users to quickly find relevant influencers based on demographics and interests.
TapInfluence boasts a database of over 100,000 vetted and validated influencers across various social media platforms and blogs. The company’s key strength lies in its campaign management tools, which enable users to carry out the entire influencer marketing process within their software, including visual calendars, content review, and reporting.
Rating
TapInfluence claims that its campaigns can result in an 11x increase in ROI. However, there are almost no user reviews to get users’ feedback.
Sendible
Best for agencies with a powerful set of social media management tools
PRICE
Start from $29/user/month
PROS
- Wide range of analytics features and reports
- Competitor benchmarking and analysis
- Custom report creation and data visualization
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- May not offer the depth of analytics compared to dedicated tools
- Scheduling issues and crashes
- Users complain of bugs and glitches
Sendible is an all-in-one social media tool that prides itself on its unique social media analytics software.
The tool can help you identify the best posting times for your brand for each platform. It also discovers the most engaged followers and top-performing posts so you can create even more compelling content.
Sendible generates powerful reports for each social media platform and an engagement report that shows combined tracking for all your brands and post engagements across all channels.
They also have a drag-and-drop report builder in the reporting section, which allows marketers to easily create presentation-ready reports by adding logos and other branding elements.
You can also generate automated reports at a set time, and Sendible will send them to your clients, managers, or stakeholders.
On the downside, Sendible doesn’t cover yet newcomer platforms such as TikTok or Snapchat. You will have to address those networks separately.
Top 3 Features
- Social media analytics dashboard to gain insights into your social media performance with customizable dashboards.
- Competitor analysis to benchmark your performance against competitors and identify areas for improvement.
- Custom reporting to track specific metrics and KPIs relevant to your business goals.
About the Company
Sendible, founded in 2009, has grown to serve over 30,000 customers worldwide. The company initially focused on providing a social media management platform, allowing users to streamline their social media activities, engage with audiences, and analyze performance.
Over the years, Sendible has continuously enhanced its analytics capabilities, offering detailed insights into metrics such as engagement, follower growth, post reach, and more.
By 2022, Sendible’s analytics suite had become a comprehensive solution, providing customizable reports, Google Analytics integration, and the ability to track key performance indicators across major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Rating
Sendible’s commitment to innovation and user feedback has driven the development of its analytics tools so businesses and social media managers can make data-driven decisions to optimize their social media strategies. Therefore, user ratings average 4.6 out of 5 on Capterra.
Facelift Data Studio (Quintly)
Suited for companies of all sizes in need of in-depth analysis reports
PRICE
A flat fee + €15/profile + €20/user/month
PROS
- Advanced analytics features and reports
- Custom dashboards and data visualization
- Benchmarking against competitors and industry averages
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- Pay-per-channel pricing model becomes quite expensive
- May have a steeper learning curve for some users
- Reporting can be improved
Quintly, now Facelift Data Studio, is an analytics tool that monitors engagement across all major social platforms.
What you won’t find anywhere else on the market is the possibility to choose from 500+ social media metrics and create customizable dashboards to set up in-depth analysis.
With Facelift Data Studio, you can send custom automated reports by setting automated delivery times and formats. The platform allows report export in many formats, including JPG, PNG, PDF, XSLX, PPTX, and CSV.
Because it’s a complex analytics tool, Facelift Data Studio includes brand monitoring and social listening; this way, you can keep an eye on what people are talking about your brands.
Influencer analytics is also included in the package, so if you run influencer marketing campaigns, Facelift Data Studio can help you monitor their performance and ROI.
However, it can be quite overwhelming for beginners due to the amount of data it provides. Learning to use the tool and decipher the metrics can take a while.
Top 3 Features
- Custom dashboards to track the metrics that matter most to your business.
- Benchmarking to compare your performance against competitors and industry averages.
- Data export for your social media data for further analysis or reporting.
About the Company
Quintly, founded in 2010, has grown to become a leading social media analytics platform. The company initially focused on providing detailed insights into Facebook performance but has since expanded to support analysis across multiple social networks, including Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
Quintly’s analytics suite offered features such as competitor benchmarking, audience demographics, content performance tracking, and custom reporting by 2022.
The company’s commitment to innovation has driven the development of advanced capabilities, such as AI-powered analysis and white-label solutions for agencies and enterprises.
