Hi, reporters! Social analytics has never exactly been a passion of mine – when I use social media as a reporter, it’s usually for backgrounding people. So perhaps I’m still in the dark ages, but I recently started using a tool called Social Blade.
I had a pretty simple reporting question: how many Instagram (or Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, what have you) followers did someone gain? Did they lose any? After a surprisingly long search, Social Blade finally showed me what I was looking for.
Here’s an example: Ron Desantis, an American politician, saw huge leaps in Twitter followers when he won reelection as governor and when he announced his run for president. Another example: PlayStation has been losing Instagram followers all month, ever since it had a PR snafu with a popular video game.
I give these the same disclaimer I give Google Trends: I can’t claim for sure that any of those things caused the upswing or downswing in their social media success. But it is definitely an interesting metric.
Social Blade is free, although you have to sign up for a free account to view most metrics. Plus, there’s even more locked behind a premium account. If anyone here has a tool you prefer, please share!