Table of Contents
- What Is Social Media Research?
- Top 14 Social Media Research Tools of 2022
- 1. Surveybot
- 2. Sprout Social
- 3. Hootsuite
- 4. Talkwalker
- 5. Social Mention
- 6. Twitter Analytics
- 7. Facebook Analytics
- 8. Youtube Studio
- 9. Synthesio
- 10. Mentionlytics
- 11. Tweepsmap
- 12. Pulsar
- 13. Nexalogy
- 14. Reddit Search
- A Few Social Media Research Best Practices
- How to select the ideal social media research tool?
Read Time
13 min read
Do not index
Do not index
Not a day passes by without us constantly checking for updates from our social handles. None of us can deny this statement, can we? That is the power of social media, and it has been deeply knit into our daily lives.
Statistics say that around 3.6 billion people worldwide use social media, which is why social media research has become almost a necessity nowadays for both marketers and researchers:
- Marketers may want to know how they can improve their product, what kind of content can go viral, what kind of audience to target, etc.
- In contrast, researchers will want to find public opinions on some pressing matters concerning their research.
Whatever be the need, it is clear that both parties cannot advance further without social media market research and, by extension, the right social media research tools.
What Is Social Media Research?
Social media research is the process of analyzing social media data to conduct quantitative and qualitative research that helps understand marketing effectiveness, market trends, how audiences relate to topics, what they need, who they are, how they talk, their relation with your brand, and more.
Depending on the research goal, the data source for social media research is either your followers/brand influencers on the social media or the collective social media (i.e., any and all public data of social media users).
Top 14 Social Media Research Tools of 2022
1. Surveybot
Surveybot is the ultimate social media research tool, especially for hardcore Facebook users. It is essentially a survey software that helps you conduct qualitative research in both Facebook and Facebook Workplace.
Usually, the survey that you post on Facebook may not help procure a good response rate. This is mainly because of the fact that the moment the user clicks on the survey, he/she is redirected to another page, forcing them to leave the comfort of the platform. Most of the respondents opt out of the survey when this happens.
With Surveybot, you don’t have to worry about such an occurrence. The chat-like surveys can be filled in the Messenger App itself without the need of redirecting the respondent to another page. This will naturally increase the number of responses to your research survey. You don’t need to stop there.
You can even post the survey on Facebook and boost it to reach a wide variety of audiences, thereby bringing a significant increase in the response rates.
Surveybot also lets you build your own audience panel with the users who took your surveys earlier. This social media research tool can be the best companion, particularly for researchers and professors who conduct their research based on popular opinions.
Pros
- Intuitive UI
- Robust Analytics
Cons
- Comparatively young as a platform
- Constant updating with demanded features
Pricing
First 50 responses are free. Paid plan starts at $6 for 100 responses per month.
2. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a highly intuitive social media analytics and monitoring tool that helps you gain the most reliable analytical data across various social networks.
From Facebook page impressions to Instagram follower count to Linkedin Engagement, Sprout Social has got you covered. You can get detailed information about your performance on a single social media platform or even compare the results of a platform with various other social media platforms.
You are also eligible to collect and share data about your social media metrics through easy-to-use, presentation-ready reports of Sprout Social. What’s more? You can even analyze your competitor’s activity through the tool!
Pros
- User friendly
- Intuitive Reports
Cons
- Steep pricing
- Limited analytics
Pricing
Plans start at $99 per user per month
3. Hootsuite
Hootsuite advertises as a social media scheduling and management tool. But it can also help with social media research by enabling you to analyze your social media activities.
When it comes to social media research, you have the Search streams in the dashboard that allows you to track interactions relevant to your product, business, and niche. You can learn what the trending topics are and what is discussed based on the keyword, hashtags, locations, and specific users if necessary.
You can effectively collaborate your work with your social media team as well. The detailed analysis received from the tool can be shared with specific team members.
Pros
- Reliable ‘Free’ Plan
- Ease of Use
- Multi-channel dashboard
Cons
- Slow reporting
- Limitations in integrating with Instagram
Pricing
Plans start at $49/month
4. Talkwalker
Talkwalker is definitely one of the best social media research tools that offer AI-powered analytics to track over 150 million sources which also includes social media platforms.