Quintly became Facelift Data Studio in 2024.
Rating
Quintly’s user base has grown to include over 3,000 clients worldwide, ranging from small businesses to large corporations and digital agencies. However, there are few reviews on Capterra, averaging 4.7 out of 5.
Audiense
Best for brands focusing on building their presence and community on X
PRICE
Audiense Insights costs £1199/month
PROS
- Advanced audience segmentation and targeting capabilities
- Insights into audience interests and behaviors
- Social media campaigns based on audience insights
- Integrates with various social media platforms
CONS
- May be more expensive compared to other social media analytics tools
- Some users find the platform unintuitive
- Less efficient dashboard
- Reporting could be improved
Audiense Connect is a social media analytics tool specialized in X (formerly Twitter) and is probably the most complete tool for managing X communities.
You get a comprehensive analysis of your Twitter community with in-depth demographic data such as location, language, interests, and consumer segmentation. The tool helps brands thrive and grow communities on Twitter by taking data-driven actions to optimize content and connect with followers.
Audiense also guides you on how to boost your engagement rate by providing personalized advice on the best time to tweet and a Twitter-only listening tool dating back to the platform’s beginning (2006) that can help you find relevant conversations about your brand.
Another great feature is that you can create your own chatbot and use it to communicate with your brand’s followers via direct messages.
If Twitter is a big part of your digital marketing strategy, then Audiense Connect makes sense for your brand, but otherwise, you might as well work with a platform that covers all social networks.
Top 3 Features
- Audience segmentation based on demographics, interests, and behaviors.
- Social listening to monitor conversations and mentions related to your brand or industry.
- Campaign optimization for social media campaigns based on audience insights and performance data
About the Company
Audiense, established as a then-Twitter marketing tool and Audience Intelligence platform, has evolved to provide innovative audience insights and segmentation solutions since its inception in 2013.
The company offers two main products: Audiense Insights for audience intelligence and segmentation and Audiense Connect (formerly SocialBro) as an X marketing tool.
Audiense Insights allows users to create personalized audience segments using various filters, empowering them to make informed marketing decisions and drive high-performance campaigns.
Rating
With a focus on social consumer segmentation and real-time data analysis, Audiense has garnered a solid user base and continues to enhance its analytics capabilities to meet the evolving needs of marketers and consumer researchers. Users rate it 4.2 out of 5 on Capterra.
Shield app
Best for brands on LinkedIn aiming for organic growth
PRICE
Start at $8/user/month for one LinkedIn profile
PROS
- Real-time monitoring of brand mentions and conversations
- Insights into the sentiment and tone of social media conversations
- It detects potential reputation issues and responds proactively
- Various social media integrations
CONS
- May be more focused on reputation management than broader social media analytics
- Requires a subscription to access the full range of features
- Learning curve for users unfamiliar with the platform
Shield Analytics is a LinkedIn analytics platform that helps professionals and companies build their reputation and professional network.
The tool provides key metrics about your LinkedIn profile to help you track your performance and identify areas for improvement.
It’s a great tool for professionals as well as for B2B brands to use data to unlock organic growth on LinkedIn.
Shield Analytics offers a unified dashboard consolidating all LinkedIn activities, including people and posts, in one convenient place. Key features of the tool include at-a-glance metrics, content analysis, posting frequency maps, team activity tracking, and earned media value estimation.
Top 3 Features
- Brand monitoring of brand mentions and conversations across social media in real time.
- Sentiment analysis to analyze the sentiment and tone of social media conversations related to your brand.
- Competitor monitoring for your competitors’ online activity and reputation
About the Company
Shield Analytics, founded in 2019, has emerged as a leading LinkedIn analytics platform trusted by brands and creators worldwide. The company’s mission is to provide a comprehensive solution for monitoring LinkedIn growth metrics, identifying areas for improvement, and optimizing content strategies.
Shield Analytics has pricing plans starting at $10 per month for individual usage, with a free trial option.
Rating
The tool’s user-friendly interface and practical features have made it a valuable asset for enhancing LinkedIn presence and driving growth on the platform. So far, the app has no reviews on Capterra.
