Last updated on November 27th, 2015 at 05:01 pm
We’ve looked at many different aspects of B2B social media on B2BNN. From how to win on social media to figuring out which tools to use and platforms to be on, and how to reply to social media comments the ‘right’ way. And we’re just scratching the surface.
Now it’s time to start looking at the numbers, and see if social media really is working for your B2B business.
Social media numbers matter to your bottom line
Assigning numbers to your social media campaigns are a key way to make sense of every action you take on social media. You want to know how your followers have grown this month (or declined over the last year); figure out which business blog or Instagram posts perform best; and learn about the best times to post your content online. Incorporate these numbers into your planning to make the most of each piece of content you publish.
B2B companies have been slow to get on the social media bandwagon, and so are rushing to catch up. One of the reasons for the hesitance was the lack of concrete numbers they could assign to their efforts. What does a “like” mean to conversions? How does a re-pin relate to a sale?
As social media has evolved, so have the analytic tools for it. Use them to discover all the insights you need to demonstrate the true value of social media to your B2B company’s bottom line — senior management will love you for it.
Free to use tools
Followerwonk gives you detailed breakdowns of your Twitter followers and activity. Just click the Analytics tab, type your Twitter username and view information on your followers and accounts you’re following. See stats like when followers are online, when you tend to publish messages, and the categories your followers are in (like social authority, activity, total tweets, and more.)
ViralWoot bills itself as a “complete solution for your Pinterest needs”, helping you from start to finish (that is, from scheduling pins, earning new followers, and some basic analytics about your account.)
Iconosquare is a complete Instagram management tool, showing big picture views of your posts, likes, comments, and followers. Comb through historical data to gain insight into your efforts, either through the web interface or in a summary report that’s emailed to you.
Here’s my Iconosquare report, but don’t judge; I don’t use Instagram frequently.
SumAll uses an assortment of connected apps to measure all of your social media platforms: Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, and more. Simply connect your accounts to SumAll and let the reporting magic happen. Learn about your engagement on each platform, get post analysis, follower growth, ideal format and/or content types, top performing content, engagement to post ratios, etc.
The beauty of SumAll is that it’ll send out a daily or weekly email with all the details for you, so you don’t have to log in to a dashboard to check it out (though you can do that too, if you want to dig a little deeper.)
A free Quintly account gives you analytics on up to three Facebook pages, giving you the main engagement metrics that’ll help you decide if it’s a good channel for you. Likes, comments, shares, and follower growth numbers are all included in the graphs, so you can compare a lot of data quickly.
Use Cyfe’s social media widgets to track your social media accounts in a single dashboard view. Add your accounts from the usual platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, but Cyfe also has widgets for Bitly, AddThis, Klout, SlideShare, Vimeo, and YouTube as well.
Beevolve will help you track the exact ROI you get on your social media programs. You simply tell it how much it costs to create your content and how much you expect to receive per visitor and Beevolve does the rest; it sends the message for you, analyzes the response it gets, and emails you the report.
Keyhole is a hashtag campaign tracking tool, giving you a wide variety of stats that will help you sort through the popularity and success of a hashtag (whether it’s your branded one or simply one you’re researching.)
Get a view of your last 28 days on Twitter through their Analytics tool. Discover how your tweets have performed in the major engagement areas of retweets, mentions, favourites, and clicks. Click on an individual tweet in the list to get a complete breakdown of each element on the tweet, including clicks on the URL in the tweet, clicks on your username, clicks on images, and more.
The Pinterest Analytics dashboard gives you insight into every aspect of your Pinterest marketing, such as growth in impressions and followers, audience stats, and website engagement. Note: analytics are available for business accounts only.
- LinkedIn Analytics for Business
Log in to LinkedIn and go to your company page to check out the analytics available to you. You’ll see an overview of all your posts on your page, as well as a breakdown of your followers and follower growth.
SocialMention can help you see what keywords your social media messages are ranking for, who your top influencers are, and the overall sentiment on social media for your B2B brand.
- Google+ Insights
Discover your visibility, engagement, and audience overviews on your G+ Insights page for a quick and easy glimpse into your effectiveness. To access them, log in to G+ and visit your company page. Click the Manage Page button at the top of the page, then scroll down to the Insights section.
Social Searcher packs a lot of powerful analytics tools into a free account with no signup required. It generates side-by-side reports for Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, displaying information on hashtags, posts by day/hour/week, sentiment measurements, and more.
Most of these free tools have a paid option as well that’ll give you access to further insights and information, however their free versions offer information that’s just as valuable to you, the B2B marketer.
Pay to use tools
- SproutSocial: Starts at US$59/mo
As a full-featured social media tool, SproutSocial also includes some good analytic measurement features. Connect your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts to get trend reports, comparisons between you and your competitors, and even compare messages posted by different employees through the same account (useful if you’ve got a social media team that handles everything.)
- CrowdBooster: Starts at US$9/mo
CrowdBooster offers you fast and simple analytics that aren’t confusing to set up or understand. Track the growth of your audience, get advice on what content’s working and who to engage with, and find the best time to publish or engage with your audience.
- Sendible: Starts at US$59/mo
Another robust social media management tool, Sendible also helps you create “great-looking (and) in-depth reports with your own branding” for multiple social media platforms. Design your own reports to showcase your most valuable information, then automatically generate and send them on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
- Simply Measured: Starts at US$500/mo
Simply Measured generates a wealth of reports, graphs, and helpful data on a wide variety of social media platforms, including Vine, Tumblr, and YouTube. Given the cost, you’d expect a subscription to include a lot more than the usual metrics, and you’d be right. Some plans include:
- Segmented analysis
- Competitive analysis and benchmarking
- Customized executive dashboards
- Social traffic and web analytics
- Customer service effectiveness
- Social Bakers: Starts at US$120/mo
With Social Bakers you’ll get an overview of your activity on multiple platforms including: tracking key performance indicators, competitive intelligence, statistical overviews, actionable advice, and benchmarks to take your social media programs to the next level.
- Moz Pro: Starts at US$99/mo
Moz Pro’s SEO tool has built-in social media analytics that’ll help you track your network size, engagement, and traffic breakdowns per network (Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ currently.) It also includes actionable advice, competitive analysis, and trending data on your historical performance.
Choose your own social media tool
Measuring your social media effectiveness is complex and challenging, and many B2B companies struggle with it. The right social media analytics tools will make your job easier and give you the data you need to make more strategic digital marketing decisions.
What social media analytics tools do you use in your B2B company? Find any new ones on this list that appeal to you? Share your comments below.
