How to use Hootsuite’s new Analytics features

It’s no secret: here at T&S, we think Hootsuite is an awesome tool for scheduling social media ahead of time. But there’s a lot more you can do with it than that! You can check past social media updates, use Streams to compare several social media feeds at once, and even find new followers in the Contacts page.

Another feature Hootsuite is rolling out is their new, improved Analytics page. This is still in beta mode right now, so it may change a bit in the future. Who am I kidding—of course it will change in the future!

But the new Analytics features are worth checking out anyway. They can show you which of your social media updates work best with your audience, among other things. Here are a few things to look for in your organization’s Hootsuite account.

Aggregate data

At the top of the Overview tab in your Analytics page, you’ll find general, aggregate data for your social media accounts. Currently, you can view data for either your Twitter account or your organization’s Facebook page.

You can also change the data’s date range. Hootsuite shows you aggregate data from the last week by default, but you can view aggregate data from a number of different ranges, including a custom range you can set.

Recent posts

This section shows you how your most recent posts have been received by your audience. You can organize it by date posted, or by what’s been most popular. I’ve sorted this section by what posts have been the most popular, so I can see what our audience responds well to.

Reactions by sentiment

This section lets you see how strongly your audience feels about what you’re sharing. This is a good tool to use if you’re kicking off a new social media campaign or introducing a new product or service. Check to see if the sentiment levels change any to gauge interest or predict how successful your new venture will be. Hootsuite tracks negative, neutral, and positive sentiments.

This is just a sample of the data that Hootsuite Analytics automatically collects for you. You can also find information on the number of new fans and followers you’ve received, track engagement in Twitter and Facebook, and see which of your shortened (Ow.ly) links have been clicked by viewers.

These new and improved metrics could be a helpful way to make social media updates even more interesting and relevant to your audience!