Agorapulse
Best for competitor benchmarking and analysis in academia
PRICE
Start from $49/user/month for 10 social profiles
PROS
- Advanced analytics features and reports
- Competitor benchmarking and analysis
- Custom report creation and data visualization
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- It may not offer the depth of analytics compared to dedicated tools
- Onboarding and setup takes too much time
- Limited regarding Instagram
Agorapulse is a social media management and analytics tool that helps businesses streamline their social media workflows. It offers publishing, engagement, and reporting features with a strong focus on analytics.
Agorapulse’s analytics features provide insights into your social media performance, allowing you to track key metrics, generate reports, and benchmark against competitors. Assess performance by profile, post, or hashtag, and leverage audience and scheduling data to enhance social media strategies.
The Power Reports add-on allows for customized and automated reporting, catering to diverse user needs.
Top 3 Features
- Social media analytics dashboard to gain insights into your social media performance with customizable dashboards.
- Competitor analysis to benchmark your performance against competitors
- Custom reporting to create tailored reports to track specific metrics and KPIs relevant to your business goals.
About the Company
Founded in 2010, Agorapulse offers a comprehensive scheduling, engagement, monitoring, and reporting platform across various social media channels.
In 2024, Agorapulse has exciting plans for new features, including Advanced Listening for monitoring conversations, Analytics Open API for customized reports, direct Facebook post boosting, CRM integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot, collaborative Instagram post publishing, an Advocacy feature, Pinterest publishing, image and video options for bulk scheduling, and various enhancements like social media platform icons, LinkedIn carousel preview, and a mobile asset library. We’ll stay tuned and see how these develop.
Rating
Agorapulse’s commitment to innovation and user-centric features has positioned it as a valuable resource for businesses seeking to optimize their social media presence and performance. It has a solid user base and hundreds of reviews on Capterra, averaging a high rating of 4.6 out of 5.
Iconosquare
Best Instagram analytics tool
PRICE
Start at €49/month for 5 profiles
PROS
- Focuses specifically on Instagram and Facebook analytics
- In-depth insights into post performance and audience demographics
- Competitor benchmarking and analysis
- Custom report creation and data visualization
CONS
- Limited to Instagram and Facebook analytics
- Clunky management of multiple channels
- No keyword monitoring
Iconosquare is a social media analytics tool that provides insights into your Instagram and Facebook performance.
Like most social media analytics tools, Iconosquare offers a range of features, including post analytics, audience insights, and competitor benchmarking. Iconosquare’s analytics features help businesses understand their social media performance and optimize their strategies.
Top 3 Features
- Post analytics to track likes, comments, and engagement rates.
- Audience insights regarding audience demographics, including location, age, and gender.
- Competitor benchmarking
About the Company
Iconosquare has been at the forefront of providing advanced analytics solutions for Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) since its inception. Founded in 2013, Iconosquare has continuously evolved its analytics tool to offer comprehensive insights into social media performance. The platform enables users to monitor and analyze key metrics such as engagement rates, follower growth, post effectiveness, and audience demographics.
Rating
Iconosquare’s analytics tool has become a valuable resource for businesses and individuals looking to optimize their social media strategies effectively. Iconosquare averages 4.4 out of 5 on Capterra.
Sprinklr
Best for omnichannel analytics
PRICE
Start at $299/user/month
PROS
- Advanced analytics features and reports
- Social listening and sentiment analysis
- Custom report creation and data visualization
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- More expensive compared to other tools
- A steeper learning curve for some users
- Less intuitive usability
Sprinklr is a comprehensive customer experience management platform that includes social media analytics capabilities. It offers a range of features, including social listening, content optimization, and customer care.
Sprinklr’s analytics features provide insights into your social media performance, allowing you to track key metrics, generate reports, and optimize your strategies.
Top 3 Features
- Social listening to monitor social media conversations and mentions in real-time.
- Sentiment analysis for insights into the sentiment behind social media conversations.
- Content optimization for recommendations on the best times to post and content types to improve engagement.
About the Company
Sprinklr, founded in 2009, has become a leading provider of customer experience management solutions. The company’s journey to develop its analytics tool began with a focus on helping brands unify data from disparate social media activities and generate holistic reports.
Over the years, Sprinklr has continuously enhanced its analytics capabilities, leveraging AI to deliver actionable insights from billions of data points across 30+ digital channels. Sprinklr’s analytics suite had become a comprehensive solution by 2024 thanks to features such as a unified dashboard, advanced listening, customizable reports, and benchmarking against competitors.
