Monitoring Social Media Traffic: Tricks, Tips, and Tools

#SEOchat is a weekly Twitter chat where in-the-know digital marketers across the country compare notes. Last week we hosted the chat and the hot topic was monitoring social media traffic. We discussed KPIs, paid and free tools — plus how to use this data once it’s gathered. Here’s what we learned!

Tools for Monitoring Social Traffic

Here’s the complete list of the tools that received shout-outs during SEOchat.

• Hootsuite https://hootsuite.com/
• Brandwatch https://www.brandwatch.com/eng/
• Raven Tools https://raventools.com/
• Sprout Social http://sproutsocial.com/
• Audiense https://www.audiense.com/
• SEMrush https://www.semrush.com/
• NUVI https://www.nuvi.com/
• SocialPilot http://socialpilot.co/
• Buffer https://buffer.com/
• Mento https://mento.io/
• Iconosquare (for Instagram) http://iconosquare.com/
• Adobe SiteCatalyst http://www.adobe.com/marketing-cloud/web-analytics.html
• Brand24 https://brand24.net/

Tools for Monitoring Social Referral Traffic and Conversion

• Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/
• Google Tag Manager https://www.google.com/analytics/tag-manager/
• Facebook Conversion Tracking https://www.facebook.com/business/a/online-sales/conversion-tracking
• Facebook Insights https://www.facebook.com/help/336893449723054
• Twitter Analytics https://analytics.twitter.com/

Tools for Identifying Influencers

• Zoomph https://zoomph.com/
• Onalytica http://www.onalytica.com/
• Followerwonk https://moz.com/followerwonk/
• Simply Measured http://simplymeasured.com/
• Copromote https://copromote.com/
• BuzzStream http://www.buzzstream.com/
• BuzzSumo http://buzzsumo.com/
• Ninja Outreach https://ninjaoutreach.com/
• Ahrefs https://ahrefs.com/

Social Tools for Everything Else

• Tweepi http://tweepi.com/
• Canva (for design) https://www.canva.com/
• Pablo (for design) https://pablo.buffer.com/
• Click to Tweet https://clicktotweet.com/
• CoSchedule http://coschedule.com/
• Meet Edgar https://meetedgar.com/
• Gramblr http://gramblr.com/uploader/
• TweetDeck https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/
• Tailwind (for Pinterest & Instagram) https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For: Social Intelligence Tool Wish List

Even with all these useful tools, there are still needs that aren’t being met. Here’s what SEO-chatters are still hoping to find in a tool:

• A way to schedule posts on Instagram
• Accurate sentiment analysis, especially for ecommerce sites
• Better reporting on Instagram and Pinterest
• Integration of all social channels
• History of follower count provided by all social platforms themselves
• Insight into time viewers spent looking at a business’s social posts

Actions to Take Based on the Data

Here’s are some of the says digital marketers are leveraging the data they are pulling from social media monitoring and analysis.

A7: Learning what types of social content works better for which audiences. i.e. what converts on Twitter may not work for FB! #SEOchat

— Jonathan Foulds (@jonfoulds) April 21, 2016

A7 It’s impacted the timing of social posts/activity & the type of content I post on social. #SEOChat

— Clair Wyant (@KG7MAJ) April 21, 2016

A7: We’ve used industry keyword data to find audiences & events where discussed to build social ad campaigns around. #seochat

— Jannette Pazer (@sociallyclimb) April 21, 2016

A7: We’ve used social data to find our KPI benchmarks to help measure our monthly performance and optimize/troubleshoot if needed. #seochat

— Karolina Bakanovas (@karo_linab) April 21, 2016

A7: We leverage social data to help predict what content works best with our audience! It’s key to understand your audience. #seochat

— Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) April 21, 2016

You can get a complete transcript of the chat here. Join #SEOchat every Thursday at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. #SEOchat is a great opportunity to ask questions, get answers and share insights with industry leaders and the engaged digital marketing community. Read more about #SEOchat here.

Want more?
Check out our post comparing top social media tools and their costs/features!

Kristi Kellogg is a journalist, news hound, professional copywriter, and social (media) butterfly. Currently, she is a senior SEO content writer for Conde Nast. Her articles appear in newspapers, magazines, across the Internet and in books such as "Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals" and "The Media Relations Guidebook." Formerly, she was the social media editor at Bruce Clay Inc.

See Kristi's author page for links to connect on social media.