By James D’Ambrosio
Whether working in nonprofit or the private sector, it’s becoming increasingly important to measure social media impact — Twitter followers, lists and retweets; blog traffic, comments and subscribers; influence, following and connections on LinkedIn; and Facebook friends, ‘Likes’ and page interactions, among others. The following can help track your efforts.
MEASUREMENT TOOLS
HOOTSUITE: A free Web-based Twitter-management tool including URL shortening, statistics and tweet scheduling, Hootsuite integrates Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and WordPress Blog. A good tool if you have many people using the same profiles. It offers the same functionality as Co-Tweet but with a more robust analytics tool letting you see profiles for different sites, making it an efficient way to monitor your activity. The ‘Search’ feature automatically saves previous searches, making it easy to return to favorite searches and see recent tweets for keywords. Another feature is the Hootlet tool: drag and drop it to your Web browser’s link bar and click to tweet about a Web page you’re visiting. A Pro upgrade is available for $5.99 a month.
SOCIAL MENTION: A free search and analysis platform aggregating user-generated content into a single stream of information, monitoring 100+ social media properties directly, including Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google, etc. It acts as a real-time search engine with an option to receive e-mail alerts of new content across social media containing your keywords. The application provides a comprehensive overview of your social media presence, divided by content type, to see areas where you’re active or being discussed. You can also display it’s widget on a blog or Web site to show visitors a summary of your social presence.
FACEBOOK INSIGHTS: A comprehensive analytics suite for Facebook Pages giving a full picture of your fans and how they’re interacting on your page. The ‘Users’ section provides information about your fans — active users, number of ‘unlikes’ on your page, traffic sources, and references. ‘Interactives’ provides deeper analysis of individual updates and how people interacted. Providing daily updates, Insights is free and becomes available when your page reaches 30 ‘Likes.’
TWITALYZER: A comprehensive measurement application defining your popularity on Twitter by number of followers and number of times you’ve been retweeted or mentioned by others. Also provides benchmark reporting, ranking Twitter users ten different ways. Integrated with Google Analytics, it trends 30 different metrics. A basic account is free; paid subscriptions begin at $4.99 a month. Discounts are available for nonprofits.
To be sure, this is just a sampling of tools; there are many more out there you can use. Going forward, it’s important to be knowledgeable about as many aspects of social media as possible, as the industry is in a state of flux and it’s difficult to know exactly where things are heading. Staying informed will give you an edge.
QUESTIONS TO READERS:
What do you think of these measurement tools? Which do you like best? Why?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Facebook, Facebook Insights, Hootsuite, Nonprofit Social Media Measurement, Social Media Measurement, Social Media Measurement Tools, Social Mention, Twitalyzer, Twitter |
Nonprofit Communications: Writing For A Better World 
I also think Klout can be a helpful tool. For Facebook, the Insights information is also beneficial. Thanks for the post! I’m often writing on social media for nonprofits as well as training. Feel free to see if any of the info might be helpful to you at edaconsulting.org. Thanks again for sharing!