So many tools, so little time. It is not always easy to determine which ones are right for your measuring your social media performance.

We know the usual suspects like Facebook Insights, which is free on Facebook for Page Admins, and Hootsuitewhich allows you to manage multiple channels and get some general information about traffic and keywords.

However, I’m going to focus on 3 others…one of which are known by many but should never be overlooked, and two others which are sometimes overlooked but still quite helpful for most brands that are active across social media networks.

The essential player: Google Analytics

Google Analytics is basically a free website insights tool which allows brands to track traffic to their site.

This is useful because you can see when a social channel such as Facebook or Twitter was the traffic driver to a page on your site or not. Also you can track which ones are the biggest referral drivers – and when. This is helpful because you can see the plateaus, dips, and spikes and see which campaigns may have attributed to those.

Extra Tip: In addition to Google Analytics, Google Alerts and Google Trends are also helpful tools. Google Alerts allows for RSS or email updates on when your brand is mentioned in blogs, news, etc. Google Trends is great because it can help your brand compare search terms and other sites, in order to get an idea on which search terms are being used most and which of your competitors are receiving said traffic.

A great sidekick: Topsy

I’m a fan of Topsy – even the free version- because it allows brands to get some real-time information on what trends are occurring.

To read more on Topsy and my other fun tool to utilize, check out my original and full post on Startup fashion!