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In Part 1 of this article, we looked at some of the reasons why WordPress is an ideal platform to market your business on social media.

In this section, we examine a number of tracking tools, services and applications that allow you to:

• Search, find, segment, organize and target users according to specific demographics, their interests, etc.
• Monitor and listen to online social conversations
• Identify key consumer buying signals.

This information will allow you to start a meaningful conversation with consumers and pitch them information about your products or services.

Let’s move on now to some of the actual tools you can use to monitor social media content. If you’ve been looking for better ways to increase sales using social media, then here are dozens of social media management tools and resources.

WordPress And Social Media – Useful Tools For Tracking Social Metrics

(Discover what consumers are saying about you, your brand, or your competition on social media)

Is there a free, simple and easy way to find out what is going on in your niche or industry that will save you a massive amount of time doing research? Yes, there is, and it’s called …

Google Alerts

(Google Alerts – free web monitoring service)

Google Alerts is simple, useful and free tool from Google that lets you keep up with news and information about all kinds of topics, stay informed about people and companies, and monitor what other people are posting about you and your business online.

Google Alerts is not only useful for helping you manage your reputation online, but also for gathering the latest news about people, brands, companies, and any topic you are interested in.

With Google Alerts, you just subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s bots index a new web page, press release, news update, blog post, a tweet, video, or any other content related to the topic you’ve subscribed to, it will automatically send you an email or RSS update.

If you want to learn how to set up alerts with Google, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Set Up A Google Alert

Hootsuite

(Hootsuite.com)

Hootsuite is a social management platform that lets you manage all of your social media profiles from an intuitive dashboard.

Hootsuite provides social media management, social marketing, social selling, and social customer service solutions. You can schedule Tweets and Facebook posts, track conversations, quickly create and customize analytics reports, streamline workflows amongst teams, departments, or regions, assign tasks, receive real-time notifications, have internal conversations, and collaborate with teams.

Hootsuite is one of the most used social media management tools (SMMT). It allows you to post to many social networks, and provides integration with Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress and more.

To learn more, go here: Hootsuite

Buffer

(Buffer)

Buffer lets you schedule your social content. You add updates to your Buffer account and Buffer will then post the content for you at spaced out intervals over the day.

Buffer allows you to schedule updates for a day, week, or month. Scheduling times are preset, but you can change these in your settings. In addition to using a web interface, Buffer is also available as a web browser extension and as a mobile app.

Go here for more information: Buffer

Social Metrics

(Social Metrics)

Social Metrics is a plugin for WordPress that tracks social activity across leading social networks like Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Some of the powerful features included in Social Metrics Pro include Excel-like conditional formatting, built-in and external widgets, sort, search and filter data, export data capabilities, 1-click auto-update functionality, and a simple social search improvement system.

We have written a detailed article on SocialMetricsPro. Go here to learn more about this useful plugin: Social Metrics WordPress Social Analytics Plugin

Sociocaster

(Sociocaster)

Posting to your Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, and Linkedin accounts is time-consuming and to get all these tasks done you usually need to use different tools, plugins, or applications. With Sociocaster, you can do this all from one single dashboard with just a few clicks.

Sociocaster includes lots of powerful marketing and social features: a powerful visual designer, viral video finder and posting tool, bulk content importing and scheduling, unlimited social account management (agency license), and much more.

For more information, go here: Sociocaster

SproutSocial

(SproutSocial)

SproutSocial is a robust tool built for small to large businesses as well as the enterprise sector.

SproutSocial has a built-in CRM, advanced scheduling tools, monitoring, support for teams and multiple profiles, helpdesk for customer support, team collaboration tools, security features, custom reports and analytics, mobile apps, RSS feed integration, etc.

Go here for more info: SproutSocial

SocialReport

(SocialReport)

SocialReport is a social intelligence platform that allows you to track and manage all of your social media accounts from one place.

Social Report tracks the performance of your Facebook pages and Twitter profiles, website performance and blogs, and returns data from your social channels on a simple and intuitive dashboard. You can organize your data by business or customers, and track your own social profiles as well as profiles of others.

To learn more, go here: SocialReport

Followerwonk

(Followerwonk Twitter Analytics)

Followerwonk is a Twitter analytics tools that lets you sort your followers by any criteria to find your most important and influential followers, compare followers of other users to find overlaps and new audiences, view interactive charts of new followers and unfollows, contrast your relationships with your competitors and friends, and explore and grow your social graph..

