The problem with Twitter is that there is so much to follow on that not even one single tool is going to do everything you need. That’s why this article is going to look at twelve tools that will help you understand conversations, find people to follow, look at hashtag use, and give you some visual examples of your data.
Why exactly do we need Twitter analytics tools?
Understanding a conversation as large as the one we’re all having on Twitter on your own is completely and totally impossible. How large is the conversation? How about 9,700 tweets per second large!
That’s why choosing the right Twitter analytics tools and apps is so important. I’m going to start out with tools that do a wide variety of tasks, and work my way down to more specialized tools from there.
1: Hootsuite
They’re one of the original Twitter tools, and years of refinement allows them to offer a top notch Twitter analytics and scheduling dashboard to you. While not being a very heavy tool for pure analytics, they do offer link click tracking through their ow.ly link shortener. Think of it as a way to track the conversations people are having with your links.
Ok. That sounded weird, but it’s true! Being able to see and understand which links are working is your fan’s way of telling you what they want to find on your account. You can then plan your content around this for the future.
2: Buffer
Buffer is another one of those tools that isn’t heavy on Twitter analytics, but that does many things well with analytics added on. The main point of Buffer when it first came out was to help you schedule articles you find online for later tweeting. You queue up a bunch of articles that you think your Twitter audience will enjoy, and Bufferapp finds the best time to share those posts with them.
Those ‘best times’ they’re being shared at can tell you a lot about when to speak with your audience. You obviously want to be around to talk when they’re around to talk. You can even plan your blog, website, product, or special sale launches around this information for maximum impact.
3: SproutSocial
The main point to make about SproutSocial is that it is eerily similar to Hootsuite. They have many of the same custom reports, audience tracking, and customer engagement tools. Their layout is a bit different from Hootsuite and may better appeal to how you like to organize things. Give both a try and see which fits you the best.
4: SocialBro
This is another all-in-one tool that should likely be giving kickbacks to Hootsuite. They do have some interesting optimization tools that can help you find better marketing opportunities. My feeling is that their strength is in the Insights tool which their data generates. Great Twitter analytics tools are all about data. You’ll never read every relevant tweet, but you can get good data on them and use that.
5: Daily 140
This will help you understand the new users who have followed your account, as well as older ones if you wish. First, you’ll choose three followers on Twitter: Influencers with a big audience are great choices. Then Daily 140 will email you once a day on who these three people have followed and favorited. You’ll find new people to converse with, and get an idea of what they find interesting via their favoriting habits.
6: My Top Tweet
You can use this Twitter analytics tool in so many ways, but the basics are that you’ll get the 10 best tweets displayed from your, or any other Twitter users, account. These tweets are placed in order of total engagement. If you’re ever stuck on what to tweet next you can use this tool to find some great topics in a hurry!
7: Riffle
Riffle is a Twitter analytics tool from the people who brought you My Top Tweet. Many Twitter marketers use them together as Riffle adds on data for:
- Popular hashtags
- Most often shared links
- Connected Twitter users
And other useful statistics from Twitter users you select. It all operates as a browser extension, giving you access to this data right away. The image to the right is a screenshot of what the window looks like, taken from their website.
8: Klout
Klout has been around for years, and has been successful to how its algorithm tracks the influence of Twitter users. If you want to find influencers to target and get on your side there is no better tool. If there’s one thing using and succeeding with Klout and influencers teaches you it’s the importance of getting mentions from popular accounts. This is why our Sponsored Mentions service is such a popular add on. You’ll get real mentions from popular users with a bit of Klout on their side!
They also have a tweet scheduling tool, but I wouldn’t make it a priority to use it as there are much better tools for that above.
9: Twitonomy
Very similar to Riffle in how it pulls apart any Twitter account you choose, but it is done from a dashboard rather than a browser extension. If you like to have a little bit more room to move around with your data, this is the analytics tool you want.
10: SumAll
This is another email based tool which sends progress reports on your:
Follower growth
Mentions
Engagement levels
It’s great for managers and upper level people who want a basic summary on how the company account is doing. You can set it for daily or weekly emails. I find the weekly to be better in the manager/supervisor case. If your boss needs updates on a daily basis they should just log into the Twitter account and look. And not touch anything.
11: Bluenod
This is a visualization tool for connecting hashtags and users. For those that understand data in a visual way better, you will want to try this out.
For those that like to brag, you can embed this data on your website or in a blog post. This can be very useful when you’re celebrating a milestone, like reaching 100,00 Twitter followers, and adding a bit of visual imagery that shows how popular you are. We all know that showing how popular you are is a key to social proof!
12: Klear
This is another powerful tool for influencer marketing. It will give you a clear look at who you are following, the demographics that your account is fitting in with, and which Twitter accounts are closest to you in your relationship. It’s ability to track ROI based on influencers you select really makes this tool stand out.
You can also use it to find the most influential people in certain categories. This will help feed your ROI from above as you try to work with only the best Twitter users.
Twitter analytics start at home
Ok, a bad joke aside, you can’t forget the totally and completely free Analytics.Twitter.com. While I feel it doesn’t have many of the strengths of the above tools, and can bring up totally pointless data at times, you can’t go wrong with using Twitter’s own Analytics. You won’t get the same specialized data from it as you will from tools I’ve talked about, but it won’t hurt to log in and have a look around.
