Measures of (Social-Media) Success

If you're familiar with TubeMogul, you probably think of it simply as a way to upload your videos to multiple sites, saving you the hassle of uploading videos over and over. But TubeMogul has developed a rich set of metrics lately, letting you see stats on how many people have watched your videos across networks. Real-time analytics include views, viewed minutes, audience geography, embeds, referring sites and search terms, and more, all via your dashboard. Cross-compare by category, content delivery network, advertising mix or video player. And it's free.

YouTube Insight

Is your video 'hot'?

YouTube Insight is a self-service analytics and reporting tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the audience for the videos that you upload to the site. Use the information to analyze your marketing efforts — both on and off YouTube — and determine how best to optimize your campaigns. Watch the video and see metrics around views and popularity, how people get to your site, the content clicked on, average pages per visit, which parts of your video are "hot" and "cold," demographic information and community engagement.

Google Analytics

Powerful and easy to use

Google Analytics has become such an indispensable part of the analytics landscape that it's not surprising we get a little blasé about it. But let's not forget the genius of this tool: You get super-rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness — for free. Create better-targeted ads, track sales and conversions, measure your site-engagement goals, track Web-enabled phones and mobile apps, integrate business info, and develop applications that access Google Analytics data. By the way, you can also add Google Analytics to your Facebook Page.

Alexa, Compete, etc.

How do you stack up?

When was the last time you looked to see how your site or blog was doing over time? Google Analytics will provide traffic data more accurately than analytics services like Compete, Quantcast and Alexa, but these sites also show trends, a different set of demographics guesswork and, most pointedly, how your site measures up against your competitors'. Alexa offers search analytics showing the top queries driving traffic to your site from search engines. I actually use all three of these services — see which works best for your needs.