Structure and categorize your conversations by leveraging 50+ filters and make decisions based on it. The proven KPI frameworks of Talkwalker enable you to benchmark your marketing campaigns and gauge brand health. You can also analyze brand sentiment, the reach, comments, and engagement garnered by social posts.
Pros
- Excellent customer support
- Easy to use
- Multiple dashboards
Cons
- Dull Interface
- Expensive
Pricing
Request for a quotation
5. Social Mention
Social Mention is a free social media research tool that helps you track your brand’s activities and performance on over 100 social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
It provides you information on a variety of different metrics like strength – which is the number of times your keyword pops up on social media, the range of influence, the number of positive and negative mentions, and so on. This tool offers you real-time statistics and an analysis of your competitors if necessary.
Pros
- Real-time data of campaigns
- Ease of use
Cons
- Limited filtering capabilities
- Basic UI
Pricing
Free
6. Twitter Analytics
Twitter Analytics works like pure magic when it comes to researching the effects and impacts of your brand’s Twitter account on its followers. Right from tracing the best and worst tweets to downloading insightful data on likes, replies, and retweets, Twitter Analytics is a tool that helps you understand your followers and the Twitter algorithm’s likings.
The tool can also fetch data related to the reach and impact of your Twitter ads, which is great for advertisement effectiveness research. With such a tool in place, you will be able to get up to speed on various topics related to your niche.
It gives you an in-depth keyword analysis over a particular geographic location and time, helping you get an idea of what is trending amongst your Twitter followers.
Pros
- Intuitive UI
- Easy to set up
Cons
- Inefficient customer support system
- Insecure login capabilities
Pricing
Free
7. Facebook Analytics
Similar to Twitter Analytics, Facebook also has its own tool that offers insightful information on various aspects of your page. You can procure accurate statistics on your page on the analytics tab and even download it for further perusal.
Keep track of the reach and engagements on various updates, posts, and videos on your Facebook page. With Facebook’s analytics, you can even observe the demographics of your audience based on certain criteria and also research how people interact with public Facebook pages, but the latter will have a few limitations.
Keep track of the reach and engagements on various updates, posts, and videos on your Facebook page. With Facebook’s analytics, you can even observe the demographics of your audience based on certain criteria and also research how people interact with public Facebook pages, but the latter will have a few limitations.
Pros
- Custom dashboard
- Strong visualization capabilities
Cons
- Sophisticated Interface
- Limited integration capabilities
Pricing
Free
8. Youtube Studio
Youtube Studio App incorporates in itself various metrics that help the creators learn more about important aspects that drive content. You can get information about the watch time, demographic reports, traffic sources, number of visitors, and so on.
You can also study the trending pages on Youtube, the view counts, and the comments garnered by each video. Moreover, you can access and conduct the analysis by leveraging the Analytics section of the Youtube Studio App.
Pros
- Feature-rich
- Reliable analytics
Cons
- Mediocre management of comments
- Only applicable if your content is published on YouTube
Pricing
Free
9. Synthesio
Synthesio is a leading social media monitoring tool that helps users analyze their brand engagement and performance on various social platforms.
Synthesio also offers you one of its most exciting features, AI-powered trend detection. This feature combines the power of market research with the speed of social listening, thus helping you track data spikes, conversation shifts, mentions, daily posting patterns, and more. The insights gathered by the tool can help you make empowered decisions.
Pros
- Intuitive UI
- Responsive customer support
Cons
- Limited customization in reports
Pricing
Request for a quotation
10. Mentionlytics
If you are looking out for a social media monitoring tool that will alert you of your brand’s mentions, then Mentionlytics is ideal for you. This tool scans the web and other social sources to find mentions of your brand, even when it is not tagged.
The robust analytics of this platform analyzes the sentiment and emotion regarding each mention so that you can quickly tell if there’s a problem associated with it. With such a tool, you not only avoid issues regarding your brand but it surfaces marketing opportunities.
Pros
- Easy to use and set-up
- Great Customer service
Cons
- Limitations in branding reports
- Limited dashboard customization
Pricing
Plans start at $49 per month
11. Tweepsmap
As the name suggests, Tweepsmap is an AI-driven Twitter analytics management platform that depicts or maps how your hashtags spread and lets you track the ones that are most important to your business on Twitter.
