8 Best Social Media Management Tools For Analytics 

The best social media analytics tools are Hootsuite, SproutSocial, Agorapulse, and Exolyt. Other top analytics tools for social media include TubeBuddy, SocialInsider, Brandwatch, and Tailwind. These tools help you make sense of social media data to improve your strategy. 

A reliable social media analytics app will help you collect and analyze data from different platforms (Facebook, YouTube, etc.) on a unified dashboard. For most tools, you can customize your dashboard by the platforms and/or metrics you want to track. That way, you’ll only focus on what matters to your goals.

In this guide, you’ll discover 8 of the best software for social media analytics. Read on to learn what they track, their useful features, pros, and cons.

#1: Hootsuite: Best Overall

Hootsuite is the best social media management tool for analytics. It’s an all-in-one social media management platform that helps you create content, engage with your audience, and measure performance. So, it lets you analyze your progress from each post, profile, or platform/channel.

Hootsuite supports the following platforms:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• X (Twitter)
• YouTube
• Pinterest
• Threads

Hootsuite analytics and reporting features

Hootsuite offers a unified, user-friendly dashboard. It pulls and analyzes data from various channels. It also displays metrics from organic and paid advertising, so you can compare what’s driving engagement and conversions.

Hootsuite’s competitive analysis tool lets you analyze competitors’ strategies. You’ll know how their audience has grown with time or what content performs best. You also compare this against your profile’s performance or industry benchmarks.

The advanced social listening features help you understand customers’ needs, opinions, and behavior.

Hootsuite’s pre-built and custom reports allow you to share your findings with stakeholders. They are easy to understand and exportable in different formats, including PPT, CSV, and PDF.

Lastly, Hootsuite’s OwlyWriter AI gives you actionable insights to improve your social media strategy. For instance, it identifies your top-performing content types and formats that you can repurpose to attract the right audience.

Hootsuite’s other useful features

• Publishing and scheduling tools like the Smart Calendar and Planner help you plan and create high-quality content.
• Engagement tools like automated DMs reduce your response time and personalize your replies.
• AI content creation and insights save time by providing content ideas.

Hootsuite pricing

Hootsuite offers three pricing plans:

• Standard: 149 USD/user/month for 5 social profiles, competitor analysis, unlimited post scheduling, and more
• Advanced: 399 USD/user/month for unlimited social accounts, all Standard plan features, plus more
• Enterprise: Customized plan depending on your needs

Hootsuite pros

• User-friendly dashboards
• Easy to integrate with social media platforms
• Useful collaboration features
• Reliable customer support

Hootsuite cons

• Glitchy inbox feature for Instagram
• Most advanced analytics features are only available on higher price tiers
• The benchmarking feature could be more flexible

#2: Sprout Social: Best for Facebook analytics

Sprout Social is the best social media management tool for Facebook analytics. It’s also one of the best social media analytics platforms for large agencies. That’s because it offers the core features for content creation, social media engagement, and analytics. 

Plus, it lets you create content approval workflows and permissions for managing clients’ work.

Sprout Social analytics and reporting features

Sprout Social offers various analytics and reporting features to measure your Facebook performance. The Paid Performance Reporting feature analyzes the return on your ad campaigns. It also helps you generate customizable reports using metrics like video views, conversions, and engagement.

Use Sprout Social’s interactive charts and graphs when presenting data to your team, clients, or other stakeholders. 

What’s more, the comparative reports let you compare the performance of organic and paid posts.

Other reports that’ll help you analyze data include:

• Post Performance Reports show which content resonates with your audience.
• Profile Performance Reports help you measure the growth of your social profiles.
• Paid Performance Reports measure the impact of paid ads.
• Competitor Reports track and measure competitors’ performance.
• Tag Report lets you analyze tagged messages.
• Network Reports show the performance of individual social platforms.
• Case Team Activity Reports help you track and analyze your team’s productivity. 

