3 Top Twitter Tools To Measure & Grow Traffic

In the challenging terrain of 2012 that lies before us, understanding the impact of our social media activities is a crucial aspect of knowing where best to spend our valuable time. Here are three Twitter tools, TweetReach, Twitalyzer and #KnowYourFollowers, with a focus on their free options that can help in analyzing such areas as audience reach, impact and demographics.

Though these tools can be used to feed the greedy monster that only wants to see higher numbers, their real usefulness lies in understanding more about one's audience on Twitter and how that might be used to build the audience for one's music.

TweetReach

TweetReach offers a free snapshot of up to 50 tweets related to a screen name, url or topic that tells one how many people were reached via the number of tweets with a list of which Twitterers contributed how many impressions. Good for a quick take on your own or competitors' recent activity. You can also maintain an archive of your snapshots.

Complete TweetReach services.

Twitalyzer

Twitalyzer offers a group of free tools that give one a sense of overall reach and impact once you sign in with your Twitter account. In particular, their metrics page gives one a score for such measures as impact and engagement (with definitions) including scores from PeerIndex and Klout. It also gives one basic metrics such as followers and retweets. Definitely useful but the limits on the free options, especially the lack of tracking over time, make them primarily useful as an intro to the paid services.

Twitalyzer does have an interesting free Benchmark tool that ranks Twitterers but it was uncooperative when I tried it out.

Twitalyzer subscription options.

#KnowYourFollowers

Schmap's #KnowYourFollowers offers a look at the demographics of your Twitter followers. Demographics are an important tool for breaking out of the mindset of more followers is better. Free options (for a limited number of "profile credits") include a look at the demographics of specific Twitter accounts and of brands and keywords.

However, the most free info is available for one's own Twitter account and is a great way to not only find out more about your audience but to also identify possibilities for audience development. For example, you may find that interest is strong in certain locations that reveals potential for targeted activities including touring.

You'll have to login using Twitter to get more specific info on premium options but one of the strengths of #KnowYourFollowers is the ability to buy individual reports starting for a few bucks that give you a lot more info.

Question: Like most such social media tools, none of the above are customized for musicians though demographics are especially applicable. Has anyone identified any social media analysis tools that are focused on the needs of musicians?

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Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at All World Dance and This Business of Blogging. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.