Four Free Tools for Reporting Social Media Activity

Social media is on the rise for businesses that are looking to take on this weak economy by boosting their marketing effort online. According to a 2009 survey by BtoB Magazine and the Association of National Advertisers, 66 percent of marketers are now using social media. The other 44 percent haven’t found a way to convince their boss or clients the usefulness of this tool. There are many free social media monitoring tools available online to report social media activity. Below are some of my personal favorites and their capabilities.

HootSuite

Not only are you able to handle multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts but you can also measure the number of click-throughs, impressions and it integrates with Google Analytics tagging. Make sure all links are converted to the ow.ly format so that the stats can be generated. You can find this option under settings and preferences. Check out HootSuite

TwitterCounter

If you’re curious about how many people were following you're Twitter account before and after a campaign this is the tool the use. The count only goes back three months so do not wait too long to collect the data. You can narrow your search by specific dates and compare your followers to your competitors as well. Check out TwitterCounter

TweetReach

When you create a hashtag (#) where do you think it goes – outer space? NO! Millions of people have access to your hashtag and if it is really popular it will pop up on What The Trend or What The Hashtag (These guys showcase the most popular tweet-topics and hastags each day) To verify just how many people tweeted your content plug it into tweetreach. Here you will see two pie charts analyzing the tweet types and total impressions. Also displayed are the top contributors with the most reach from their twitter account. Check out TweetReach

Facebook Insights

Facebook is a completely separate social media beast. They have what is called Facebook insights and can be accessed by any administrator on the main fan page. Line charts show the number of fans, page views, demographics and many other measurable results from your Facebook page. Check out Facebook What are some of your favorite free Social Media monitoring tools?