You’re all set up on Social Media Networks including Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Digg, Youtube, Reddit, etc. etc. Now what? You’re casting information out to the interwebs and you’re hoping to reel in a significant ROI (Rate of Investment) and a quality CRM (Customer Relationship Management)…. but how? How does one measure social media?

Being that this medium is so new, and gaining so much momentum analyzing how useful it is, is fairly difficult. There are a few tools out there to help figure it all out.

Facebook Fan Pages
Facebook comes pre-assembled for you. Simply create a page attached to an individual’s account, and that individual will automatically receive a weekly email with stats that look like this:

+20 Fans this week (62 total Fans)
1 Wall Posts, Comments, and Likes this week (0 last week)
85 Visits to your page this week (134 Visits last week)

Google Analytics
Google does everything well and of course they’ve created a tool to use for analyzing social media. Their official website for Google Analytics states that you will be “prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.”

Google is known for its simplistic graphics, and ease of use, and doesn’t stray from that with GA. It gives an HTML code to stick onto your blog or website that goes unseen, and reports back in a simple graph when you log into GA for the day, week, month, or year.

Each function is also easily customizable and the homepage also shows a number of graphs for easy translation of complex data. It measures visits/visitors and bounce rates. Google Analytics seems to be the crowd favorite, and it’s free.

Web SEO Analytics
According to their official site, “Web SEO Analytics is about to become the most innovative web place providing SEO tools, SEO trends scouting and Search Engine Optimization techniques.”

Its functions include monitoring Web SEO, Keyword Battle, Link Popularity, Page Rank Check, and Bookmark Finder – and looks to be free.

Sysomos MAP
Their official website states that MAP or Media Analysis Platform enables the user to “effectively listen, measure, understand and engage” and it is all very comprehensive with graphs, charts, and reports. This system looks as though it would be perfect for small businesses, and you can request demos from their sales departments.

Biz360
Biz360 has been used to determine social media predictions of American Idol weekly outcomes. Their official website states that they connect customers, prospects, and critical influences and is a must for a small business.

Whichever tool you decide to use, analyzing the information that flows through social media is a must.