Sprout Social’s other useful features

• Social Media Content Calendar: For content planning and scheduling across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, and X
• Smart Inbox: To manage messages, comments, and queries from customers across different social channels
• Salesforce Service Cloud Integration: To streamline customer service and support
• Bot Builder: For automated message replies on Facebook and Twitter
• Link In Bio: To drive traffic to your website from Instagram

SproutSocial pricing

Rival IQ offers four social media marketing plans:

• Standard: 199 USD/mo for 5 social profiles, keyword monitoring, reporting, and more
• Professional: 299 USD/month for unlimited social profiles, Standard plan features, plus more
• Advanced: 399 USD/month for Professional plan features plus more
• Enterprise: Custom price for tailored services depending on your needs

Sprout Social pros

• Comprehensive Facebook analytics
• Offers easy-to-understand insights
• Straightforward dashboard
• Reliable social listening feature
• Offers best-time-to-post suggestions
• Useful Smart Inbox feature

Sprout Social cons

• Expensive for small businesses and solopreneurs
• Some advanced features are only available to premium users
• Lacks a translation feature

#3: Agorapulse: Best for Instagram analytics

Agorapulse is the best social media management tool for Instagram analytics. It tracks leads and conversions on your IG to measure the revenue generated. You also get actionable insights into the impact of your social media efforts from easy-to-read reports.

Besides analytics, Agorapulse offers various social media management features. These include content planning, engagement, and social listening.

Agorapulse analytics and reporting features

Agorapulse offers in-depth Instagram analytics to measure your success on Instagram. The Analytics Overview feature shows metrics and insights into what brings leads and conversions.

The Benchmarking feature tracks competitor performance, from their follower growth to top-performing content. Plus, it lets you compare different competitor profiles and use them as benchmarks against your performance.

Agorapulse also allows you to integrate your IG profile with Google Analytics. That way, you can combine data and generate automated reports. It also pulls analytics from its social listening tool.

Other reports to generate using Agorapulse include:

• Funnel reports show what brings the most revenue, including posts, profiles, or team members.
• Content reports measure posts’ performance to improve your content strategy.
• Social media ROI reports help you prove your social media marketing efforts.

Agorapulse’s other useful features

• Social media inbox for managing messages from all your social media accounts
• Social listening to discover people’s opinions about your brand, unmet customer needs, and the latest industry trends
• Content creation and publishing to engage your target audience
• Link in bio to create personalized mini websites for more reach (and customers) on social media
• Collaboration features like approval workflows to streamline teamwork
• Advocacy features to equip your brand’s advocates with the right tools to spread your brand’s message to their networks

Agorapulse pricing

Agorapulse offers four pricing plans:

• Standard: 99 USD/mo for 10 social profiles and standard features
• Professional: 149 USD/mo for 10 social profiles plus professional features
• Advanced: 199 USD/mo for 10 social profiles plus advanced features
• Custom: Personalized price tailored to your needs

Agorapulse pros

• Integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics and social media platforms
• Measures ROI on social media efforts
• Comprehensive reports
• User-friendly dashboard
• Reliable customer support

Agorapulse cons

• Better in social media management than monitoring and analytics
• Limited analytics features in lower plans
• Extra cost for additional users (expensive for teams)

#4: Exolyt: Best for TikTok analytics

Exolyt is the best social media analytics app for TikTok analytics. It offers in-depth insights into the performance of any TikTok account. Exolyt measures content performance, tracks campaigns, and analyzes audience sentiment.

You also get insights into TikTok trends, industry patterns, and influencer marketing. Plus, Exolyt helps you compare your brand’s performance against your competitors.

