It doesn’t matter whether you’re a business, an entrepreneur, or an influencer. Your audience is your biggest asset… If you know how to capture their attention. Understanding your audience is crucial for creating content and experiences that will influence their behavior and ultimately drive sales.  

The encouraging news is that you no longer have to weave together disparate data sources, spend hours scouring Google, or rely solely on your preconceived notions to gain the insights you need. Investing in a strong social audience insights tool will give you a deeper understanding of your target audience in order to craft meaningful campaigns that will move the needle for your business.

If you aren’t using a social audience insights tool yet, fear not– we’ll be exploring 5 options in this blog post. While all may provide you with a starting point for analyzing key audiences, some offer more capabilities than others.  What works for you might not work as well for someone else, so let’s dive in and compare. 

#1. StatSocial 

I’ve used StatSocial myself, and it’s one of the best social audience insights tools I’ve come across. For starters, unlike commonly used social listening tools, StatSocial is able to analyze the audience behind the conversation to provide insights around their unique interests, affinities, and preferences. 

Stitching together audience data from major social platforms, Silhouette stands out in the industry—other social audience insight tools are built around Twitter (X) alone. Marketers are able to gain a more holistic view of any brand, consumer, or social audience by either uploading their own first-party datasets, or building custom audiences within the platform. I love that you can analyze the audiences of your competitors as well, which gives you intel as to how you can better engage them and attract new customers. 

Most importantly, the data is actionable. When it comes to media planning, there’s not much concrete data out there to eliminate the guesswork. But, by evaluating the media channels your audience engages with, you can refine your strategy across both traditional outlets and niche publications, podcasts, radio, and more. Plus, if you’re currently investing in influencer marketing, you’ll be able to analyze each influencer’s audience or identify those that your own audience actively follows, to make smarter choices about who you partner up with. 

A feature that’s unique is the ability to analyze data based ONLY on audiences who were exposed to or engaged with your social and influencer campaigns, making measuring brand health significantly more accurate and ROI attribution possible. 

Lastly, the way they translate comprehensive datasets into dynamic visuals around key personas is something I particularly like. With the treasure trove of data, you’ll gain enlightening insights into your audience, learn how to play to their likes and dislikes, and engage them through their preferred media channels. I know it’s worked for me—I’m sure it will for you too! 

Best For: 

Marketers and businesses who need meaningful and actionable consumer insights. It’s one of the best audience intelligence tools for those that may have uncertainty around their audience’s media consumption or influencer relationships. 

Key Features: 

• Cross-Platform Insights: Audience data sourced from major social platforms including LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Twitch, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, and more. 
• Identity Graph: Mapping of billions of social profiles to a database of 300M+ verified individuals. 
• Comprehensive Taxonomy: Over 300,000 pre-built segments including interests, brand affinities, media preferences, and more. 
• Persona Clusters: Naturally occurring groups or segments within the audience, categorized by shared interests and connections.
• Custom Audience Creation: Creation of niche consumer audiences, or upload of first-party datasets.
• Social Handle Import/Export: Seamless integration with social listening tools.

#2. Resonate 

Resonate is an AI-powered platform that uses modeled data to provide you with your own audience insights. It goes beyond just the regular demographics, using AI to dive deep into the motivations and values that drive consumer decisions. 

They place emphasis on the psychology of consumer behavior, providing insights that are a goldmine for marketers looking to make meaningful connections. If you understand WHY your customers are buying, you can make better decisions about what content you’re putting out, which is what Resonate is all about. 

What I like about Resonate is its commitment to humanizing data. Instead of just knowing who your audience is, Resonate empowers you to understand why they make the choices they do. This is valuable info for a marketer to have! 

There’s always the possibility for glitches with AI, and although Resonate has an accuracy rate of 80%, there may be times when it’s a bit off the mark. It also lacks B2B data, so it’s definitely not going to appeal to everyone. 

Best For 

B2C marketing strategists, brand managers, and entrepreneurs looking to move beyond the traditional demographic targeting and truly connect with their audience based on values and motivations. 

Key Features 

• Psychographic Insights: Understand the why behind consumer choices. 
• Sizeable Database: 14K+ custom attributes and 230M+ consumer profiles. 
• User-Friendly Interface: Effortless navigation and data interpretation. 
• Dynamic Consumer Profiles: Craft personalized campaigns that resonate. 
• Deep Data Science: Humanizing data for more meaningful connections. 

#3. Audiense 

Audiense features 2 platforms: Audiense Connect, a Twitter marketing platform, and Audiense Intelligence, a detailed insight platform. They use mainaly Twitter data, but pull Facebook data as well for deeper insights. 

