Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 3 The way to make social media truly work for you is by monitoring audience behavior and seeing what they have to say about you, your products and services, and even your competitors. When you have the proper data in front of you, you can analyze the information to make decisions about how you promote on social media to achieve maximum engagement, which, in turn, can increase sales. The key to gathering the data you need is using the top social media monitoring tools. These tools monitor everything about user behavior so you can capitalize on that information. You can track keywords, hashtags, URLs, and much more. The following are the top 13 social media monitoring tools available today. Keyhole Keyhole helps you monitor your Twitter and Instagram accounts. You can look at keywords, hashtags, URLs, and usernames. You can read data in real-time and see historical data. You can make sure you stay consistent with posting frequency. You can also see heat maps that show you activity levels in certain parts of the world. Hootsuite Hootsuite is a very popular free social media monitoring software that can track activity across a number of social networks and platforms. Those networks and platforms include LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Foursquare, and WordPress. You can also manage social media accounts by scheduling posts across multiple platforms. If more than one person is handling a social media account, you can delegate tasks using Hootsuite. Twitter Counter Twitter Counter is a tool used to track your Twitter stats. You can track millions of Twitter users and stats. There are also buttons and widgets that can be added to websites, blogs, and social media profiles that show the number of followers and the most recent Twitter visitors. You can also see retweets, mentions, and historical data; add multiple accounts so you can keep track of them all in one place; create custom reports and graphs, and download .pdf reports. Digimind Digimind measures sentiment, allowing you to see if the perception of a keyword is negative, neutral, or positive. You can also see how the public perceives your brand versus the competition. TweetReach If you want to see how many people your tweets reach, TweetReach is a great monitoring tool. You can measure the impact that social media discussions have. Plus, you can learn about your most influential followers, which points you toward the right people. Target those people, and you are most likely to see better results. Sprout Social Sprout Social is one of the most popular social media monitoring tools because it gives you the analytics you need to increase social media engagement. You can also publish posts from the Sprout Social Dashboard and collaborate with your team. Klout Klout is social media monitoring software that must be mentioned. It is very controversial, as there are people that don’t like it and there are those that love it. The scoring system has a reputation for being inaccurate, but it can be used to fine-tune posts to achieve optimum engagement. Overall, Klout is a great Twitter tool for measuring influence through engagement. It gives you information on how people feel about your brand and what influences them. Buzzlogix – Social Media Monitoring & Management Buzzlogix is all about catching the buzz about your products and services so you know what the public is saying in real time. You can also see what people are saying about your competitors and manage all of your social media channels all in one product. If you or a certain keyword is mentioned, you can reply directly from the dashboard, making it a great tool for managing your interaction with the community. The social media analytics and reports are impressive and easy to use. You can get started by signing up for the free version. Simply Measured Simply Measured keeps track of a number of metrics. You can gather data on and analyze earned, owned, and paid activity. This is a paid platform, but you can use the free version to create free reports for Facebook, Instagram, Google+, and Twitter. You can receive insights on competitor fan pages, your Facebook content, Instagram engagement, customer service metrics, and trends. Zoho Social Zoho social allows you to schedule unlimited posts across your social networks, which makes it a useful social media network manager. You can measure performance and track conversations from one dashboard. Falcon Social Falcon gives businesses the ability to keep a consistent brand presence across all social media platforms. This is possible through team collaboration. It has everything needed for social marketing, yet it is simple to use. Spotlyte Spotlyte allows you to customize or create beautiful visualizations that will engage your audience. You can also monitor social content from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others. Buffer Buffer allows you to schedule content. Pack Buffer full of the content you want to be posted throughout the day to automate your social media presence. In fact, you can schedule a week’s worth of content and not worry about remembering to make daily posts. Buffer allows you to manage Facebook fan pages and groups, LinkedIn profiles and company pages, Twitter profiles, Pinterest accounts, and Google+. Once content is posted, you can use Buffer’s analytics tools to determine what is working and what isn’t. We’ve developed our own unified social media monitoring and management tool for organizations looking to save time, money, and reduce the number of tools need to manage all of your social media campaigns. If you are interested in seeing what more advanced tools like Buzzlogix can offer, please start a free social media management account. The original article was first published on Buzzlogix Social Media Marketing blog. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article was written for Business 2 Community by Scott Sims.Learn how to publish your content on B2C Author: Scott Sims Follow @bscottsims Co-founder of Buzzlogix. Scott is on the board of Social Media Dallas and enjoys talking about social media strategies and tips. He regularly posts on industry leading social media outlets and the Buzzlogix Social Media Marketing Blog. … View full profile ›More by this author:13 Facebook Hacks You Probably Didn’t Know About7 Tips for Using Emojis in Social Media MarketingHow to Choose a Social Media Management Tool [Infographic]