Analytics And Tracking

Analytics and Tracking are used to measure, collect, and report data to help you understand and optimize your social media usage and audience.

Facebook Insights offers basic metrics about page growth and activity. It also gives demographics about who is visiting your page.

Hootsuite is a publishing and monitoring tool for Facebook and Twitter. It's one-stop-shopping for posting to both sites, and allows you to schedule your posts ahead of time. Hootsuite also provides a streamlined dashboard for reviewing all of your posts, as well as who has mentioned you, emailed you directly, etc. Using Hootsuite to manage both Facebook and Twitter cuts staff time down significantly.

Google Analytics offers free code to embed in your site that evaluates site metrics and performance. Traffic patterns and audience demographics are among the metrics visible. Ultimately, Google Analytics is one of the best indicators of overall performance of a site online. No maintenance required, just viewing.

For additional social media resources including some planning tools, tips and tricks for getting started, and a quick spin through Social Media 101, check out the next section: Social Media Resources.