Exolyt analytics and reporting features

Being a dedicated TikTok monitoring and analytics tool, Exolyt offers tools to measure TikTok performance. These include:

• Account Influence gives an overview of your account’s performance, including total views and engagement on posts.
• Video feature analyzes the performance of individual videos. It measures the engagement rates, comments, downloads, and more.
• Exports and Integration features let you export data into shareable reports. Examples include campaign and influencer marketing reports.
• Smart Folders feature lets you access and organize performance metrics. It also offers sentiment analysis on user-generated content (UGC). So, you’ll know what your audience feels about your brand’s UGC.

Exolyt’s other useful features

• Content ideation: Get content ideas from viral TikTok challenges and trending audio to engage your audience.
• Social listening: Use Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to understand your customers’ pain points.
• Market research: Discover helpful insights into your audience’s needs and market patterns to improve your product development.
• Sound monitoring: Get the latest and relevant music to use in your videos for engagement and follower growth.

Exolyt pricing

Exolyt offers three pricing plans:

• Basic: Free for 1 tracked TikTok account and hashtag, 1 influencer campaign, TikTok analytics, hashtag, and sound analytics
• Essentials: 400 USD for 50 tracked TikTok accounts and hashtags, 10 influencer campaigns, 3 social listening projects, all analytics in the Basic plan, plus country analytics, industry insights, and video comments
• Advanced: 950 USD for 300 tracked TikTok accounts and hashtags, 100 influencer campaigns, 3 social listening projects, all analytics in the Essential plan, plus age & gender analytics, influencer database, sentiment analysis, and video transcriptions

Exolyt pros

• Offers a free plan 
• Comprehensive TikTok analytics
• Allows historical data tracking
• Allows cross-platform integration
• Reliable customer support

Exolyt cons

• Limited to TikTok monitoring and analytics
• Higher price for advanced features
• It could be more intuitive

#5: TubeBuddy: Best for YouTube analytics

TubeBuddy is the top social media tracking software for YouTube analytics. It’s also one of the best social analytics tools for creators and small teams who want to grow their YouTube channels. 

TubeBuddy offers in-depth YouTube analytics to optimize your channel, attract the right audience, and create engaging content.

TubeBuddy analytics and reporting features

TubeBuddy’s data and analytics features provide insights into what’s working and what’s not.

They include the following:

• The Videolytics feature tracks and analyzes YouTube videos. It shows what content gets the highest views, engagement, and shares. It also gives SEO recommendations to help you increase your videos’ visibility and ranking on YouTube.
• The Channelytics feature lets you compare your channel’s growth and performance against competitors. It also displays metrics like video views and subscriber growth, so you can pick your competitor’s winning strategies.
• The Retention Analyzer feature analyzes watch time on your videos. So it lets you know which video types engage your audience and the in-video cards you can use to boost engagement.

TubeBuddy’s other useful features

• SEO and ranking tools like SEO Studio and Search Explorer help you track and improve your video rankings.
• Channel optimization features like Video Topic Planner and Channel Valuation help you manage, improve, and grow your YouTube channel.
• Community management features improve engagement with your audience
• Content planning and creation using tools like Bulk Card Editor, Bulk End Screen Editor, and Bulk Demonetization Double-check
• AI tools like the Title Generator, Thumbnail Analyzer, and Suggested Shorts help optimize YouTube videos.

TubeBuddy pricing

TubeBuddy offers two packages:

• Pro: 4.50 USD/mo for search optimization features, video engagement tools (limited access), and resources
• Legend: 28.99 USD/mo for Pro plan features plus 50+ tools, unlimited search rank optimization and tracking, video ad tests, predictive analytics, and AI features

TubeBuddy pros 

• Offers unique YouTube-specific features
• Excels in YouTube SEO
• Easy to use and integrate with your channel
• Available as a browser extension and mobile app
• Offers resources to grow your YouTube channel

TubeBuddy cons

• Limited access to features in the free plan
• Lacks reporting features
• Limited to YouTube monitoring only

#6: SocialInsider: Best for LinkedIn analytics

SocialInsider is the best social media analytics tool for LinkedIn. It offers straightforward analytics on metrics like engagement and views on your organic posts and paid campaigns.  

