Two tools, Keyhole and Social Status, were each named in all six of the answers we measured for social media analytics tools, the only products to go six for six. We put the same six buyer questions to ChatGPT and Gemini on 2026-08-03, with one live web search behind each question, and recorded every product named and every source domain the answers leaned on.
Behind the two perfect scores sat a tight second tier. Buffer, Rival IQ, Siftsy and Vista Social were each named in 5 of the 6 answers, an 83% hit rate. Those four, plus Keyhole and Social Status, make a stable core of six products that carried most of every answer no matter how we phrased the question.
The drop after that core is steep. The next five tools, Agorapulse, Hootsuite, Metricool, Sprout Social and Tailwind, were each named in just 2 of the 6 answers (33%). Five more, Google Analytics, Netlytic, Socialinsider, Typefully and Whatagraph, appeared once each (1 of 6, 17%). Sixteen distinct products were named in total, but six of them did nearly all the work.
How the six questions changed the shortlist
The six-product core held across four of the six phrasings, but the edges of every shortlist moved with the wording. Only Keyhole and Social Status appeared in all 6 answers; every other tool dropped in or out depending on how the buyer asked.
The bare "best social media analytics tools" answer ran to 8 tools and was the only place the incumbents led: Hootsuite and Sprout Social both appeared here, and each showed up in only one other answer. Ask the plainest version of the question and the enterprise names surface; narrow it at all and they fall away.
"Best free social media analytics tools" returned 7 tools and was the only answer to name Netlytic, which appeared in exactly 1 of the 6 answers. It was also the only question whose sources included a university page, communication.illinoisstate.edu, which showed up once in the entire measurement. The free framing pulled an academic library guide that no other phrasing touched.
"Most affordable social media analytics tools" ran to 8 tools and swapped the incumbents for budget names: Metricool (2 of 6) and Tailwind (2 of 6) both surfaced here, with Tailwind appearing only in this answer and in "recommendations". Where "best" surfaced Hootsuite and Sprout Social, "affordable" put Metricool and Tailwind in their place.
The biggest swing came from "what social media analytics tools should I use", which shared only Keyhole and Social Status with the core and dropped Buffer, Rival IQ, Siftsy and Vista Social entirely. It was the sole answer to name Whatagraph, Socialinsider and Google Analytics, three tools that each appeared in just 1 of the 6 answers. One conversational rephrasing produced an almost different shortlist of 8.
"For small teams" (8 tools) brought Agorapulse and Metricool in alongside the core, and "recommendations" (8 tools) brought in Typefully, named in exactly 1 of the 6 answers. Five products in all, Google Analytics, Netlytic, Socialinsider, Typefully and Whatagraph, owed their entire presence to a single phrasing of the question.
The source map
The answers leaned on a small set of pages. Reddit and YouTube were the two most-cited sources, each feeding 6 of the 6 answers, so a community thread and a video sat behind every single answer we measured.
Vendor roundup pages did most of the rest. buffer.com, hootsuite.com and whatagraph.com were each cited in 5 of 6 answers, sproutsocial.com in 4, and socialinsider.io and sprinklr.com in 3 each. These are "best social media analytics tools" listicles published by the vendors themselves, and the models quoted them heavily.
The key insight is that several vendors' own domains fed the answers, and their product got named. buffer.com was cited in 5 of 6 answers and Buffer was named in 5; socialstatus.io was cited twice and Social Status was named in all 6; rivaliq.com was cited twice and Rival IQ was named in 5. Being your own citation is doing real work in this category.
It does not work automatically. sprinklr.com was cited in 3 of 6 answers, yet Sprinklr was never named once, and whatagraph.com was cited in 5 answers while Whatagraph was named in only 1. A page can feed the model without the model recommending the page's owner, so a spot in the source list is necessary but not sufficient.
Keyhole is the clearest proof that you do not have to own the citation. Keyhole was named in all 6 answers, yet its own domain never appeared in the source list once. Every one of its mentions came from other pages, the Reddit threads, the YouTube videos and the vendor roundups, that listed it.
Classic review directories were close to absent. G2 and Capterra did not appear in a single one of the 6 answers. The only directory-style source was softwareadvice.com, cited once, and Quora appeared once as well. For this category the models trusted community posts and vendor listicles far more than the review-grid sites.
What a vendor here would do to get named
If you sell a social media analytics tool, this measurement says the source list, not your market share, decides whether you get named. Sprout Social, one of the biggest and best-known names in the category, was named in only 2 of 6 answers, while the far smaller Siftsy was named in 5. The models recommended whoever the cited pages recommended.
So the work is concrete: be present in the exact pages these answers quote. That means the Reddit and YouTube results that fed 6 of 6 answers, the vendor roundups on buffer.com, hootsuite.com and whatagraph.com that fed 5 each, and, where you can, your own domain, which produced named results for Buffer, Social Status and Rival IQ. You do not need all sixteen sources, you need the six or seven that get cited most.
It pays to watch the phrasing too. Because "best free" was the only answer to name Netlytic and "what should I use" was the only one to name Whatagraph, Socialinsider and Google Analytics, a tool can be invisible on five questions and present on one. Knowing which phrasing you win and which you miss is most of the job.
The full list, counted
These are the eleven tools named in more than one answer. Five others, Google Analytics, Netlytic, Socialinsider, Typefully and Whatagraph, were each named once (1 of 6).
| Product | Named in | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Keyhole | 6 of 6 | 100% |
| Social Status | 6 of 6 | 100% |
| Buffer | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Rival IQ | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Siftsy | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Vista Social | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Agorapulse | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| Hootsuite | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| Metricool | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| Sprout Social | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| Tailwind | 2 of 6 | 33% |
Where Glotier fits
Glotier does not sell a social media analytics tool, so we are correctly absent from all 6 of these answers. Nobody should be citing us in this category, and nobody is.
But this page is exactly what we run for a customer's own category. We put the six buyer questions to ChatGPT and Gemini, record who gets named and which sources decide it, and hand back the same map you just read, pointed at your product instead of Keyhole and Social Status. The check is free, needs no account, and takes about a minute.