With a social media research tool like Tweepsmap, you can find out where your audience is, learn the vital demographic facts about them and track the major topics of discussion. The comprehensive dashboard gives you an insight into the topics trending amongst your followers and target audience based on location.
Pros
- User friendly
- Deep analytical capabilities
- Excellent customer service
Cons
- Lacks the ability to create an integrated campaign
- All the capabilities are limited to Twitter
Pricing
A limited free plan. Monthly Plans start at $14 per month
12. Pulsar
Pulsar is an audience intelligence platform that helps you leverage social media data in the best possible manner. This social media monitoring tool not only helps its users in keyword analysis and text mining but enables them to monitor the way content spreads and map brand audiences.
You can track all sorts of digital content in social media, analyze how it is shared in real-time, and what group of people are sharing it. Additionally, Pulsar uses ultra-modern data science features to incorporate image analysis and more to your social media marketing efforts.
Pros
- Dedicated features to analyze the competition
- Excellent quality of support
- Simple learning curve
Cons
- Limited data from social media platforms like Linkedin
- Glitchy UX
Pricing
Request for a quote
13. Nexalogy
Nexalogy is a social media monitoring tool that offers engaging interest maps that visually depicts the trending topics and discussions that pertain to your brand and niche. Track the breaking news, rising phenomena, events, and catastrophe that concerns your business.
You can also extract the most actionable insights by tracking the conversations of your target audience on various social networks. Apart from these characteristics, Nexalogy helps you analyze competitions and learn how they are perceived so that you can make pragmatic decisions based on it.
Pros
- Powerful API
Cons
- Expensive pricing plans
- Limited customer support capabilities
- Mobile app not available
Pricing: Request for a quote
14. Reddit Search
Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter are not the only social media platforms that matter. There are a few other social media networks that are growing day by day and you need to focus on them as well. One of the biggest growth has been seen in the case of Reddit. This platform has around 330 million average monthly active users and 14 billion average views per month. Now, you can’t ignore a site that’s so popular.
The Reddit Keyword Monitor Pro, which is also a part of this platform, enables users to monitor and track the site for relevant phrases and keywords regarding your business. You can also find who is discussing your business, brand, or even competitors in the site that contains 138,000 active communities.
Pros
- Totally free
- Minimalist UI
Cons
- Basic tool limited to Reddit
Pricing: Free
A Few Social Media Research Best Practices
All social media research tools will take you as far as your research methodology. It’s crucial to start with a proper goal and plan in mind.
Here are a few fundamentally-solid social media research tips & tricks that’ll take you far and in the right direction:
- Define your goal: What are you researching for — product launch, defining buyer persona, getting insights on target customers, ideas for new products? What exactly? Define!
- Define your target group: If you are conducting qualitative research (and to some extent even quantitative research), it’s important to know whose opinion is worth taking. This will help you get valuable data and help you plan and decide better (about the tools needed, the social media channels to use, the keywords to pursue, etc.).
- Numbers aren’t everything: The best answers from quantitative social media research may not be the best answers. For example, what attracts the most likes doesn’t always attract the most conversions (your goal). So look beyond the numbers — probably do something like sentiment analysis, opinion mining, etc., to not heavily rely on numbers.
- Clean your data: Even if you have defined the goal and the target group to the T, you will receive irrelevant, inaccurate, and/or incomplete data. Therefore, it’s crucial to filter out such data to reach the best conclusion(s).
- Strategize based on conclusions: Especially for businesses that engage in social media research, your job isn’t done once you conclude the research. In fact, the actual job starts after. Do something with the research. Conducted the research for product ideas? Make the product!
How to select the ideal social media research tool?
Social media market research is slowly advancing towards becoming an easier and more effective method, thanks to the plethora of social media research tools that the market provides.
Now this abundance of social media research tools can be both a blessing and a boon. A boon because; selecting the right tool from the overcrowded lot can be a tedious job. Well, we have made it much easier for you by nitpicking and listing out the 14 best social media research tools.
The question is how do you find the ideal tool from this list? Here’s what you can do. Jot down your marketing goals related to social media, your requirements, and problems. Then compare it with the features offered by each tool and see if it resolves your problems and fulfills your requirement.
Well, why don’t you give Surveybot a try! The first 50 responses are on us and don’t require a credit card to get started.
