6 of the Best Tools to Understand Your Social Media Traffic

Monitoring traffic is almost just as important as generating it, and I’ve touched on the subject in the past as well. However, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit this subject and not only take a look at a different angle but also make a list of all the best tools to use to monitor your social media traffic.

Monitoring traffic is, as mentioned earlier, extremely important. And, by monitoring your social media traffic carefully, you will be able to:

• Devise better, more efficient social media marketing plans and strategies
• Find out which social networks work best for you and your audience
• Find out at which times your social media followers and friends are most active
• Find out what type of content your social media followers and friends are most interested in
• Find out who likes your content in the social world
• Use all of this information to get more traffic in the future

But before you can start monitoring your traffic, you need to find the perfect tools to use in order to get the information you need.

There are so many tools out there, offering some of the most various analytics, that it can be quite difficult to find the best for your needs. Social media analytics especially are still a new subject, and most people aren’t very familiar with these types of tools.

Here are some of the best analytics and monitoring tools on the market for social media traffic:

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics still offers probably the best and most comprehensive analytics out there. All website owners should have a Google Analytics account. You will be able to use it to track all your traffic sources, be they social media-related or not.

GA4 doesn’t allow to filter reports to social media platforms only. So you will see a report for all referrals but you can still see your best traffic-driving social media platforms.

Login to your Google Analytics account, click “Acquisition” and then “User acquisition.” Underneath the grand, select “source/medium.”

This report gives you a good insight into average user engagement based on the traffic source:

• Time on page
• Engagement rate
• Engaged sessions per user
• Events, etc.

2. Google’s Tag Manager

Google also offers its own website tool for tracking social media links. Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a toolbox that helps you organize and manage “tags” without having to change your website’s code directly. These tags are used to collect information about how people interact with your website, like which pages they visit, how long they stay, and where they come from.

Tracking Organic and Paid Social Media Campaigns:

• Create tags for organic social media traffic: Inside GTM, you create tags that specifically track visitors coming from social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, etc. These tags will help you identify which social media platform is sending you traffic.
• Set up triggers: Triggers tell GTM when to activate these tags. For organic social media, you set triggers based on the source of the traffic. So, if someone clicks on a link from your Facebook post and lands on your website, the trigger will fire the corresponding tag.
• Use UTM parameters which are added to the end of your links. They contain information about the campaign, source, medium, etc. GTM can read these parameters and use them to track your paid social media traffic accurately.
• Connect GTM to your Google Analytics account. This way, all the information collected by the tags will be sent to Google Analytics, where you can see detailed reports about your organic social media traffic.

GTM helps you keep track of people visiting your website from social media, both organically and through paid ads. It uses tags and triggers to collect this information and sends it to Google Analytics, where you can see how well your social media campaigns are performing.

3. Independent Analytics

Independent Analytics is an independent analytics solution and Google Analytics alternative. If you have a WordPress, I highly recommend this free plugin. With it, you can track your blog’s performance across all channels, including major social networks. The information this plugin gives you may be simple and limited, but it’s to the point and extremely useful.

It’s extremely useful for finding out which blog posts are the most popular on social networks, so you will know what your followers want to read about. With this information, you will then know what to write about to attract more traffic to your website. The plugin is very easy to install and very easy to use, which is also a great plus.

WordPress Beginner lists a few more plugins you can check for more web analytics options.

4. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is an advanced social media management platform that purchased a social media analytics solution called Simply Measured to provide detailed reporting to its users.

With Simply Measured integration you can get reports for all the major social networks, not just Twitter and Facebook, and you will also get some useful insights to help with your social media endeavors. The report includes engagements, trends, brad mentions and link clicks.

5. Facebook Insights

If you have a Facebook Page or you are a Facebook platform developer then you have access to Facebook Insights, a very useful analytical tool that is brought by Facebook so the margin for errors is much smaller than if it were an outside party.

It’s very easy to use and you get a wealth of information about who likes your page and posts, how many people you reach, what type of content they enjoyed the most, and many other useful facts and figures. You won’t get website traffic numbers, but you will still get a glimpse into what type of content your Facebook fans enjoy. With that information, you can create more content optimized for Facebook users and, in turn, get more traffic to your website.

6. LinkTree

Linktree is a link-in-bio tool that allows you to showcase your social media posts from multiple platforms on one page. It comes with a detailed analytics feature that includes link click reports.

You can access your Link Analytics by selecting the chart icon underneath your link URL. These insights help you track your link’s performance, including the number of clicks, where your visitors are located, referral sources, and more. Check out LinkLab to better understand how LinkTree works.

Understanding your social media traffic is important for adjusting your strategy. By using the right tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Independent Analytics, Sprout Social, Facebook Insights, and Linktree, you can identify your most successful social networks, understand your audience’s preferences, and create more engaging content.

About the Author

Ann Smarty is the Brand and Community manager at InternetMarketingNinjas.com as well as the founder of ViralContentBee.com. Ann has been into Internet Marketing for more than a decade, she is the former Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Journal and contributor to prominent search and social blogs including Small Biz Trends and Mashable. Ann is also a frequent speaker at Pubcon.