SocialInsider is also the top social media metrics tool for AI-driven content pillar insights. It analyzes content themes to let you know what content types work for others in your niche.

More SocialInsider capabilities are in the sections below.

SocialInsider analytics and reporting features

SocialInsider’s LinkedIn KPIs feature analyzes metrics like video views and post clicks. It also offers insights into top-performing content and allows you to export this information into automated reports.

The Cross-channel analysis feature lets you compare your LinkedIn account’s performance against other social media platforms. That way, you’ll spot areas to improve and adjust your social media strategy.

The LinkedIn audience insights feature helps you understand your audience better, especially when running targeted campaigns.

Social media content analysis tools analyze content pillars and topics. They help you spot patterns and trends to optimize your content strategy. Plus, you get insights into top-performing content types on tagged posts.

SocialInsider’s other useful features

Apart from analytics, SocialInsider offers a Social Media Integration API, which lets you gather data from all your social media channels. Social media data helps you understand customers’ pain points and needs.

That way, you can create new and innovative features or products and improve your services.

SocialInsider also offers social monitoring tools for most platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, and YouTube.

SocialInsider pricing

Socialinsider offers four pricing plans:

• Adapt: 99 USD/mo for up to 20 social accounts, 1 team member, 3-month historical data, analytics, benchmarking, cross-network analysis, and reporting
• Optimize: 149 USD/mo for up to 30 social accounts, 2 team members, 6-month historical data, analytics, benchmarking, cross-network analysis, reporting, and AI content services
• Predict: 239 USD/mo for up to 40 social accounts, 5 team members, 12-month historical data, analytics, benchmarking, cross-network analysis, and reporting
• Enterprise: Custom price for tailored services 

SocialInsider pros

• Enterprise-level features at affordable prices
• In-depth LinkedIn analytics
• Easy to use
• Appealing and easy-to-read reports
• Responsive and reliable customer support
• Excellent benchmarking features

SocialInsider cons

• Lacks profile review metrics
• Slow loading time (at times)
• The auto-tagging feature can be improved

#7: Brandwatch: Best for X (Twitter) analytics

Brandwatch is the best social media analytics tool for in-depth audience insights on X (formerly Twitter). It offers advanced consumer intelligence tools, including audience analytics and trend spotting, to help you understand your audience on X.

What’s more?

Brandwatch provides social media management, engagement, and influencer marketing tools.

Brandwatch analytics and reporting features

Brandwatch’s analytics and reporting features collect and analyze consumer data in real-time. Being an official X partner, this tool has access to the X firehose, which has a large pool of audience data.  

Btandwatch’s analytics and reporting features include:

• AI-powered consumer intelligence to analyze topics and trends to understand consumers’ needs, opinions, and sentiments. You’ll also spot industry trends and patterns affecting your business.
• Custom dashboards to select, track, and measure metrics aligned with your business goals. You also get advanced filters, like region and topic, to narrow your results.
• Competitor analysis to analyze competitors’ strategies and performance.
• Multilingual sentiment analysis to understand people’s perceptions of your brand in over 40 languages.
• Predictive insights give recommendations on what content to create based on studying trends. 
• Automated reporting features allow you to generate shareable reports to visualize your data.

Brandwatch’s other useful features

• Social media management: Control all your social channels and interact with your customers from a unified dashboard.
• Content marketing: Plan, create, and manage your content marketing campaigns.
• Influencer marketing: Find suitable influencers to partner with and manage their campaigns.
• Brand management: Manage or improve your brand’s reputation by improving your brand message and media planning.
• Customer care: Offer better customer support by promptly responding to customer queries from a common dashboard.
• Vizia add-on: Integrates data from various platforms and creates live reports and real-time displays.

Brandwatch pricing

Brandwatch offers three custom pricing plans based on these use cases:

• Consumer Intelligence
• Social media management
• Influencer marketing

You’ll need to contact the sales team for the pricing details.

