This post originally appeared on the oneforty blog and was written by Jessica Malnik.

Social media analysis and reporting can be a daunting and downright expensive task.

Tools like Radian 6 are phenomenal for companies with large marketing budgets, but for small businesses or companies just starting on Twitter there are several free tools that can provide a great deal of data and analysis.

Every company should use a social media monitoring platform to manage its Twitter account. Free or low-cost social media platforms—such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Seesmic, or Cotweet—allow for customization, list building, and the ability to delegate tasks to other team members.

Here are five analytics tools you need to check out.

5. Klout. Among influence-measuring tools, Klout might be the most notorious. I admit it’s not perfect, but there is still a lot we can gather from it. The actual Klout score is pretty much worthless after you surpass 35, but you can gather an awful lot from the Klout score analysis. For instance, it tells you your overall reach and your top influencers and influencees.

4. Backtweets. Backtweets is a great free tool to figure out how far your tweets are traveling. It lets you see who is interacting with your tweets.

3. Topsy. This isn’t just for Twitter analytics. It’s a real-time social search engine. Topsy is a great way to learn more about trending topics. One of the best features is its advanced search options, which lets you pinpoint all the way down to a specific URL, phrase, or time of day.

2. Advanced Twitter Search. Of all the tools on this list, Advanced Twitter Search may be the most underrated. This is the official Twitter search engine. It enables users to aggregate search terms via words, people, places, and dates. Most interesting, it enables you to search tweets based on whether it’s a positive or negative attitude.

1. Tweet Stats. This tool will analyze any user's tweets over a given period of time. It breaks down the information into easily digestible bar graphs. It includes number of retweets and mentions, tweet count, tweet density, and overall reach.

Honorable Mention: Twitter Grader. Just like Klout, Twitter Grader, which was created by Hubspot, measures influence. It rates your influence on a scale of 1 to 100. It provides an account summary, a tweet word cloud, and a few tips and suggestions to improve your Twitter influence.

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