Research Guides: Social Media and Web Analytics: Social Media Analytics

Social Media Analytics for Your Accounts

Social Media Analytics and Searching

Social Studio Database

NOTICE: We no longer have access Social Studio and we are looking for replacement databases.

Additional Resources

Harvard Dataverse
Search for publicly available datasets, including some datasets from George Washington University's Social Feed Manager.
Social Feed Manager
Social Feed Manager is open source software that harvests social media data and web resources from Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Sina Weibo. Allows researchers to define and create collections of social media data. Also includes tips on using social media for research.
Social Media Macroscope: SMILE
SMILE is an open-source social media analytics tool that allows researchers to collect and analyze social media data. SMILE can perform functions such as text-preprocessing, phrase mining, sentiment analysis, network analysis, and machine learning text classification. Works with Twitter and Reddit.
Social Media Research Toolkit
A list of 50+ social media research tools that have been used in peer-reviewed academic studies. Many tools are free to use and require little or no programming. Some are simple data collectors and others are a more robust.
Stanford Large Network Dataset Collection (SNAP)
The Stanford Large Network Dataset Collection (SNAP) researches large social and information networks. The SNAP library includes datasets from their research.

Social Studio Database

NOTICE: We no longer have access Social Studio and we are looking for replacement databases.

Beginner Resources

Twitter Analytics
Twitter Analytics for accounts you operate. Includes tweet impressions, profile visits, mentions, and followers.
Twitter Advanced Search
Twitter's Advanced Search can search by word, phrase, hashtag, usernames, and location.
Social Blade
Social Blade tracks user statistics for YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter
TweetReach
Run a limited number of reports on hashtags, usernames, and keywords for free. Includes data on reach, exposure, activity, retweets, and more. May have to create an account to access reports, authorize your TweetReach to connect with your Twitter account, and pay for additional features.
Tweet Binder
Search hashtags, usernames, and keywords to find the number of tweets, impressions, most active and popular contributors, and related images. There is a 300 tweets limit for their free reports. Must sign up with your Twitter account to access the data.
Social Searcher
A basic social media monitoring website that's free. More advanced features requires paying for a premium account. Searches platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Reddit, but some platforms' results seem incomplete.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a freemium social media dashboard for Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Can help with data collection and analysis and performance analysis (follower growth, followers report). Some features are free, and other features require payment.

ProQuest Congressional Legislative & Executive Publications
Detailed information about Congress and domestic and foreign policy issues. "News & Social Media" tab at the top of the page allows for searching government social media and website posts from Twitter and Facebook, plus press releases, blogs and video. As of 2020, Twitter coverage limited to 2014-2018.

Advanced Resources

Netlytic.org
Netlytic is a community-supported text and social networks analyzer for social media researchers and educators to study public discourse on social media sites. It is made by researchers for researchers, no programming/API skills required.
TAGS: Twitter Archiving Google Sheet
TAGS is a free Google Sheet template which lets you setup and run automated collection of search results from Twitter. At the moment that index includes between 6-9 days of Tweets.
Social Media Macroscope: SMILE
SMILE is an open-source social media analytics tool that allows researchers to collect and analyze social media data. SMILE can perform functions such as text-preprocessing, phrase mining, sentiment analysis, network analysis, and machine learning text classification. Works with Twitter and Reddit.
Facepager
Facepager was made for fetching public available data from YouTube, Twitter and other websites on the basis of APIs and webscraping. All data is stored in a SQLite database and may be exported to csv.

Instagram's API closed in 2018. Therefore, there are limited resources for Instagram posts.

Instagram Insights
Only for Instagram Business accounts. Instagram insights include impressions, reach, website clicks, and profile views.
Instagram Search
Search public accounts in Instagram with Google by entering: site:instagram.com [keyword or hashtag]. Example: site:instagram.com #OAWeek
Social Blade
Social Blade tracks user statistics for YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter
Social Searcher
A basic social media monitoring website that's free. More advanced features requires paying for a premium account. Searches platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Reddit, but some platforms' (including Instagram) results seem incomplete.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a freemium social media dashboard for Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Can help with data collection and analysis and performance analysis (follower growth, followers report). Some features are free, and other features require payment.