More information: Followerwonk

ManageFlitter

(ManageFlitter)

ManageFlitter provides a set of easy to use tools to empower you to work smarter and faster with Twitter.

ManageFlitter lets you sort your followers and following lists by a range of criteria, post tweets at the best time to reach your followers, easily search inside your Twitter stream to find and follow influencers for your business, use tweet analytics to track keywords and beat your competitors, manage multiple Twitter accounts, and more.

More info: ManageFlitter

Beevolve

(Beevolve)

Beevolve.com is a social monitoring platform for SMBs, content marketers, community managers, online marketers, and analysts. It allows you to monitor your social media mentions, schedule and launch social media posts, and measure resulting engagement and sales, sentiment, social buzz, etc. of posts from one easy-to-use platform.

More information: Beevolve

HowSociable

(HowSociable)

HowSociable is a simple social measuring tool that allows you to monitor brand mentions on the social web.

HowSociable displays brand viability metrics on 36 social media sites and gives you a “social magnitude” score that lets you know how well you are doing on those social sites, and which sites you can improve your marketing on.

Go here for more details: HowSociable.com

Mention

(Mention)

Mention is a social monitoring tool for every type of business, marketers, agencies, CEOs, etc., and allows anyone to know what’s being said about them online and on social media in real time.

Mention’s algorithms take billions of data points into account, so when someone mentions your brand online, you have access to real time, intelligent and actionable data that can help you with your business goals. Mention also allows collaborative monitoring.

More info: Mention

Google Analytics

(Google Analytics)

Google Analytics is not just an analytics software application, it can also help you track posts made from your WP website to your social media campaigns.

Hootsuite has published a useful six-step guide that shows you how to track your social media links with Google Analytics on their blog.

Facebook Insights

(Facebook)

Facebook not only lets you add social plugins to your website, it also provides a comprehensive analytics tool called Facebook Insights that lets you analyze how your content is performing on Facebook.

(Facebook Insights)

Facebook Page Insights provides multiple metrics and analytics that can help better understand how users are engaging with your Page. You can then use this information to improve your marketing efforts.

You can use Page Insights to learn about your posts — which are attracting the most shares, likes, and comments and to learn about your audience demographics. You can then use this information to publish relevant posts to Facebook users.

Go here for more information: Facebook Insights

Twitter Analytics

(Twitter Analytics)

Twitter Analytics let you see how your content is performing and gives you a breakdown of your profile visits, tweet impressions, top tweets, followers, and tweets linking to you.

The Twitter Analytics dashboard also provides you with useful information about your tweets in the form of Tweet highlights, allowing you to plan your Twitter strategy.

(Twitter.com – Tweet activity)

Go here to learn more: Twitter Analytics

YouTube Analytics

(YouTube Analytics)

YouTube Analytics provides analytics to publishers.

You can track sources of traffic, views, user demographics, how many minutes users watched a video, revenue from video playbacks, etc.

More information: YouTube Analytics

Pinterest Analytics

(Pinterest)

Pinterest Analytics helps you explore what people like from your profile, and what they save from your website. You can get data about your audiences so you can learn what your customers want.

For more information, go here: Pinterest Analytics

Other Social Media Services & Web Applications

With the explosive growth of social media predicted to continue rising, many new tools and technologies are being developed to help business engage and make sense of social data.

The list below contains a number of other social media-related services. Keep in mind that new web technologies are continually evolving. If anything changes in the list below, please let us know.

Wunderlist

A task management tool with a social twist. Create personal and professional lists and share these lists with colleagues, friends and family.

SDL/Alterian

SDL acquired Alterian and transformed it into an all-in-one global web experience management solution that lets you create engaging digital experiences with online consumers.

Answerbase

Answerbase lets you create your own social Q&A community. The Answerbase Q&A Platform facilitates users being able to ask questions, browse Q&A content, and get their questions answered.

Appinions

Appinions is a content marketing and live publishing SaaS platform that lets you plan, create and distribute content online. You can optimize campaigns by quickly finding, tracking and connecting with opinion leaders who are most likely to influence a trend, idea, product or brand. Appinions enables brands to view the web through the lens of people’s opinions. This tool provides answers to content marketers’ questions like “what should we write about?”, ”what keywords do we use to make our content discoverable?”, etc.

