What is a Social Media Tracker and How it Can Help You?

9 min readApr 7, 2021

Social Media Tracker is the Buzzword in The Industry- Know Why?

Do you lack a smart strategy?

Are you struggling to streamline your social media management?

If yes, then social media tracker is the magic tool to help you in shaping a versatile growth strategy for your business across different industry verticals.

A company can reap maximum benefits when it approaches its audience in the right way and at the right time. You need to understand what your audience wants, for which you need to do a native analysis of the social media channels that you use to reach your audience. But, how would you begin your analysis if you have nothing at hand?

Firstly, you would need a set of data to analyze. Secondly, you have to ensure that the data that you have is accurate. And; lastly, you have to make sure that your analysis is heading in the right direction. It should be aimed to fulfill the needs of your audience.

For all this, you need a social media tracker to track clean data for your organization that can help you plan your next marketing move. You will know the important metrics to track, creating social media reports, and complete social media analysis.

So, in this article, we will discuss the importance of social media tracker in detail and how it can benefit your organization. But, before we move ahead, let’s begin with the basic understanding of what a social media tracker is.

What is a Social Media Tracker?

You probably know that social media is a crucial marketing channel for your business to grow and expand. But, you may be struggling to figure out how to engage and grow your audience. Whether you are a marketer or an organization, or a local corner shop, everything starts with engagement.

So, when you broadcast your brand before millions of people through a link, status, video, or image, your competitors also try to reach a similar audience. To keep track of your posts; whether they are receiving enough attention from the audience in terms of likes and shares, and to identify the margin for improvement, you need a social media tracker.

A social media tracker lets you track various social media channels, both yours and your competitors, so that you can draw meaningful comparisons in terms of growth and engagement level. Also, you get readily available reports that can help you identify the best performing content in your niche. This way, you would know what is on your audience’s mind, and what they like to see on social media.

How does a social media tracker work?

Many people ask how social media tracker works; then, let us tell you that social media trackers are algorithm-based tools that can easily search the web and the social media channels. Social media tracker helps you in numerous ways that include:

Real-time tracking of various social media channels where you have your business account. It may include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more.
Preparing reports on your audience, social media activities, page engagement, and the hashtags used in various campaigns on multiple platforms.
It helps you in identifying the current trends and the percentage of growth as compared to your competitors.
Social media tracker will allow you to determine the crucial parameters responsible for driving traffic, engagement, sales, and conversions.
You can follow your competitor’s behavior and manage a unique content calendar inspired by your competitor.
Social media tracker allows you to plan and write your posts in advance and schedule them at your convenience.

Difference between Social Media Tracking and Social Listening

Many people are confused with two terms- Social Media Tracking and Social Media Listening. And, they use it interchangeably while both the terms are different from each other. In this section, we will discuss some of the notable differences between the two terms.

So, let’s get started.

When it comes to the difference between social media tracking and social listening, it is similar to micro vs. macro. Social media tracking addresses the audience and its needs on a micro-scale. On the other hand, social listening has a macro look at the needs of customers.

While tracking social media, managers respond to customer queries and complaints and direct the customers to the right department. On the other hand, social media listening involves tracking interactions that help you build a comprehensive view of customer perception.

Social media tracking is reactive in approach, while social media listening is proactive in approach. Moreover, social media tracking can be done manually, still, it is time-consuming, and marketers generally recommend the organizations automate the process to save time and effort. On the other hand, social listening is mainly automated, and there is no scope it can be done manually.

If social media tracking lets you collect and search data, social listening helps you analyze the data. Both the terms are interconnected still are different. We can say that social media listening is a broader concept that can take your social media tracking or monitoring to the next level.

We hope you have understood the difference between the two. Now, let’s quickly jump onto the most crucial part of the topic- why do you need a social media tracker?

Why You Need Social Media Tracker?

When you take a look at the vast data uploaded on social media every day, it seems to be a gateway that will shape your social media marketing strategy. All the data is collected from the company’s profile across various social media channels from Facebook to LinkedIn, and you get to know the trigger points that compels people to give their reactions be it a like, comment, share, click, or tapping onto different emojis.

Regularly tracking social media can drastically improve your marketing efforts while refining your strategy. It will help you stay on top of the trends as you are guided by clear and concise data that eliminates guesswork and reduces any risk associated with it. This is the reason that marketers are investing time and effort in social media tracking and listening.

