Analytics and social media ROI is a topic garnering a lot of attention recently, and for good reason.

Many of us in higher education have seen our leadership move beyond the “we have to be on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn!” phase and into the “wait, what are we getting from the resources we’re spending?” mode.

Some of the more interesting recent chatter about social media ROI includes:

• Tailoring metrics to your audience by Nate Elliott (@nate_elliott);
• Taking a long-term perspective on social media efforts by Steve Goldner (@SocialSteve); and
• Defining a framework for social marketing analytics by John Lovett (@johnlovett) and Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang)

Earlier this month HootSuite joined the measurement party by launching HootSuite Social Analytics. I took a deeper dive into this new analytics platform in the past few weeks to provide a report card on the company’s offerings. (Full disclosure: I am a HootSuite user).

Below are my grades for HootSuite Social Analytics. After the jump you can see a Q&A with HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes, who was good enough to respond to several questions about the new product. Thanks to HootSuite’s @ashjbee and @daveohoots for their help with this article.

The HootSuite Analytics Report Card

Usability: A -

HootSuite’s quick reports allow you to create simple presentations from Owl.ly statistics, Facebook Insights, and Google Analytics. The platform’s custom reports allows for some more advanced results.

It didn’t take me long to figure out how to create custom reports. The four step process includes: 1) Select report type (From five options); 2) Choose profile (Twitter / Facebook / Google Analytics); 3) Add report “modules” (Rollovers provide at a glance descriptions); and 4) Select your email scheduling preferences and create a report.

I found the interface to be very intuitive and user-friendly. The only thing that threw me off a bit was the point system associated with the reports (more on this below).

Functionality: B

After some testing I ultimately created two basic reports, one for the Facebook page I manage and one for the Twitter account. These two reports used up my monthly point allocation.

If you do go “Pro” and use Social Analytics you will find yourself having to do some testing to develop the optimal report(s) for your needs within the pricing structure. Don’t forget about the quick reports option, which is free and may be able to meet your needs in a pinch.

I would like to see some LinkedIn group analytics; there are none at this point. CEO Ryan Holmes says HootSuite will “keep our eyes open for additional ways to work with LinkedIn,” but in reality LinkedIn is in the driver’s seat and can choose how much information to share.

Cost: C

The pricing model is certainly the biggest disappointment with HootSuite Analytics and has drawn the most comments and questions from HootSuite users.

Upgrading to HootSuite Pro (at $5.99 a month) provides you with 50 monthly points to allocate toward creating reports. Most “modules” that you include in a report have a cost associated with them, as do report templates, so you can quickly go through your point allocation. I found was that I could either create one very in-depth report for a particular profile (e.g. Facebook / Twitter) or two pretty good reports for the basic monthly cost. I chose to go with a pretty good report for both Facebook and Twitter.

According to Mr. Holmes the company surveyed users before selecting the current pricing model. “The ‘a la carte’ points system provided the best way to offer enhanced analytics tools to most users by allowing custom-tailored reports for their particular analytics needs,” Mr. Holmes wrote.

You can purchase more points to create additional custom reports – at the very steep cost of $50/month – or try to generate a report through the free quick report system. A lot of the same data are available on each individual platform – Facebook Insights or Google Analytics for example – but there certainly are benefits to the user from having a single analytics platform.

The Overall Grade: B / B+

If you are a HootSuite user, like the product, and have a need for some basic reporting I suggest upgrading to HootSuite Pro and creating some sample reports. (Please note: there is a 30-day free trial for pro accounts so its worth testing out).

I think the points pricing system is unnecessarily confusing, but hopefully that is something that HootSuite will look at down the road. I also think additional functionality – like more information from LinkedIn and additional tools related to user sentiment and affiliation would be useful.

You can read the full text of our Q&A with HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes about HootSuite Analytics after the jump. (Q&A edited slightly for clarity).

ASMH: How many upgrades to Pro accounts have you seen since the launch of HootSuite analytics? (Either a total # or % of users. If % of users, please let us know how many total active users HootSuite has).

RH: Currently, HootSuite has 1.5 million users, and approximately 95% of our users remain free. When developing our Freemium model, we knew that a large portion of our user base would best be served with a free plan for casual profile updating, searching and monitoring. Those with more advanced business needs can opt in to our Pro or Enterprise plans for more advanced reporting and enhanced features. Each new feature we add to the Pro and enterprise packages results in an increase of sign-ups and upgrades.

ASMH: Are there analytics for LinkedIn groups? I am not a LinkedIn group manager, but LinkedIn groups are especially important in higher ed & alumni relations. From what I’ve heard/read, LinkedIn isn’t nearly as forthcoming with APIs, but I wonder for folks who manage groups what measurement tools might be coming down the pike.

RH: HootSuite currently supports LinkedIn for posting updates to network profiles and monitoring contact updates. We added this functionality last year as it was a highly requested feature which our users were thrilled to have in the suite of networks the dashboard supports. We continue to keep our eyes open for additional ways to work with LinkedIn to provide insights into activity level and groups to help folks make the most of their social media management.

ASMH: What are your reactions to the community response to this product? Fair questions asked by users? Have you seen more of a response or more positive/negative feedback around the analytics than other releases?

RH: Almost immediately after releasing HootSuite Social Analytics, we saw a surge in report packages purchased by our users. Feedback from those who tried out the new tools was favorable, and we saw a great deal of positive reviews from users around the world who gave the new Social Analytics a spin — you can see some of our favorites in our Social Analytics News Roundup on our blog.

We’re incredibly fortunate that our fan-base is so engaged — we see a lot of commentary about all of our releases — because we pay close attention to customer feedback when planning releases, the response is largely positive.

The Social Analytics release generated a lot of buzz because it so directly benefits anyone using the dashboard for business needs — whether they’re running a specific campaign or measuring brand sentiment over time.

ASMH: A lot of the comments surrounding the release dealt with pricing. Were a variety of pricing structures considered? If yes, why did you select the point system over other pricing models? What do you feel the value add is of HootSuite analytics when users can get content like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights provides for free?

RH: We put a great deal of consideration into the points-based pricing model and surveyed our users before deciding. The “a la carte” points system provided the best way to offer enhanced analytics tools to most users by allowing custom-tailored reports for their particular analytics needs.

The value of HootSuite Social Analytics is the ability to completely fine-tune reports to fully understand the results of your campaign – from a granular analysis of specific campaign elements, to a bird’s eye view of your overall efforts. This means that you can overlay Google Analytics and Facebook Insights with other aggregated tracking systems to give you a more complete picture of your success.

ASMH: I (Matt) signed up for a pro account, which gives me 50 points for reports. I have created reports that reach my point allotment, and I can add additional points, but the lowest cost is $50 per month. Any plans on offering a lower pricing tier below $50 or re-evaluating the price structure?

RH: We’re always looking at how we can improve our offering and our product for our users. With Social Analytics, we offer several free Quick Analytics Reports to provide a useful summary of activity and ow.ly links clicks etc.

ASMH: A lot of the recent writing about social media analytics has focused on long-term relationship building and ROI, moving beyond friends & followers. (See this blog post by Forrester for example). These are obviously harder to quantify, but do you think we will see additions to your analytics services down the road that are able to respond to some of these questions?

RH: We always seek to re-iterate and re-invent the functionality of our tool based on what users need and want. In fact, Social Analytics were largely born out of a need we heard from users and we will continue to create unique, powerful tools to help others use social media tactics and measure effectiveness and results.