ViralHeat

Viralheat (formerly ArgyleSocial – a social media marketing platform for marketers) is part of Cision, a global media intelligence software company. Viralheat is a powerful data analytics application that delivers insights from social media analytics. It is a highly scalable social media analytics and management platform. Viralheat offers predictive social analytics and a comprehensive social media management stream that combines monitoring, publishing, analytics and reporting for all major social networks in an intuitive interface. Users can publish and schedule updates, access metrics and KPI, track conversations, and deliver presentation-ready reports.

Bambuser

Broadcast live using your webcam or mobile device, share to your blog or favorite social network and interact with your viewers. Share via your smartphone and stream content to your blog.

BlogDash

BlogDash connects and brings brands and bloggers together. Bloggers choose the types of opportunities they would like to be contacted about.

BrandWatch

BrandWatch is a social media monitoring platform that helps marketers capture, analyze and share insights from social data to better prove the value of marketing social.

Buzzflash

Buzzflash is part of the Truthout community – an independent platform for transformative ideas that features daily headlines aimed at inspiring direct action.

CircleCount

CircleCount is a Google Plus education tool. CircleCount lets you discover all of the Google Plus circles following your profile. If your profile isn’t already being tracked on CircleCount.com, you can easily add your Google Plus profile and it will start tracking your circles.

Commun.it

Commun.it is a community management tool for building relationships and discovering leads on Twitter.

Contax.io

Contaxio is a contact management tool for your social networks that tracks your followers and friends on Twitter and provides detail that can help you decide when to follow back.

Conversocial

Never miss another comment about your brand. Conversocial lets you manage customer service flow and social media discussions on channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

SocialStudio

Social Studio helps you discover what consumers are saying about your brand, your products, and your competitors, and empower your team to plan, execute, and track compelling social media marketing..

Disqus

Disqus integrates with WordPress and can be used instead of the built-in WordPress commenting system to expand the power of social discussions online. Disqus is used by millions of websites covering pretty much any topic imaginable.

Echofon

Echofon provides users with full featured, clean social apps for Twitter and Facebook. Echofon apps notify you of mentions and messages. Echofon for Twitter means you’ll never read a tweet twice by avoiding duplicate alerts on different devices, makes viewing and sharing photos, videos, locations, and links simple, and Echofon for Facebook provides simple, streamlined navigation and an uncluttered Facebook experience, browse your newsfeed and timelines, comment and like with ease and post videos and photos.

Everytime

Everytime is a creative social media tool. With Everytime, you can save any moment from Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud and any media on your computer. Those moments can then be easily discussed, shared, and found online using social collaboration.

Meltwater Icerocket

Meltwater IceRocket is a social search engine which allows you to search the blogosphere, Facebook, Twitter, or all of these for any keywords you like.

GroupHigh

With GroupHigh you can promote your clients, company, or products using a blogger outreach software that lets you search, sort, and filter to find and prioritize your blogger outreach based on which bloggers are active and building communities on popular social networks. GroupHigh makes it easy to build a list of bloggers based on topics, location, content, and more.

Klout

Klout is a website, mobile app, and social media monitoring and performance analyzing tool. Klout brings influencers and brands together, rewards experts in specific topics and areas of interests with Perks, and ranks your social influence using a “Klout Score”. You can use Klout to suggest shareable content that your users haven’t seen yet, and track how retweets, likes, and shares change your Klout Score.

KnowAboutIt

KnowAboutIt lets you discover the most engaging and relevant content lost in your social stream. The stories are collected from the Know About It system from the previous 24 hours, and are ranked by the number of comments that the KnowAboutIt system is aware of in relation to that story.

LiveFyre

LiveFyre lets you collect and manage content from the social web.

TailWind

Tailwind is a Pinterest marketing, management, and analytics tool. Tailwind lets you schedule pins, monitor analytics, analyze industry trends and measure performance and results.

Viralwoot

Viralwoot helps you gain more Pinterest followers, add pins for promotion, manage and grow multiple accounts, schedule pins with a free bookmarklet, track what people are pinning from your website, who is pinning the most and what images from your website are trending on Pinterest with pin alerts, track your Pinterest performance, connect with influencers, and more.

TweetReach

TweetReach allows you to measure the reach of your tweets for hashtags, your selected keywords, and searches. TweetReach gives you the estimated potential of the tweets for any given query.

