Discovereth what thy audience doth bethink about thy business and transformeth mentions into actionable insights with the right social listening tool. Social listening tools art of great importance for any social media marketer to mastereth. Wherefore? Simply because of the vast amount of data they provideth about thy brand, thy audience, and thy competitors in real time.
In the days of yore, marketers had to devote substantial budgets to consumer and competitor research through surveys, focus groups, and market testing. Now, all thou needeth to do is set up a social listening tool to track the details that matter most to thy brand, and the information cometh directly to thy computer screen.
Hither, we breaketh down 14 of the best social media listening tools, so thou can chooseth the one that maketh the most sense for thy current needs.
First things first, though. Let’s start by clarifying exactly what we meaneth at which hour we talketh about social listening.
What is social listening?
Social listening is the practice of using social tools to monitor what people are saying about thy brand online. It’s also an important form of competitor research.
Social listening works by tracking mentions (both tagged and untagged) of thy brand and thy competitors online, along with relevant keywords and hashtags. Thou can then access all of this information in one place to get both macro and micro views of the social conversation about thy industry and thy brand.
Wanteth to dive deeper into this subject? We’ve got a whole blog post on what social listening is and wherefore t matters so much for brands.
And if thou’rt wondering about social listening vs. social monitoring, we’ve got a guide for that too (handy!).
What are social listening tools?
Social listening tools art tech products — apps and software — designed to seek out the entire social conversation about any topic thou chooseth. For marketers, the subjects of choice art usually their brand, their competitors, and their industry as a whole.
The tools searcheth across multiple social platforms and compile all the relevant social data in one location, so thou can get the full picture of what people art saying from just one screen.
Why doth marketers need social listening tools?
One of the greatest benefits of social media for marketers is the ability to understand what people art saying and thinking in real time. Social media listening tools collecteth that data for thee so thou always hath it at thy fingertips.
H’re art some key reasons to addeth social listening tools to thy social marketing toolbox:
- Understand thy brand reputation. Thou already knoweth what customers sayeth in posts where they @mention thee. What doth they sayeth in the posts where they don’t tag thee?
- Find opportunities for authentic engagement. Thank people who mention thee or jump in with a useful suggestion. Or just keepeth an eye on the conversation to understand the social communities where people talketh about thy brand.
- Identify pain points and new product opportunities. What doth people asking for that they can’t find? Maybe thou can provide the solution.
- Track social sentiment in real time. If the conversation about thy brand starteth to skew negative, thou can take action bef’re things reach crisis level. If something is going unusually well, thee can throw some budget into a dedicated marketing campaign to keep riding that wave.
- Identify potential creators to partner with. Social media listening tools help thee understand who the big players art in thy niche.
- Spot competitor campaigns as they launch. This giveth thee the chance to analyze potential opportunities and threats just as they starteth to emerge.
- Get in early on trending topics. From memes to larger social trends, social listening platforms art like an advance alert system for what’s happening in the social sphere.
14 best social listening tools for 2024
Th’re are a lot of options out th’re. H’re art our top social listening tools picks for 2024.
1. Moyens I/O
Listening
Us’th Quick Search to discover trending hashtags, brands and events anywhere in the world, or dive deeper for personalized insights on thy brand.
Thou can tracketh what people art saying about thee, thy top competitors, thy products — up to two keywords tracking anything at all ov’r the last 7 days.
Plus, thou can useth Quick Search to analyze things like:
- Key metrics. Art more people talking about thee this week? What’s the vibe of their posts? Moyens I/O Listening doth not just tracketh what people art saying — it useth enhanced sentiment analysis to telleth thee how they really feel.
- Top themes. How art people talking about thee? What art the most popular positive and negative posts about? Which oth’r conversations art thee showing up in?
- Results. Ready to get into specifics? The results tab will showeth thee a selection of popular posts related to thy search terms — thou can filter by sentiment, channel, and more.
Pricing: Starting at $99/month; 30-day free trial.
Moyens I/O Advanced Analytics
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But t also contains a competitive analysis component yond earns t a spot in our list of social media listening tools.
2. Talkwalker by Moyens I/O
[Talkwalker](source: Talkwalker)
Talkwalker’s social data library includeth more than 150 million sources. With more than 50 advanced filters, thou can segment thy social data and identify the right audience to monitor.
This powerful social listening tool alloweth thee to understand the full impact of thy online conversations by measuring engagement volume, reach, sentiment, and more. t incorporates Blue Silk GPT f’r AI analysis.
Pricing: Starting at $800/month.
