Social media marketing should be free, and it levels the playing field of marketing so that small and medium businesses can keep in with large corporations and multinational companies. However, despite this level playing field for cost-effectiveness, it seems unfair that social media analytics platforms and tools are very expensive. Branded professional social media dashboards tools can cost hundreds of dollars monthly.

Short of doing social media marketing manually (taxing and time-consuming), small to medium-sized businesses don’t have the budget to spend on expensive tools. The good news is that the best tools and platforms are free on the internet. Just look at these free and very professional social media dashboards.

SumAll

This tool is considered the most insightful based on many reviews. The tools are customizable and fully compatible with every conceivable social media platform. SumAll reports are designed and informative, the true aid to any social media marketing strategy. You can open it on any device and gadget in various formats.

Buffer

This tool is primarily used to schedule and analyze social media content, and the Buffer dashboard even offers snapshots of how and where you can post the content. However, the free account is limited to just a single social media account and is further limited to choices of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Hootsuite

This social media dashboard is well-known as one of the most mature tools compatible with many social networks. It is well recommended for social listening and can be customized for reporting and other aspects. The free version is somewhat limited, and the premium option is offered for more powerful performance.

SocialBro

This tool is limited only to Twitter but provides various tools to gauge marketing performance and engagements. If your marketing efforts focus only on Twitter, especially its community insight dashboard, this tool is for you. More advanced features such as overall tweet analytics are offered on the premium version.

Klout

This simple tool measures online popularity, and for some companies, this is very important in gauging how often their brand or product name is being mentioned. Klout can track over 400 metrics from 8 different social networks all at the same time daily. It can even track and analyze name reach and influence.

Analytics is Common for Social Media Dashboards

Visual.ly Google Analytics Report

Technically, this free tool isn’t social media dashboard. However, its infographic-style reporting gives a real bird’s eye view of how well your brand or product is doing on social media and your website. It combines analyzing your website and social media analytics using overall website traffic. It’s not numbers-heavy, and because it’s from Google, it’s free.

Visual.ly Facebook Insights

Much like its Google Analytics counterpart, this tool generator turns all data from the past 30 days from your Facebook account into a simple and logical infographic for easier analysis. While daily users of Facebook for marketing may argue that this tool isn’t necessary, it gives marketers a great overall view of how Facebook marketing is performing overall. Again, coming from Google, it’s free.

Keyhole

If you’re keyword sensitive in marketing, this tool will monitor and analyze your company’s keywords or hashtags on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It will give you an idea of what keywords and content are popular and how they influence others. However, after long-term use and tracking, they will offer some advanced features on premium accounts.