Everything You Need to Know About Tracking Your Social Media Efforts

So you have a great Facebook page, your Twitter account is always exciting, and the content and graphics on your webpage rock. You can only assume that tons of people are checking out all of this hard work and loving it as much as you do. Unfortunately in business, assuming is never a good idea, and in some cases could cost you the success of your business. If your social media campaigns are not working, you need to know about it.

Tracking the success of your different social media outlets can be a bit more complicated than just counting the number of “likes” your Facebook page generates. There are many spam, automatic, or inactive accounts that may “follow” you on Twitter or “like” you on Facebook, but they never get involved with your company. Because of this reason, most companies need to the help of media monitoring software in order to yield accurate results. If you are a beginner and have no idea where to start, consider a few of the most popular software for small businesses:

Tracking Your Social Media Efforts – Software to Help Get You Started

1. Google Alerts – This software is probably the most popular among businesses. It has the ability to track any keyword you wish as well as provide you with live updates about what people say about your company (or whatever search term you wish) online.
2. Seesmic – This is a great software if you have a lot of different websites to track and you want them all in one place. Seesmic allows you to not only track results, but schedule updates, and use a “real-time collaboration platform” to help improve your sites when needed.
3. Postling – Postling also allows you to manage your social media tracking efforts onto one platform. Uniquely, this software also allows you to communicate with your online followers through one location.
4. Social Mention – This website will give you what is called a “social standing score” that will tell you how popular your social media campaign is among users. This software will also give you alerts that tell you how your competitors are doing.
5. Wildfire Social Media Monitoring – If you like the idea of not only tracking your fan base but also tracing your competitors and contests, this is the perfect software for your company.

The great thing about media monitoring software is the price. Most software is free while some come at a lost cost. In some cases anything free is too good to be true, but in the case of this software, the free options are still worth your while and will yield the correct results. It is also important to keep in mind that even if you do not get the results that you want right away, social media is a must-have for all companies. Being that many social media platforms are also free, there is no harm in trying to get involved. Once you have your results, you will be able to change what needs changing and your websites will only grow in popularity.

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to postage meters. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including postage scales to small businesses and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.