Top 15 Social Media Tracker Tools to Optimize Your Strategy

A social media tracker is a type of tool that I always recommend to my Fractional CMO clients when they are ready to take their social media marketing to the next level. It goes without saying that tracking your social media performance is essential to ensure you’re engaging the right audience and achieving your marketing goals.

Whether you’re looking to monitor brand mentions, track engagement metrics, or analyze your social media ROI, the right social media tracker tool can make all the difference. I’ve compiled 15 of the best social media tracker tools based on my experience that will help you streamline your strategy, boost engagement, and drive meaningful results.

Why You Need a Social Media Tracker Tool

There’s much more to these programs than simple analytical data. Many of them come with AI features that allow you to generate and optimize content. The best ones also include scheduling, which is vital for long-term content planning. 

With these programs, you can learn more about people who interact with your content. As such, trackers are invaluable for improving your posts and making them more suitable for your followers. All of this would eventually help promote your channel and lead to an increase in sales. 

The Benefits of Using Social Media Tracker Tools

These valuable tools are crucial for just about any social media strategy. Among others, they help you with the following tasks: 

Real-time Monitoring

Social media trackers provide lots of valuable insights regarding your and competitors’ performance. They are vital for analyzing hashtag usage, brand mentions, and trending keywords. Given that all these insights are in real-time, proactive companies can use them to cash in on current trends. 

Data-Driven Insights

With social media trackers, you eliminate the guessing game. Audience and sentiment data are vital for learning more about users and their perception of your brand. Based on this information, you can customize your strategy, making people more receptive to your company.

Improved Engagement

As mentioned, by learning more about your followers, you can create content that converts on social media platforms. The data can be used to make informed decisions and boost social media presence without breaking the bank. 

Top 15 Social Media Tracker Tools

Nowadays, there are lots of programs that assist social media managers. After going through dozens of tools, I’ve decided to highlight the most effective ones. 

1. Sprout Social

Known for its comprehensive social media management capabilities, Sprout Social offers powerful tracking features, including engagement metrics and audience analysis. For example, the social media monitoring tool has a unified inbox where you can track all interactions with prospects.

I love how SproutSocial handles its communication. By relying on the power of AI, you can instantly respond to anyone who interacts with your social media posts. With its analytics suite, you can track your entire social media activity and compare your followers to top competitors. 

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a powerful social media management tool that provides competitive intelligence for Instagram, TikTok, Meta, X, YouTube, and other channels. With its social listening features, you can learn what the target audience thinks about your brand and if they would make a purchase from you.

The software is especially great for larger teams, allowing you to track key metrics over a prolonged period. The detailed analytics dashboard can be customized to suit your particular needs; there are also benchmarking features that allow you to compare your content performance against competitors. 

3. Keyhole

With this powerful social media analytics tool, you can perform comprehensive hashtag and keyword tracking. Keyhole allows users to monitor online conversations and campaign performance in real time, and find content gaps. Like most other social media monitoring platforms on this list, the program works for all popular social channels.

Keyhole is especially great for tracking individual mentions. Learn what each user thinks about your brand and if someone’s trying to sabotage your efforts. This valuable tool gives you relevant insights into your engagement rate, showing you how your performance has changed over time. 

4. AgoraPulse

The thing I love about about AgoraPulse is its commercial features. The tool shows you how much money you made on your projects and whether there’s an opportunity to grow. Its reporting features are also great and represent a real difference-maker for larger teams and when working with external partners.

AgoraPulse is perfect for cross-platform scheduling. With this software, you can create a long-term content plan and release posts at regular intervals. You also get complex post insights for each platform, showing you how your content performed on different social media channels. 

Further Reading: The 17 Best Social Media Scheduling Tools (2024 Edition)

5. Buffer

This tool focuses on scheduling and analytics, allowing you to track the success of posts across different social platforms. Within the main dashboard, users can check the total number of posts for each social platform, growth in impressions, overall reach, likes, comments, and follower fluctuation.

Buffer breaks down analytical data for each post, showing reach, engagement rate, and date of posting. Besides analytical tools, the software also offers a fantastic drag-and-drop posting feature. All you need to do is move your future content around and allocate it to certain dates, preparing yourself several weeks ahead.

Further Reading: 41 Killer Social Media Tools You Should Know (including AI Tools)

6. BuzzSumo

A tool that provides content and sentiment analytics, BuzzSumo helps you monitor top-performing content and key influencers. One of its key features is the content analyzer, which will help you polish your post – performance. See what’s going wrong with your social media content and how you can make things better.

Besides analytical tools, I have to mention the outreach features. In fact, this software was originally created to put you in touch with journalists and perform large PR campaigns. Within a single dashboard, you can track thousands of contacts, streamline social conversations, and enhance your link-building efforts. 

7. Mention

Mention is a premium social media monitoring tool that focuses on social mentions and reputation management. With it, you can perform full keyword searches to see what the target audience thinks about your brand, product line, and competitors. Among others, each analysis shows customer sentiments and the company’s influence.

