5 tools to measure social media success

We are surrounded by tools to measure almost everything we do in life. We have clocks to measure time, thermometers to record temperature and odometers to see how far we have traveled.

We are obsessed with measurement. The Olympics are the pinnacle of measurement; we measure runners’ and swimmers’ times down to 1,000th of a second!

We have never lived in such an age as this, in which almost everything can be measured by computers on autopilot.

We measure so many facts and figures that we are as confused as a dog amid four trees.

Measuring your social media success

Following are tools—free and paid—to measure most elements of your blog, Twitter and Facebook traffic and statistics.

For blog measurement …

Everyone should measure website traffic, but there are other important numbers to keep your eye on:

Tool 1: WordPress Statistics

This free, simple plug-in helps you measure and compare your topline statistics against a specified benchmark. If I take July 2010 as my benchmark, then I can see in July 2011 what progress has been made.

Tool 2: Google Analytics