Brandwatch pros

• Easy to use
• Customizable dashboard to choose your preferred metrics
• Detailed analytics
• Helpful graphs and data presentation features
• Supports multiple languages

Brandwatch cons

• Occasional glitches (like data loading delays) on the dashboard
• Slow customer support
• Integration limitations
• More expensive than most social media monitoring tools

#8:Tailwind: Best for Pinterest analytics 

Tailwind is the best social media analytics tracker for businesses that rely on Pinterest for website traffic. It’s also one of the best apps to track social media analytics for bloggers and marketers in the e-commerce business. Tailwind offers an all-in-one reporting tool that generates straightforward insights into your Pinterest performance.

We’ll dig deeper into these capabilities below.

Tailwind analytics and reporting features

Tailwind offers unique features to optimize your Pinterest account.

The Pin Performance Tracking feature measures metrics like impressions, saves, and clicks on all pins and boards. The SmartLoop performance tracking feature spots top-performing pins. It then reshares evergreen pins at optimal posting times to increase engagement.

The Tailwind Analytics Loop measures the performance of each pin design. It also lets you test different designs. You can also save high-performing templates for later use.

Tailwind’s Top Pins Report helps you visualize the pins driving traffic to your website. Plus, you can receive these updates as weekly email reports to track your progress.

Finally, the Pin Inspector lets you track the most-clicked and saved pins. That way, you’ll know what designs or formats to use in your strategy.

Tailwind’s other useful features

• SmartSchedule lets you plan pins and Instagram posts and suggests the best posting times.
• Tailwind Create helps you design, schedule, and analyze pin designs. It also streamlines your Pinterest content workflows.
• Hashtag Finder gives suggestions on the most effective hashtags to use for better engagement.
• SmartBio allows you to add permanent links on every post to drive traffic to your site.
• Tailwind communities feature lets you collaborate with other creators and influencers to grow your audience.

Tailwind pricing

Tailwind offers four pricing plans:

• Pro: 24.99 USD/month for 1 account, 200 post designs, 200 AI credits, and more
• Advanced: 49.99 USD/month for 2 accounts, 1K posts, 1K AI credits, unlimited post designs, Smartbio custom link, and more
• Max: 99.99 USD/month for 3 accounts, unlimited posts and designs, 2K AI credits, Smartbio custom link, unlimited Tailwind communities, and more
• Free Forever for 1 account, 5 post designs, 5 AI credits, 5 posts, 1 Tailwind community, Smartbio custom link, and more

Tailwind pros

• Offers advanced Pinterest analytics
• Tailored features for Pinterest account growth
• Provides built-in pin design tools
• Easy content creation and scheduling
• Flexible pricing

Tailwind cons

• Limited to Pinterest and Instagram
• Some features take time to learn
• Competitor analysis features could be better
• No-refund policy on dormant accounts

How to choose the best social media analytics tool

When choosing the best social media metrics tool, first consider the platforms it supports. Also, determine the level of analytics you need, your goals, and the tool’s features.

Below are 5 considerations and features to look for in social media analytics platforms.

Consider the platforms that the tool supports

Choose a social media analytics tool that supports the platform you want to track. For instance, if you’re tracking your YouTube channel’s performance, TubeBuddy or Facelift Data Studio would be the social media metrics tools to use.

But if you want to analyze multiple platforms, choose a tool like Hootsuite. It’s one of the best social media marketing analytics tools. Other reliable software for multiple-channel analysis include SproutSocial, Sprinklr, and Brandwatch.

Choose an app that is easy to use

Choose a social media analytics software that’s intuitive and easy to use. Schedule a demo or start a free trial to explore the dashboard. The dashboard should be easy enough for you to accomplish various tasks, like connecting your social profiles and setting up the metrics you want to track. 

