One of the most challenging aspects of teaching social media analytics for educators at any level is finding free social media analytics tools. In our program at St. Edward’s University we don’t typically ask students to pay for technology like certifications and tools in our courses but instead rely on academic programs or tools that can be used for free. The number of free social media analytics tools is small but is sufficient to teach a class in social media analytics. A link to a list of tolls with free trial periods is included a the end of this blog post.
This post will focus on the free tools that come with the social media platforms, the Hootsuite academic program and a further drill-down into Google Analytics. I will start with Google Analytics and build on the information in last week’s post.
Google Analytics as a Free Social Media Analytics tool
Google Analytics is a free social media analytics tool that comes with the Google suite, which we use at our University. Last week I showed several Google analytics reports in the Universal Analytics option (Zahay-Blatz, 2021) While using Google Analytics might not spring to mind immediately as a tool for social media analytics, the tool is quite well-suited for a blog. Last week’s blog showed how social media analytics would be used to illustrate and analyze the traffic from various social media networks
Metrics showing the numbers of sessions, the bounce rate and the session length can also provide insight into which content is most compelling. Examining these metrics helps a student blogger see how much time users are spending on their content and which ones provide the most engagement. The student can then adjust posts and set goals for improving (increasing) the time spent on the page and improving (reducing) the bounce rate. Google Analytics can also show the sources of traffic to the blog by country and device and the times of day that users access the blog. These analytics can also be used to adjust blog posts and posting times as appropriate.
Hoostsuite Academy for Free Social Media Analytics
Hootsuite® provides a free social media management tool through Hootsuite Academy (Hootsuite, 2021) that we use in our classes. One benefit is that students can schedule posts in advance and see the effect of posting on different days and times of the week on engagement and other metrics. Multiple posts are most helpful on Twitter where the feed goes by quickly and might not always be seen by the student’s target audience on the first posting.
While payment is required for more sophisticated analytics, I often use the stream dashboard (Figure 1) for a quick look at how things are going with my posts. I can easily see how many people have liked my posts in the three platforms I connect to in the free version, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (these also happen to be the major platforms on which I post). I can also track when my post or my profile is mentioned in another users feed.
Figure 1: Hootsuite streams show likes and mentions
Note that It is possible to connect pages and groups to the feed and the stream dashboard which is helpful if students have created a company page in Facebook or are posting to a specialist group in their category. For example, I have had students promoting their fitness and real estate businesses and have promoted pages or groups in those specific areas. I will show metrics from our Digital Marketing Academics group in the next section. It is also possible to add a LinkedIn Showcase page which highlights a particular brand.
Social Media Network Analytics on Platforms
If Hootsuite Academy is not an option, or if your students want more insights into their blog activity, most social media networks provide their own free social media analytics tools that students can also use in reporting on their blog posts. Metrics such as likes, shares and mentions are readily available. To access more sophisticated analytics often requires additional access. For example, in Facebook creating a group or a company page allows access to insights analytics. Figure 2 shows the analytics from our Facebook group for Digital Marketing Academics. I can easily see my top posts and which had the most reach and engagement, as well as metrics for the entire group.
Figure 2: Analytics from Facebook Insights for our specialty group help guide post activity
Similarly, LinkedIn requires a company page for access to analytics. Pinterest and Instagram also require a business account. These are all credible strategies for the social media blogging project. Creating a group or company page can be a great way to attract followers for the specific content for a blog, build a personal brand and attract the right followers.
However, students might not want to create a specialty page for this project as it is only seven weeks in length. I then suggest that Twitter allows any of its users to see the analytics for its posts at analytics.twitter.com. Figure 3 is a screenshot of my recent analytics. I just started using Twitter again after a break over the Summer and it will be interesting to see if posting original content from this blog will improve the number of profile visits and followers to my Twitter account. In this case, I had made one Tweet in August that received 391 impressions and 11 engagements. My previous top Tweet had 36 engagements. One of the things I am looking for on this blog is engagement so I can go back and see what it was about that particular Tweet, the content, the timing of the post, etc. that made it more engaging for my followers.
Figure 3: Twitter Analytics captures top posts, reach and engagement
Using Free Social Media Analytics Tools vs. Free Trials
Finally, another option is to have students set up a free trial account on tools such as Buffer, Sprout Social, Keyhole etc. (Read, 2021). Many of these tools offer free trials that last from 14 to 30 days. My approach is to let students set up these free accounts themselves or use tools that they already have available. In our class, we use Google Analytics and offer the free Hootsuite® Platform certification through Hootsuite Academy. The students use whatever free social media analytics tools are available on the platforms they have chosen to post on during the class. If they wish to set up a paid account or use a free trial, they are welcome to do so and include those metrics in their weekly analysis of their social media analytics.
This article has focused on the free social media analytics tools that are available to facilitate this blogging project for a social media or social media analytics class. Resources mentioned here are listed below. If you are an academic and are not a member of our Facebook group for Digital Marketing Academics (Parker, 2021) and wish to get quick access to these and other updates, you can join by following the link in the references section immediately after this post. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions.
References
Hootsuite Academy (September 1, 2021). Retrieved from https://education.hootsuite.com/
Parker, J. & Zahay, D. (2021).Digital Marketing Academics Facebook Group
Read, A. (September 1,2021). [Buffer Blog post] Know What’s Working on Social Media: 27 Paid and Free Social Media Analytics Tools
Zahay-Blatz, D. (August 25, 2021). [Blog post] Using Google Analytics to Teach Social Media Analytics [Two Useful Reports]