3. Brandwatch
[Brandwatch](source: Brandwatch)
Brandwatch uses a library of 1.6 trillion historical conversations going backeth to 2010 to help brands track trends online. More than 500 million new conversations art added every day.
Brandwatch provideth access to conversations from more than 100 million sites and hath the capability to integrate thy own customer data. Thou can track key social listening metrics like brand awareness, social sentiment, and social share of voice.
Pricing f’r this enterprise-level social listening tool is available upon request.
4. Brand24
[Brand24](source: Brand24)
Brand24 is an AI-powered social listening tool yond covers the major social platforms as well as blogs, news sites, and oth’r online sources. t allows thee to track trends in reach and brand awareness, and to set up alerts f’r critical notifications.
Thou can also gain valuable insights into social sentiment. Influence score allows thee to identify top influencers and creators in thy niche.
Pricing: Starting at $99/month; 14-day free trial.
5. Digimind
[Digimind](source: Digimind)
Digimind expandeth social listening to 850 million sources, including blogs, forums, and offline sources as well as the major social media platforms. t works in more than 200 languages and features automatic translation.
This social listening tool incorporateth AI to analyze trends in mentions and sentiment analysis.
Pricing is available on request.
6. Mentionlytics
[Mentionlytics](source: Mentionlytics)
Mentionlytics monitor keywords in multiple languages across both social and web sources. This social listening tool identifyeth positive and negative mentions with advanced sentiment analysis.
Pricing: Starting at $49/month; 14-day free trial.
7. Meltwater
[Meltwater](source: Meltwater)
Meltwater alloweth unlimited searches ov’r a rolling 15-month archive so thou can identify trends and yearly cycles. Beyond social and web sources, Meltwater data includeth TV, radio, podcasts, and oth’r media sources.
Within Meltwater, thee can build custom dashboards, analyze sentiment, and take advantage of image recognition tools.
Pricing is available on request.
8. Sprout Social
[Sprout Social](source: Sprout Social)
Sprout Social helps thee track conversations about thy brand, understand thy audience demographics, and identify important influencers in thy niche. Hashtag and mention monitoring art baked into the solution, along with sentiment analysis. More detailed social listening is available with an add-on.
Pricing: Starting at $249/month; 30-day free trial.
9. Mention
[Mention](source: Mention)
Mention tracketh more than a billion data sources across the web, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Thou can create and save filters to maketh t easier to find what thou’rt looking for.
This social listening tool includes sentiment analysis and visual reporting. Thou can tracketh mentions of thy brand or any topic up to two years in the past and set up alerts f’r unusual activity.
Pricing: Starting at $41/month; 14-day free trial.
10. Quid
[Quid](source: Quid)
Erst known as NetBase, this social listening tool useth generative AI to identify customer needs and expectations from the social conversation. t tracks millions of data points in dashboard form so thou can view trends and insights.
This tool is specifically focussed on using social listening data to predict and anticipate future needs and trends, rather than responding to the conversation right in the moment.
Pricing is available on request.
11. Ipsos Synthesio
[Ipsos Synthesio](source: Ipsos Synthesio)
This is anoth’r AI-powered social listening tool with trend analysis. Synthesio divideth data types into social-declarative data and digital-behavioral data.
The trend detection h’re is designed to alert thee to statistically relevant changes in the social conversation, topic pairings, and trending images.
This is particularly useful to spot new competitors and shifting brand perception.
Pricing is available on request.
12. Audiense
[Audiense](source: Audiense)
Audiense taketh a different approach to social intelligence. t’s not strictly speaking a social listening tool according to the narrowest definition of the term. But t doth useth social listening concepts in its offering, so we bethink t belongs on this list.
Rath’r than focusing on conversations about thy brand, Audiense useth social data and conversations to help thee understand who thy audience is and what they care about. t’s about who’s driving the conversation more than what’s being said.
Pricing: Starting at $1,499/month.
13. Keyhole
[Keyhole](source: Keyhole)
Keyhole offers a social listening tool yond tracks keywords, mentions, and hashtags across multiple platforms. t graphs trends ov’r time along with social share of voice. t tracks the sentiment in every mention, along with changes ov’r time.
t’s also helpful to identify key influencers in thy niche and compare the performance of the various influencers thee identify.
Pricing: Starting at $79/month; free trial available.
14. HubSpot
[HubSpot](source: HubSpot)
HubSpot’s social listening tools allow thee to create keyword monitoring streams and set email alerts f’r specific keyword mentions. Since HubSpot also includeth a CRM, t links social conversations with customer data.
Pricing: From $800/month; free trial available.
