Social media metrics for small businesses: 4 tools

Are Oktopost, Cyfe, Klout & Hootsuite in your arsenal?

Post by Adi Englander

One of the biggest challenges that small businesses face with social media is cutting through the bewildering fog of metrics to focus on what truly matters.

Why is this such a big challenge?

Because according to Manta, 60% of businesses reported that they didn’t gain any benefit from social media engagement.

As David Spark pointed out in the aptly named article “Are you using social media to serve your needs?”: “Every time you delve into a new social media program, ask yourself what purpose it fills for you personally or professionally.”

The antidote is to “focus entirely on what you’re trying to accomplish with your social media program or campaign and then identify the Key Performance Indicators that will tell you, over time, whether you’re getting there.”

Unfortunately, only a few tools show the effect that your social media activity is creating in the real world.

So, if you’d like to take a good look at what’s actually converting and bringing in sales, these four tools are absolutely essential.

Oktopost

Oktopost is the only social media platform designed specifically for B2B management.

While a tool like Buffer helps you schedule posts and makes sharing easy, Oktopost is the first solution that establishes the ROI of social media by integrating clicks and conversions into today’s social-centric marketplace.

When it comes to social media management, one key metric is tracking the number of leads generated through different marketing efforts. With Oktopost you get a Leads tab that shows the conversions achieved from each platform. This Leads tab tracks from which social media network the conversions came, along with the total number of conversions by campaign, all of which can be exported via CSV.

Klout

Klout is the golden standard in measuring social media influence and reach.

Image Credit: http://allthingsd.com/files/2012/08/Klout-dashboard-feature.jpg

Klout tracks multiple social media platforms and measures your overall presence with a numerical score. It also shows you which social media outlets are performing the best as well as where there’s room for improvement.

By using over 35 different variables to measure your social media influence, Klout’s “True Reach” feature is especially helpful for because it separates true followers from bots or spammers to give you a realistic measure of your brand’s popularity.

Klout even helps you identify sharable content. In the above dashboard, you can view suggested articles related to the topics based on your profile. Sharing these articles improves your Klout score and, more importantly, connects you to the influencers who matter in your niche.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a social media management tool that integrates different platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and more into a single dashboard.

Image Credit: https://www.brandwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hootsuite-screenshot.png

One of the most helpful metrics Hootsuite tracks is what’s called “sentiment.” Like its title suggests, “sentiment” measures the emotion behind a social media mention. Was the person sharing the post happy, angry, sad, excited, or disappointed? This can be especially helpful to determine if your brand is turning sour among users and doing the right things.

For business owners who lack time to manage social media, Hootsuite’s a boon because you can see streams from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and over 50 other social media accounts on the Hootsuite dashboard. You can even manage multiple accounts on the same channel like different Facebook pages or even add employee accounts.

The most powerful feature on HootSuite is the influencer tab. As you can see, the influencer reveals the actual followers of particular influencers, the number of updates they have posted, their Klout score, whom they are following, and bio details. This information helps you craft content that connects with the top performers in your industry and builds truly profitable relationships.

Cyfe

Cyfe is a genuinely all-in-one dashboard.

For social media, this means you can integrate your campaigns into the overall stream of your business and measure not just what’s generating clicks and shares … but actual sales.

Most of the tools featured above offer a centralized dashboard for social media.

Cyfe , on the other hand, offers a dashboard where you can see web-analytics, social-media activity, marketing activity, sales activity, progress of projects, and so on. By giving you the big picture, Cyfe saves time, money, and heartache.

The social media dashboard (shown below) for example offers all your data in a visually appealing and easy-to-manage manner. You can track the total reach of your posts, their views, number of people who engaged, and virtually any other metric.

Metrics that matter

For most small businesses, social media can be a serious waste of time, effort, and money.

Why?

Because they’re not able to truly measure the value of their activities in the real world.

The four social-media tools above solve that fundamental problem and allow you to measure your progress and see what’s actually working. A solid social media strategy, coupled with the right tools can make