Rating
The company’s commitment to innovation has driven the development of Sprinklr AI+, which utilizes AI models to provide quick insights across 60+ verticals and translate insights into 100+ languages. Sprinklr averages 4.2 on Capterra and has several tens of reviews.
Cyfe
Best for data integration and white-label reporting
PRICE
Start at $19/user/month
PROS
- An all-in-one business dashboard solution
- Custom dashboards and data visualization
- Data integration from various sources
- White-label reporting capabilities
CONS
- Not as advanced in analytics compared to other social media analytics tools
- Difficult to manage multiple social accounts due to little automation
- Uncomfortable color palette and design
Cyfe is an all-in-one business dashboard that includes social media analytics capabilities. It offers a range of features, including custom dashboards, data integration, and white-label reporting. Cyfe’s analytics features help businesses track their social media performance alongside other key business metrics.
Top 3 Features
- Custom dashboards to track social media metrics alongside other business data.
- Data integration from various sources, including social media platforms, Google Analytics, and more.
- White-label reporting for branded reports to share with clients or stakeholders
About the Company
Cyfe, founded in 2012, has grown into a leading all-in-one business analytics platform. The company’s journey to develop its analytics tool began with a focus on helping businesses monitor and analyze data from various sources in one organized place.
Over the years, Cyfe has continuously enhanced its analytics capabilities, offering over 100 integrations and 250 metrics. By 2014, Cyfe had introduced the ability to monitor multiple Google Analytics accounts from a single dashboard, providing comparative insights and faster decision-making for businesses managing multiple websites.
In 2020, Cyfe released its Dashboard Templates Gallery, offering pre-made templates for Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and YouTube to simplify reporting and make it accessible to anyone.
Rating
Cyfe’s commitment to innovation and user-centric features has positioned it as a valuable resource for businesses seeking to unify and analyze their data. It sums up reviews of 4.6 out of 5 on Capterra.
Tailwind
Best for eCommerce analytics
PRICE
Free plan available
PROS
- Focuses specifically on Pinterest and Instagram analytics
- A wide range of analytics features and reports
- Insights into hashtag performance and content optimization
- Integrates with Pinterest and Instagram
CONS
- Limited to Pinterest and Instagram analytics
- Not ideal for users who manage multiple social media platforms
- Steep learning curve
- More expensive compared to other tools
Tailwind is a social media management and analytics tool specifically designed for Pinterest and Instagram. It has developed a powerful analytics tool to provide deep insights into marketing performance.
Tailwind offers features for scheduling, analytics, and hashtag research. Tailwind’s analytics features provide insights into your social media performance, allowing you to track key metrics, generate reports, and optimize your strategies.
Top 3 Features
- Post analytics to track likes, comments, and engagement rates.
- Hashtag performance to gain insights into the performance of specific hashtags used in your posts.
- Content optimization for recommendations on the best times to post and content types to improve engagement.
About the Company
Founded in 2012, Tailwind has expanded its services to offer advanced analytics solutions for businesses of all sizes. The platform allows users to measure performance, analyze engagement, track followers, and optimize content strategies across various social media channels like Pinterest and Instagram.
Tailwind’s analytics tool is powered by the Official Pinterest Business Insights API, enabling users to go beyond vanity metrics and unravel high-level trends into key drivers at the profile, board, and individual pin levels.
Rating
With features like interest heatmaps, performance summaries, and Google Analytics integration, Tailwind Analytics empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions and enhance their marketing strategies effectively. As for user ratings, it scores 4.4 out of 5, with a handful of reviews on Capterra.
Brandwatch
Best for advanced social media analytics
PRICE
Quote on demand
PROS
- Advanced social listening and sentiment analysis
- Insights into audience demographics and interests
- Campaign tracking and performance analysis
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- On the more expensive side
- Lack of pricing transparency
- Can seem overwhelming for new users
- Complex interface requiring training
Brandwatch is a social media analytics and listening platform that provides insights into brand mentions, consumer sentiment, and market trends. It offers features for social listening, audience analysis, and campaign tracking. Brandwatch’s analytics features help businesses understand their brand’s online presence and optimize their strategies.