Additionally, try out the reporting process. Check if it generates easy-to-understand reports. Plus, check if the tool has clear workflows, especially if you’re working in a team. Finally, reach out to their customer support to gauge how fast and well they respond to inquiries.

An easy-to-use platform saves time and reduces analysis paralysis. It also makes it easy for your team to adopt, speeding up decision-making. Additionally, a social media analytics tool with reliable customer support ensures smooth onboarding and quick responses when you face challenges when using the software.

Check the analytics features and capabilities

Consider the level of insights you need when choosing a social media analytics tracker. Have a list of all the things you want to track and must-have capabilities as you try out various apps. 

For basic platform analytics, use built-in analytics tools like Meta Business Suite, LinkedIn analytics, or Instagram analytics.

But if you need in-depth analytics like sentiment and competitor analysis, go for third-party tools such as Agorapulse and SocialInsider.

Also, consider unique analytics features or capabilities that the best social media analytics companies offer. For instance, go for those with real-time tracking and analytics solutions for crisis management and analyzing live campaigns. On the other hand, historical data tracking is useful when studying industry trends and patterns.

Consider if it offers custom dashboards and reports

Check if the social media analytics tool has customizable dashboards and reports.

A quick demo or free trial of the app will help you discover these features. You’ll also find more information on the company’s website.

Customizable dashboards come in handy when you’re preparing social media reports for different stakeholders. They allow you to choose specific metrics to track and analyze. Plus, you’ll prepare custom reports depending on the goals and intended audience.

Check the tool’s data accuracy and integrity

Choose social media analytics apps with reliable data sources for data accuracy. 

To verify if a tool collects and analyzes accurate data:

• Check if it’s transparent about its data sources. Most accurate analytics software directly connect to social media platforms. For instance, Brandwatch has direct access to X firehose, while some tools integrate with Google Analytics. 
• Look for whitepapers or case studies that explain how the tool pulls and analyzes social media data.
• Check reviews on trustworthy review websites, forums (like Quora/Reddit), and social media discussions.
• Use your free trial of the tool to compare the metrics it generates with the native analytics (e.g., on Meta Business Suite).
• Check if the software company gives reports on how frequently they update the data.

Accurate and reliable data will translate to good or smart decisions.

What are social media analytics tools?

Social media analytics tools are software that track, collect, and analyze social media data. They also generate insights into how your content performs, how your audience behaves, and what tactics bring results.

Social media data analytics tools work by following these steps in general:

• Data collection: Once you’ve connected the analytics software to your social platforms, it pulls data from posts and conversations. It accesses this data through direct integrations or APIs. Most tools also monitor brand mentions, specific keywords, hashtags, or URLs.
• Data processing: After collecting raw data, the analytics tool filters and organizes it on the dashboard. 
• Data analysis and visualization: Once categorized, the analytics software analyzes the data based on different metrics. It also translates it into visuals like charts and graphs, making it easy to understand. You can also export the analyzed data into shareable reports.
• Actionable insights: Most apps for social media analytics offer actionable insights derived from the analyzed data. These help in making data-driven decisions. For instance, a tool will analyze how your audience engages with content. Then, it will spot trends and suggest the optimal posting time.

Benefits of a social media data analytics tool

A social media data analytics tool helps improve strategic decision-making and customer reach. It also offers actionable insights into improving your strategy to meet your business goals.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the benefits that a social media tracking software presents:

• Strategic decision-making: Social media data analysis tools use automated data collection and analysis features to turn raw data into actionable insights. For example, they use machine learning in sentiment analysis. These insights help businesses make faster and wiser strategic decisions.
• Improved customer reach: Analytics tools track social media trends and audience behavior. They then suggest what and when to post for the highest engagement.
• Achieving business goals: The best social media data analytics tools offer real-time tracking and analysis to help you measure your social media progress. Then, you can respond to emerging issues and adjust your strategy to meet your business goals. 

Further read: Best tools for TikTok analytics

FAQs