Keyhole

Keyhole’s real-time dashboard shows how many people posted with your hashtag, along with the number of Retweets, Likes and Impressions your campaign is generating on Twitter and Instagram. Users can view their analytics using easy to understand visual reports.

Riffle

Riffle integrates with 16 Twitter platforms (SocialEngage, Attensity, Zendesk, etc) and provides you with insight into the current and potential value of Twitter users, engagement, and activity tracking tools. It integrates with most popular Twitter platforms allowing users to easily add it into their existing social media activities.

Merchii

Merchii lets you link consumers, online merchants, and bloggers by tagging images on the web. Merchii provides a financial incentive for creating social engagement. Users can earn money from every purchase made.

MutualMind

MutualMind is a complete social data platform that lets you monitor, analyze and engage with social media. One web-based solution provides users with all the tools they need to display data on collaborative screens, detect moments or trends in social data and route the insights back to the enterprise instantly.

Unified Social / PageLevel

Unified Social acquired PageLever, a leading Facebook analytics company, in January 2013. Since being acquired, Pagelever’s comprehensive, real-time reporting has been integrated with Unified Social’s operating platform. These tools are part of a complete marketing suite allowing top global brands and agencies to aggregate, warehouse and activate their social data.

Refollow

Refollow provides powerful tools designed to grow and manage your social media presence.

RetweetRank

Find out how influential are you on Twitter.

Searchmetrics

Searchmetrics lets you see important key performance indicators such as the visibility of a page in social media.

SimplyMeasured

SimplyMeasured lets you analyze and understand competitors, audiences, and conversations that matter to you across every social channel.

SocialBakers

SocialBakers delivers deep, competitive social media stats that tell you how your social performance stacks against the competition and wider industry benchmarks. You can create, manage, and optimize all your Twitter and Facebook ads in one place, quickly identify your best content and top posting times, gain powerful insights about your audience, and track your brand’s performance over the long term.

Synthesio

Synthesio is a social media intelligence tool. Synthesio provides scalable monitoring and analytics solutions to hundreds of global brands and agencies. Users can cut through the social noise, find the conversations that matter, measure digital reputation, manage their consumer relationships and boost their social activities’ ROI.

Sysomos

Sysomos provides powerful social media analytics that lets you monitor, analyze, gather insights and make decisions aimed at creating better services and products for your customers. Type in your keyword and instantly see what people are saying both historically and in real-time on any topic across all social channels. Find new and related topics, discover influencers, and get insights into the audiences and communities that matter most to you.

ThisMoment

ThisMoment helps businesses engaging with everyone everywhere. Depending on your business, ThisMoment’s Content Cloud helps you find, mix and share a variety of content through various channels across the Enterprise.

Trackur

Trackur provides fast, simple, and affordable social media monitoring.

TrapIt

Trapit is a social selling, employee advocacy and content marketing tool. With one click of a button, teams can share content with their prospects, customers, and social networks.

Tweepi

With Tweepi, you can follow a @user’s followers, follow a @user’s friends, follow using a Twitter list, and follow by copy/pasting lists.

Followadder

Followadder provides automated social networking management software. It lets you get real Instagram followers, real photo likes and comments, schedule posts, follow/unfollow Instagram users, like back photos, access automated photo liker and automated direct message, create lists, search by hashtag, and more.

Twellow

Twellow is like the Yellow Pages for Twitter. Twellow lets you search for Twitter followers in dozens of relevant business categories or search your geographical area.

TwentyFeet

TwentyFeet provides users with a powerful social reporting tool that can visualize your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts along with any other social service you use. You can quickly discover which of your posts, tweets, videos or photos get the most engagement.

TwitterFall

Twitterfall is based in the UK and allows users on Twitter to view upcoming trends and patterns posted by other Twitter users in the form of tweets.

Wajam

Wajam displays search results based on what your friends share on top of your normal search results.

Addict-o-matic

Addict-o-matic lets you instantly create a page that displays the latest buzz on any chosen topic.

Bitly

Bitly lets you analyze social media engagement, optimize content, and measure exactly how you’re spending your budget.

MyTopTweet

MyTopTweet is a simple social monitoring tool that shows your best performing tweets.

SocialMention

SocialMention is a real-time social media search and analysis platform.

Twazzup

Twazzup provides real-time Twitter monitoring and analytics.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a powerful tool for real-time tracking, organizing, and social engagement on Twitter.

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We hope that you have found this information useful. To learn more about using WordPress to grow your business online, please see our related posts section below.

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