Beginner Resources

Facebook Page Insights
Access your Facebook Page and click on "Insights" to find page likes, reach, visits, and demographics.
Facebook Advanced Search Tips - Graph Searching 2.0
Article from Lifewire that explains Facebook's advanced search features.
Social Searcher
A basic social media monitoring website that's free. More advanced features requires paying for a premium account. Searches platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Reddit, but some platforms' (including Facebook) results seem incomplete.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a freemium social media dashboard for Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Can help with data collection and analysis and performance analysis (follower growth, followers report). Some features are free, and other features require payment.

ProQuest Congressional Legislative & Executive Publications
Detailed information about Congress and domestic and foreign policy issues. "News & Social Media" tab at the top of the page allows for searching government social media and website posts from Twitter and Facebook, plus press releases, blogs and video. As of 2020, Facebook coverage limited to 2014-2015.

Advanced Resources

Netlytic.org
Netlytic is a community-supported text and social networks analyzer for social media researchers and educators to study public discourse on social media sites. It is made by researchers for researchers, no programming/API skills required.

Beginner Resources

Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a freemium social media dashboard for Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Can help with data collection and analysis and performance analysis (follower growth, followers report). Some features are free, and other features require payment.
Social Blade
Social Blade tracks user statistics for YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter
Social Searcher
A basic social media monitoring website that's free. More advanced features requires paying for a premium account. Searches platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Reddit, but some platforms' results seem incomplete.

ProQuest Congressional Legislative & Executive Publications
Detailed information about Congress and domestic and foreign policy issues. "News & Social Media" tab at the top of the page allows for searching government social media and website posts from Twitter and Facebook, plus press releases, blogs and video. As of 2020, video coverage limited to 2007-2018.

Advanced Resources

Facepager
Facepager was made for fetching public available data from YouTube, Twitter and other websites on the basis of APIs and webscraping. All data is stored in a SQLite database and may be exported to csv.
Netlytic.org
Netlytic is a community-supported text and social networks analyzer for social media researchers and educators to study public discourse on social media sites. It is made by researchers for researchers, no programming/API skills required.

Beginner Resources

Social Blade
Social Blade tracks user statistics for YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter
Social Mention
Social Mention is a basic real-time social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across 100+ social media properties from Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Reddit etc. into a single stream of information.
Social Searcher
A basic social media monitoring website that's free. More advanced features requires paying for a premium account. Searches platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Reddit, but some platforms' results seem incomplete.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a freemium social media dashboard for Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Can help with data collection and analysis and performance analysis (follower growth, followers report). Some features are free, and other features require payment.

Advanced Resources

Communalytic
Communalytic is a Reddit community analyzer. It’s a research tool designed to collect, analyze and visualize public data from Reddit.
Social Feed Manager
Social Feed Manager is open source software that harvests social media data and web resources from Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Sina Weibo. Allows researchers to define and create collections of social media data. Also includes tips on using social media for research.
Netlytic.org
Netlytic is a community-supported text and social networks analyzer for social media researchers and educators to study public discourse on social media sites. It is made by researchers for researchers, no programming/API skills required.
Social Media Macroscope: SMILE
SMILE is an open-source social media analytics tool that allows researchers to collect and analyze social media data. SMILE can perform functions such as text-preprocessing, phrase mining, sentiment analysis, network analysis, and machine learning text classification. Works with Twitter and Reddit.

Klear Influencer Marketing Tools
Must create an account to access a limited number of reports on top influencers on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, as well as bloggers.

The resources below provide free access or educational discounts to their databases. Instructors should consider what kind of user/student data these companies need to provide "free" access.

Awario- Provides social media monitoring. Has an education program for free access.
BuzzSumo- Includes a “content analyzer” that might be similar to Social Studio. Has a limited free plan.
Hootsuite- Free student program for students to learn message scheduling and audience engagement
CrowdTangle- A tool from Meta for journalists and academic researchers. You’ll have to apply to get access for your class, and you might need to think about how your students are “academic researchers” to get approved. However, Meta announced they will sunset CrowdTangle after the election in 2022.
Brandwatch for Students- Social listening database. Student subscription is $150 for 1-year access. Other pricing models are available.
Twitter Advanced Search- Find top tweets with date and keyword searching. No account required.

Last updated 8/30/22

More Guides

University of Minnesota Libraries: Social Media Research Guide
A list of 50+ social media data and monitoring databases and tools for advertising, marketing, and scholarly projects. Many tools are free to use and require little or no programming. Some are simple data collectors and others are a more robust.
Social Media Research Toolkit
A list of 50+ social media research tools that have been used in peer-reviewed academic studies. Many tools are free to use and require little or no programming. Some are simple data collectors and others are a more robust.

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