Are you confused and disorientated in the social media maze? Without burning money, it can be hard to know what’s working. But — what if you could grasp your social media performance, without breaking the bank? Let us see how social media analytics tools free of charge can help us with it.
According to statistics, social media is essential for the development of businesses and individuals. It is your way of connecting with people, and building a brand. But how can you tell if your work is paying off? And that’s where social media analytics comes in; fortunately, there are some brilliant free tools available for you to measure your success.
Social Media Analytics 101
Social media analytics is about collecting and analyzing the data from social media platforms. It’s an art and science of knowing what your audience loves. It includes tracking views, clicks and shares. The goal? To help you make better decisions on your content and strategy.
Key Metrics to Track
A few important metrics can give you a great deal of information about how your social media is performing. Here are a few key ones to consider.
Reach: The number of unique people who viewed your content.
Impressions: This is the number of times your content has been displayed. It may have several views by a single person.
Engagement Rate: This is how people respond to your posts. This includes likes, comments, and shares.
Website Traffic: This tells you the number of visitors to your website from your social media.
Audience Demographics: Information about the age, gender and geographical location of your audience.
Reach vs impressions is a common misconception Consider reach the number of unique viewers. In Impressions, Total views.
Engagement rate = number of engagements / number of impressions. Then, multiply by 100. Getting high engagement means your content effortlessly connects with the audience.
Having linking social media to your website is a wise idea. Use UTM parameters to track the source of website visitors This gives you insight into what social media platforms drive the most traffic.
Setting Goals and KPIs
You need to set some goals before you can be successful. Your goals should be SMART. So if they follow SMART principles, that means being specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Your social media goals need to link up with your larger business objectives. Want to increase sales? And your social media goals will need to align with that.
Progress Tracking: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) They’re specific metrics that you’ll use to measure success.
As an example, if your goal is to raise brand awareness. An example of a relevant KPI would be the target of growing your followers by 15% within 3 months.
Best Free Social Media Analytics Tools
There are many free tools available that can help you with social media insights. Here’s a look at some popular ones.
Inferred Civil Activity from Native Data
Most of the major social media platforms have inbuilt analytics dashboards. These can serve as an excellent beginning point.
These are tools that provide analytics data about your Facebook page. You can see which posts outperform others, and get to know your audience.
Twitter Analytics gives you insights about your profile on Twitter. To see how your tweets are performing and who engaging with your content.
Use Instagram Insights to measure in-app engagement performance. You do have to have a business account to use it. It gives metrics such as reach, impressions and engagement.
Therefore, if you are looking for some free tools, then most of them are third-party tools.
A number of third-party analytic tools provide free plans with basic analytic features. They help you to manage multiple accounts and get insights.
Buffer’s free plan allows post scheduling and basic analytics. It’s a good tool for handling a couple social media accounts.
Hootsuite’s free plan is an option to manage multiple accounts. It also provides limited analytics.
Social media traffic to your website can be tracked using Google Analytics (with UTM parameters).
How You Can Get the Most Out of Free Tools
Using free tools efficiently is more than just a numbers game. It’s about knowing what the data is telling you and doing something about it.
Reporting and Data Interpretation
Some knowledge on how to read the data and generate reports. Identify trends and patterns in your social media efforts.
Brochure style reports using spreadsheets or presentation software are also simple and useful for temporary use. Omit personal stories and context and get right down to the important bits and what you can do to act on them.
Analytic-based Actionable Strategies
Transform into actions based on your data insights Use that information to adjust your content strategy.
Post content when it’s likely to get the most engagement. Understanding when they’re online allows you to hit a broader audience.
Narrow Down Targeting By Demographic Information Ensure that you know your correct audience.
Maximizing Free Tools and When to Go for a Paid Option
Free tools are excellent, but they come with caveats. Understand when you might need to pay for a plan.
Expandability and Advanced Functions
A lot of data might not be handled with free tools. They may also have restricted count options.
Free tools can have their own data retention policies. Data from very long ago may not be able to be seen.
They can also have fewer advanced functions, like competitor analysis.
How to Find the Right Paid Tool For Your Needs
Consider your requirements before opting for a paid tool. Compare pricing and features.
Think of your growth over the long term. Choose a tool that can expand with you.
Conclusion
Social media analytics are very important to grow your online presence. Free tools let you track and quantify your success without investing a lot. Use these tools to learn and refine your strategy.
Now, start measuring your social media performance. Try using different tools and find what helps you the best.