I was particularly impressed by Mention’s centralized dashboard. Here, you can assess post impressions and check out the best-performing content. The social media tracking tool shows you how many articles you have in the pipeline and how people are reacting to your social posts. Like most other platforms on the list, Mention features excellent report tools. 

8. Tailwind

Tailwind provides a comprehensive social media monitoring platform with lots of praise-worthy features. Among others, the software allows you to run LinkedIn Ads and Twitter Ads from a single dashboard. People using the program can utilize Tailwind’s AI assistant to generate social media content and automate online conversations.

Of course, the platform also provides competitive analysis. You can see whether your content strategy is paying off and how you match up to other brands within the industry. While the software focuses on Instagram and Pinterest, it has basic features for other social platforms as well. 

Further Reading: 15 Killer Instagram Analytics Tools (and the Critical Metrics to Measure)

9. Talkwalker

Talwaker is a dream come true for any social media manager. The platform provides a combination of social listening, monitoring, benchmarking, audience insights, customer feedback analysis, and social content rating. As such, many agencies use it to streamline several social media campaigns simultaneously. 

My favorite thing about the tool is its ability to find content opportunities on social networks. It allows you to find the best sources for your brand, which makes all the difference during PR efforts. Talkwalker has a custom content scoring system, which shows you whether you’re on the right path. Lastly, the alert system will keep you in the loop even when you’re not on the PC. 

10. Brand24

As the name implies, Brand24 is primarily used to track mentions. The social media analytics tool shows your overall reach, daily interactions, and whether people have a positive or negative impression of your brand. Through these powerful features, you can easily determine if your message is coming through the target audience.

One thing that sets Brand24 apart is its focus on hashtags. The hashtag analytics feature is vital for determining the reach of your keywords and the total number of mentions. The platform offers numerous integrations, collaboration features, and supports 108 languages, making it ideal for large international teams. 

11. Iconosquare

Inconosquare provides valuable social media metrics that break down engagement and follower growth over time. Use it to assess changes in followers, impressions, and reactions and to see how people interact with your brand. The platform works for the most popular social media networks, including Instagram, Meta, X, TikTok, and LinkedIn. 

With Iconosquare, you can run campaigns with scheduling content. Find the perfect time for posting and utilize the platform’s media library to create content with ease. The AI features also come in handy, assisting you in generating posts even if you have no writing experience. 

Further Reading: 12 Leading AI Assistants for Business & Personal Productivity

12. HubSpot

HubSpot is one of the most comprehensive marketing and sales tools out there. Besides helping you with email outreach and SEO, the software also streamlines your social management. Within its custom dashboard, you can track stats for each popular platform and find all social mentions.

I especially love HubSpot’s outreach features. The platform streamlines all your relevant conversations on social media within a single dashboard. Here, you can interact with dozens of contacts and track previous interactions, which is vital if your standard inbox is getting cluttered. Among other things, HubSpot tracks performance for each post and allows you to create a multi-platform report template. 

13. Awario

With this social listening tool, you can learn what people say about your brand on social networks and the web. However, the thing I love about it the most is the analytical features. Awario aggregates online sentiments, both positive and negative, and puts them side by side with competitors’ audience sentiments.

Through demographic filtering, you can focus on a specific segment of the population. Pinpoint your ideal prospects by setting age, sex, location, and language while avoiding other online conversations. Among other things, the program does a great job of finding influencers in your industry and streamlining your outreach campaigns. 

Further Reading: AI Social Media Tools: The Definitive 13 Apps You Should Know

14. Rival IQ

If you’re only interested in social analytics, Rival IQ might be the best software on the market. With this powerful platform, you can analyze your competitors and posts, execute social listening, and perform full-scale audits. The software works for Instagram, Meta, X, and YouTube while also providing cross-platform functionality. 

The program shows you the intersection of your audience with other channels, which helps you pry users from other accounts. With this program, you have the option of benchmarking yourself with other top-rated companies. I also like that Rival IQ uses an aggregate score to show positioning for different brands and compare them with your business. 

15. Google Analytics

While not a traditional social media tracker, Google Analytics provides valuable insights into how social media traffic interacts with your website. Among other things, the software shows you the percentage of website visitors that are coming from platforms such as Meta, X, and Instagram.

Google Analytics is especially valuable for analyzing your audience. It comes with a plethora of demographic data, including visitors’ age, sex, and financial level. As such, it is a type of software that will assist you in making your content better and more engaging for these prospects. 

Further Reading: The 16 Best Free SEO Tools You Need to Know in 2024

How to Choose the Right Social Media Tracker Tool

When looking for a social media suite, I suggest you start by outlining your needs. These programs vary in terms of their features, so it makes sense to test them one by one. Specifically, you should consider your budget, software’s available metrics, integrations, and AI tools. 

If I were in your shoes, I would focus on programs that have competitor tracking, sentiment analysis, and strong social listening features. These functions are the backbone of any half-decent social media tracking tool, so you shouldn’t settle for anything else!

Conclusion 

Using the right social media tracker tool can make a significant impact on your marketing strategy, helping you monitor brand mentions, analyze performance, and engage with your audience more effectively. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to refine your approach, these tools will give you the insights you need to succeed on social media.