While this might set it behind other tools, it’s great for those looking for Twitter insights specifically. It’s also a budget-friendly option, with a limited free account option so you can try before you buy. 

It’s a valuable tool for those doing influencer marketing on Twitter. One of the great features it provides is dynamic clustering—the grouping of dominant traits within the audience into smaller segments of people. 

This allows you to really delve into the smaller details of what each segment of your audience likes, rather than just doing a mean average. With this info, Audiense compiles customer personas for you, going deep into things like their needs, their personality traits, and their drivers for buying. 

From there, you’ll be able to find out which influencers your audience has an affinity for. This information helps you to narrow down which influencers will have the biggest effect on your audience. Save time and energy by targeting the right influencer group from the start! 

Best For: 

Those looking for the best social audience insight tool for Twitter, especially for marketers planning on doing influencer marketing on the platform. 

Key Features 

• Twitter-Centric Marketing: Perfect for detailed data on Twitter audiences. 
• Dynamic Clustering: Sub-groups within the wider audience for more specific data. 
• Watson-Powered AI: Uses IBM’s AI to give you in-depth data about the personality and psyche of your audience. 
• Social Listening: Offers insights on trends, consumer mindsets, and brand perception. 

#4. Helixa 

Helixa offers a sophisticated yet user-friendly approach to understanding consumer behavior, with an emphasis on data precision. The platform leverages advanced AI and machine learning to deliver insights that go beyond demographics. 

It’s noteworthy that Helixa draws their data from Twitter, which may be limiting for those looking to do cross-platform marketing. Within the platform, you’ll be able to use features like audience clustering, persona development, interest-based segmentation, and competitive insights. 

In comparison to others, it’s a little short on data enrichment for precise audience targeting, but it’s a good choice for those looking for a simple and intuitive platform to gain deeper insights into social media audiences. 

Navigating Helixa is easy, thanks to its intuitive design and powerful features. The platform’s ability to create audience segments based on real-time data ensures that you’re always in sync with your audience’s evolving preferences. 

Best For: 

Marketers looking for deeper audience insights without complication. Especially good for those focusing on Twitter. 

Key Features 

• AI-Enriched Data: Robust affinity data powered by machine learning. 
• Twitter-Based Data: Excellent Twitter insights for brands. 
• Intuitive Design: Easy to navigate and user-friendly. 
• Competitive Analysis: Analyze and compare what your competitors are doing. 
• Monitor Market Trends: Stay on top of relevant trends in your niche. 

#5. Dstillery 

Dstillery has some big names behind it, including Hyundai, Advil, and PayPal. This audience intelligence platform uses AI to put together focused audience groups tailored to your brand, which you can then customize as you wish. 

Five of Dstillery’s seven core services are aimed at gathering audience insights. Their flagship solution, Custom AI Audiences, delivers lookalike audiences by exploring first-party data and using it to craft meaningful groups for your own brand. It refreshes every 24 hours to help you find your best and most relevant prospects. 

Audience Studio is a tool that allows you to explore, create, and activate audiences on your preferred DSP. It recommends relevant audiences to engage with, enabling you to focus more on achieving your goals and less on navigating complex technologies! It also places emphasis on audience overlap and ranks to enhance data transparency. 

Custom Built Audiences, meanwhile, are unique combinations of Dstillery’s Pre-Built Audiences that help you find your target persona without relying on first-party data. That makes Dstillery a versatile platform. 

Lastly, you can search for audiences by exploring over 10,000 (and growing) audiences in their database. It’s a surprisingly robust platform, although it’s not quite a full social audience insight tool. 

Best For: 

Digital marketers, advertisers, and businesses aiming for predictive marketing excellence and refined audience targeting. 

Key Features 

• Custom AI Audiences: Uses first-party data to tailor profiles to your business. 
• Audience Studio: Create and activate audiences on your preferred DSP. 
• Pre-Built/Custom Built Audiences: Boolean-powered customizable audiences. 
• Search for Audiences: 10,000+ audiences in an easy-to-search database. 
• 24-Hour Audience Refresh: Always up-to-date data. 

Conclusion 

It’s no easy feat, picking out the best social audience insights tools. They’re a very specific type of tool, designed to take you deep into the psyche of your audience members, and they’re often confused with social listening tools. 

Both are valuable, but the best social audience insights tools will outstrip the best social listening tool in terms of data volume and psychology-backed insights. It’s much more than demographics, or what’s being said online. 

They build detailed, human-like customer avatars that you can “befriend” and question to figure out how best to present your offering to the people in your audience. If you want the best of the best when it comes to audience analytics, these tools are where it’s at. 

StatSocial is by far my favorite for its versatility and sheer volume of usable insights. Nothing else on this list is quite like it, but different businesses have different needs, so check them all out and find what works for you!