Three Analytics Tools to Gauge Your Social Audience's Pulse

Just like many of the nonprofits and other loyal readers of Beth's Blog, we at Social Media for Nonprofits are excited about the recent release of Beth Kanter's new book, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data for Social Change.

In line with its focus on turning data into knowledge through powerful, insightful measurement and analysis of social media efforts, we wanted to share three simple tips and resources that nonprofits can put to work.

All of these platforms have been profiled at our recent Social Media for Nonprofits conferences. The next conference will be in New Delhi on December 5, and then we'll be back in North America in 2013, heading to New York City, Silicon Valley, and Vancouver, plus most other major U.S. markets.

And now for those tips and tools:

1 — Get to Know Your Audience

Want to know what makes your online audience tick? Then check out Simply Measured. In particular, their free reports give you your social audience's pulse on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, and other platforms.

There's a gold mine of intelligence presented in their 8-10 insightful, colorful analysis tools. Learn who your followers are, what issues they care about, which posts are firing up your base, and what types of content are gaining steam and going viral.

2 — Make Your Website Shine

How can you make your web footprint work for you and complement your social strategy? Nonprofits get free access to Google Analytics, a robust tool that tracks what turns your audience on or off when they land on your site.

This tool highlights the behaviors that are most important to understand, including where your audience came from, what content they looked at, how long they stuck around, where you lost them, and to what extent your base engaged with your content.

3 — Monitor Social Conversations

Discover a social treasure trove of other cause-driven folks like you connecting with like-minded professionals, sharing content, and tracking followers by analyzing your nonprofit’s social media presence.

Keep an eye on all your social conversations, wherever they take place, with Sprout Social (think HootSuite on steroids).

Nonprofits can save 50 percent on this low-cost tool, which gives you the ability to engage with your base, strategically search for better followers, identify posts that get superb traction, and of course, schedule your posts in advance.

Note: Prescheduling posts should only be used for Twitter and LinkedIn posts! Facebook prioritizes posts scheduled via third parties lower, so that's a no-no. Thankfully, you can now preschedule posts on Facebook itself.

Upcoming Conferences

We hope you decide to take advantage of these powerful tools and that you join us at any of the upcoming Social Media for Nonprofits conferences around the world for more insights, tips, and tools.

Come see great speakers like everyone’s favorite, Beth Kanter, plus Guy Kawasaki and senior leaders from leading social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.

Hear nonprofit executives from National Geographic, the American Red Cross, Greenpeace, Kiva.org, the Story of Stuff, DonorsChoose, and charity: water.

To ensure broad accessibility, we keep conference registration fees down to about $100, including breakfast, lunch, and access to the full-day program, plus there are always scholarships available for smaller nonprofits.

This guest post was authored by Ritu Sharma, Social Media for Nonprofits co-founder and executive director. Under her leadership, the world's only series dedicated to social media for social good has earned a 92 percent approval rating from more than 2,500 nonprofit leaders across the country. She is a public speaker, consultant, and event planner and heads up programming, marketing, and event logistics for the series. Previously, she produced the Our Social Times and Influence People’s North American Social Media Marketing and Monitoring conference series and started a web development and social media business, which leveraged an international team of programmers and designers across India, Romania, and the U.S.