What Can You Do with Social Media Tracker?

Social media tracker can give you a peek into the market insights in an organized manner that will help you grow your online awareness for your business. You can act on what’s being said about your brand publically, reconnect with potential customers, and drive conversions.

Apart from this, there’s a lot you can do with a social media tracker. Let’s have a look at the activities you can perform:

#1 Identify the most effective social media channel

Most brands have accounts on varied social media channels, but an important thing to note here is that isn’t equally effective. Supposedly, if you make a great fan following on Instagram does not necessarily mean that Facebook or other platforms would bring the same amount of traffic.

Social media tracker keeps an eye on the effective channels that bring you the most traffic, engagement, and conversion. This information would help you determine your budget and efforts on each of the avenues and shape your strategy accordingly. If you have a better fan following on Instagram, you can double your efforts and spend on it.

#2 Audience Behavior and Perception

Another great use of social media tracker is to identify your audience while keeping an eye on their preferences. You will know what kind of customers or people make up your social media audience. Also, it will help you to understand which channel deserves more attention and when your audience is most active online. So, following their time zones you can decide when to post on social media.

#3 Analyze Past Campaigns

Past campaigns also have a significant role in shaping your current strategy and optimizing it for better results. Well, we understand that everything is changeable and what worked in the past may not work today. But, when you plan your strategy based on data and facts, you are more likely to succeed in your campaign. You can use the past data to validate your decisions and the approach that you followed in the present campaign. Moreover, it will also help you to quantify your results that will help you improve your performance and identify the loopholes.

#4 Know Your Competitors and Strategize

Brands present online are always a part of a competitive landscape. So, they must monitor the market competition and perform accordingly as it will help them spot their strengths and weaknesses. When you compare your performance with that of the competitors, you understand your mistakes and make an effort to improve them in your next campaign.

You can spot the opportunities where you can perform better and portray your creativity in the most unique way. Also, you can take inspiration from their content and shape your unique line of content to attract the audience.

#5 Track Different Social Media KPIs

Another best thing that a social media tracker offers is the facility to track various social media KPIs. Tracking the right KPIs keeps you aligned with the business goals and aids in making informed decisions. If your KPIs aren’t aligned with the business goals, you might be setting false expectations that will reduce your chances of succeeding in the long run. You must track the exact KPIs driven by important metrics that fall under the areas mentioned below:

Content Optimization
Customer Service
Competitive Tracking
Data Analytics (It includes analysis of audience, behavior, engagement, demographics, and ad analysis)
Benchmarking ( It includes tracking number of followers, likes, comments, shares, and overall growth rate)
Mention Insights

How Mentionlytics Can Help You in Social Media Tracking?

No matter you belong to which industry, handling loads of data that is uploaded on social media daily is challenging. Doing it manually is never a good idea as it is extremely time-consuming. Instead, we recommend you use social media tracker or monitoring tools to keep an eye on various important parameters for a successful social media strategy. These parameters may include customer behavior, preferences, sentiments, competitors, and engagement.

Mentionlytics can be an ideal choice to streamline your social media strategy that can help you in regular monitoring, tracking, publishing, scheduling, and intelligent analysis of collected data. With Mentionlytics, you can prove the success of your campaign while turning all the crucial data into clear takeaways and plan your next action. We can say that you will enjoy a stress-free time with loads of features that will help in multi-client analysis.

Features of Mentionlytics

Apart from the features mentioned above, here are other attributes, which are incredibly beneficial for your organization, such as:

You can collect important insights from the market
Look for fresh trends and strategize your campaign accordingly
Get access to the mention insights
Find the right influencers to spread awareness about your brand
With reputation management that Mentionlytics offer, you can grow your brand’s reputation and increase sales
Explore more about your competitors, products and services, and industry
Discover public opinion about your brand and analyze the audience’s behavior
Get complete media coverage, including social media, online news, blogs, and any website
Get social intelligence advice

Apart from the features mentioned above, you can also join in forum discussions, comments, and blog posts to spread awareness about your brand with Mentionlytics.

So, are you planning to start a fresh campaign for better traffic, engagement, and conversion? If yes, it’s time to streamline all your social media handles and enjoy heightened attention from the audience.

Originally posted on Mentionlytics : https://www.mentionlytics.com/blog/what-is-social-media-tracker/