Top 3 Features
- Social listening to monitor brand mentions, industry keywords, and competitor activity across social media.
- Sentiment analysis
- Audience analysis to understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, and online behavior
About the Company
Brandwatch, founded in 2007, has grown to become a leading social media analytics and listening platform. The company’s journey to develop its analytics tool began with a focus on tracking billions of online conversations across blogs, news, forums, videos, Twitter, reviews, images, Facebook, and more.
By 2017, Brandwatch had developed proprietary web crawler technology that searched through more than 80 million pages daily, indexing content for easy reference and conducting sentiment analysis using natural language processing. The platform offers features like the Brandwatch Analytics dashboard for real-time insights, the Vizia platform for data visualization, and Brandwatch Audiences for influencer discovery.
Rating
Today, Brandwatch serves over 2,000 brands worldwide, providing a comprehensive solution for understanding consumer insights, trends, influencers, and brand perception. It scored 4.3 out of 5 on Capterra.
Keyhole
Best for real-time tracking and sentiment analysis
PRICE
Start at $89/user/month
PROS
- Real-time monitoring of social media activity
- Sentiment analysis and topic tracking
- Custom report creation and data visualization
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- Can be more expensive compared to other tools
- May have a steeper learning curve for some users
- Requires a subscription to access the full range of features
Keyhole is a social media analytics tool providing real-time insights into your performance. It offers features for tracking hashtags, mentions, and campaigns, as well as audience insights and sentiment analysis. Keyhole’s analytics features help businesses understand their social media impact and optimize their strategies.
Keyhole offers various trackers to monitor events and influencer activity, and track hashtags, keywords, and accounts, providing data on reach, top posts, share of voice, and more.
Top 3 Features
- Real-time monitoring for social media activity, hashtags, and mentions in real time.
- Sentiment analysis
- Campaign tracking
About the Company
Keyhole, founded in 2010, has grown to become a leading social media analytics and reporting tool used by over 7,000 marketers worldwide. The company’s journey to develop its analytics tool began with a focus on providing real-time insights into social media campaigns, brand mentions, and industry conversations.
By 2023, Keyhole had expanded its capabilities to include features like machine learning-based performance predictions, sentiment analysis, and influencer management.
Rating
The platform’s user-friendly interface and presentation-quality reports have made it a valuable resource for businesses seeking to make data-informed decisions about their social media strategies. However, there are not enough user ratings and feedback from Capterra or G2 to accurately understand how users interact with the platform.
Rival IQ
Best for competitor benchmarking
PRICE
Start at $239/user/month
PROS
- Competitor benchmarking and analysis
- Insights into content performance and audience growth
- Custom report creation and data visualization
- Integrates with a variety of social media platforms
CONS
- Higher costs for freelancers and agencies
- Confusing onboarding for new users
- Lacks video metrics
- Search functionality could be improved
Rival IQ is a social media analytics tool that provides insights into your and your competitors’ social media performance. It offers features for tracking engagement, audience growth, content performance, competitor benchmarking, and analysis.
Rival IQ’s analytics features help businesses understand their social media impact and identify opportunities for improvement.
Top 3 Features
- Competitor benchmarking
- Content performance
- Audience growth to monitor your follower growth and audience demographics over time.
About the Company
Rival IQ was founded in 2012 as a robust analytics tool to empower social media managers with comprehensive insights and competitive analysis. Founded to cater to the needs of social media professionals, Rival IQ has been providing on-demand analytical data, alerts, and custom reports since its inception.
With a focus on delivering actionable insights, Rival IQ offers features like head-to-head reports against individual competitor accounts on major social media platforms, in-depth reporting for competitive analysis, and detailed social post analytics to identify successful content strategies.
Rating
The platform’s user-friendly interface and customizable reporting capabilities have made it a valuable resource for social media managers looking to enhance their strategies effectively. Rival IQ scores 4.4 out of 5 based on a dozen reviews on Capterra.
Conclusion
All right, it looks like we’ve covered the most essential social media analytics tools available in 2024.
In case you’re still deciding whether a subscription to a social media analytics tool is worthwhile, let me remind you that any of these tools will provide you with more data that you can use to grow your brand on social networks and increase brand awareness and sales.
If you want your brand to stay competitive and relevant online, you must work with professional analytics tools.
