14 Social Listening Tools That Enable Powerful Insights
In such a highly competitive business environment, brands need to understand consumers’ opinions about their products and services.
To grasp key perceived differentiation points between companies and uncover the social sentiment analysis toward their brand, businesses can use various social listening tools.
Social listening offers valuable insights that can lead to numerous market opportunities and refine your social media strategy.
This brings us to the question: what are the best social media listening tools that marketers can leverage to monitor consumer conversations and supervise brand mentions?
Let’s find out!
Social media listening tools worth checking out
- What is a social listening tool?
- Why use a social media listening tool?
- Top social media listening tools available on the market
3.1 Socialinsider
3.2 Keyhole
3.3 Brand24
3.4 Digimind
3.5 Brandwatch
3.6 Talkwalker
3.7 Metlwater
3.8 Hootsuite
3.9 Mentionlytics
3.10 YouScan
3.11 Mention
3.12 Awario
3.13 BrandMentions
3.14 Determ
1. What are social listening tools?
Social listening tools are platforms that search the internet for mentions of your brand, competitors, and other keywords you choose.
By leveraging a social listening tool, you can better understand how your brand is perceived, spot trends more easily, and gain more control over your brand's story.
2. Why use social media listening tools?
A social media listening tool can be used for various reasons, from gaining consumer insights for a new business line and monitoring the impact of real-time events to tracking customer sentiment and managing social media reputation.
Incorporating social media best practices, listening tools for social media are a must-have in every digital marketer's toolkit.
They enable quick data collection, which facilitates rapid social strategy optimization and can lead to a competitive advantage.
3. Top social media listening tools available on the market
Various tools for social listening can provide you with unbiased and direct information about every aspect of your business.
Examine the options listed below to see which of these best social listening tools can help you make wiser decisions to build and maintain your brand's reputation.
3.1. Socialinsider
Being one of the best AI social listening tools available on the market, Socialinsider offers in-depth insights and data analysis from multiple perspectives, from content and engagement to demographics insights.
Our Instagram Listening tool also empowers you to dig deeper into sentiment and emotion analysis, read between the lines of online conversations around your brand and understand how your audience really feels about it.
Lastly but not least, Socialinsider also helps you discover the influencers that show an active interest in your brand.
Allowing in-depth research on their past collaborations and interactions with other brands, that will help you decide whether or not some of them would be a good fit for future partnerships, this AI-powered listening tool could save you a lot of time on different social listening tasks.
Socialinsider gives me the same tools than any other big social media management platform that I've used. But what I like the most is the human customer service. Actual people are behind the computer! So refreshing! - Alan M. - Small Business, G2
Pricing: Starts at $50/month for the Instagram Listening tool. By the way, you can enjoy a 14-day free trial before commiting to any pricing plan.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5.
4.2. Keyhole
Keyhole is an AI-powered social listening tool that simplifies brand monitoring across the web by tracking mentions, branded keywords and hashtags.
One of the platform's most helpful social listening features is its alerts for posts that have the potential of becoming viral option, being a go-to solution for crisis prevention.
Besides these, Keyhole's social listening module also covers sentiment analysis and comparative listening data.
Keyhole is a really easy to use, very complete platform that gives really good listening insights. - Fabiola A, Marketing Manager, Mid-Market, G2
Pricing: It starts at $89 / month for the Individual plan.
G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5.
3.3. Brand24
Brand24 is a powerful social listening platform that helps businesses measure their brand awareness, discover customer insights and protect their brand reputation.
By using this social media listening software, companies can monitor mentions, track their social media reach, oversee sentiment analysis and learn from clients' feedback.
Thoughtful and easy to use UI. Helpful insights about brand and topics brand would be interested in. Affordable entry point to social listening tools. Easy to use reporting and regular auto-reports. Active customer support line ready to assist even with small accounts. - User in Higher Education, Small Business, G2
Pricing: Brand24 offers an individual plan at $79/mo. Pricing plans for social media teams and agencies start at $149/mo. You can also opt for a free 14-day trial.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5.
3.4. Digimind
This social media listening software is also a popular choice among marketers as their brand reputation monitoring solution.
With Digimind, you can monitor your brand’s reputation in real-time through in-depth sentiment analysis and by tracking any changes in discussions volume. You can then create in-depth social listening reports that will highlight how your brand is perceived in the online world.
Digimind Social presents quick and easy to understand data about audiences such as age, gender, and profession. The charts allow for quick overviews that we could use with clients to deliver valuable insights. - Michael O, Small Business, G2
Pricing: Available upon request.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5.
3.5. Brandwatch
In your search for tools for social media listening, you may have heard about Brandwatch, a world-class platform equipped with many professional features that help marketers make strategic decisions for their brands.
For social media listening purposes, the tool provides sentiment analysis, categorizing mentions as good, neutral, or negative.
Moreover, you can set notifications to alert if there is a spike in specific mentions. You can also create automated reports of mentions and trending topics and have them delivered straight to your inbox.
Brandwatch Consumer Intelligence offers gaming and tech companies, that we are an agency to, an invaluable suite of features that fuel growth and competitive advantage. Its social listening enables real-time engagement with audiences, while audience analysis tailors social media marketing strategies to specific gamer and tech demographics. - User in Marketing & Advertising, Mid Market, G2
Pricing: Available upon request.
G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5.
3.6. Talkwalker
Talkwalker's social listening software offers a series features that turns reputation management into a easy breezy task. With this social listening solution, marketers can easy monitor brand mentions and get sentiment metrics and social media insights that can be used as a starting point for future social media campaigns and initiatives.
Its social listening AI tools provide comprehensive and out-of-the-box social listening data, such as share of voice benchmarking against competitors.
Talkwalker does a great job of monitoring the web and tracking your brand's presence. - User in Marketing & Advertising, Mid Market, G2
Pricing: Contact Talkwalker to obtain current pricing.
G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5.
3.7. Meltwater
In the current landscape, Meltwater stands among the top social media listening tools available.
Offering data such as audience insights, mentions tracking, and sentiment analysis, this social media listening software helps marketers easily stay on top of their brand's image management and prevent crises.
It also simplifies social media listening reporting through its automated reports feature and custom social media reporting dashboards.
The thing about Meltwater is that it can scale with your organization's needs. It has the powerful tools you expect, like newswire integration and social scheduling, but it also has things like customizable boolean-based news listening. The UX is easy and the UI is simple to move around in. - Chandler E, Community Development & Engagement Lead, Mid Market, G2
Pricing: Contact Meltwater to obtain current pricing.
G2 rating: 4.0 out of 5.
3.8. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media monitoring tool that helps brands tap into customers' conversations, allowing their feedback to act as a business development driver.
Using this platform, marketers can monitor mentions, keywords, and hashtags to see how much brand awareness specific campaigns have generated and also discover clients' perceptions of the brand.
Hootuiste is a powerful social analytics tool and has helped us to gain insights into our social media performance. I liked its real-time social media analytics, custom dashboard and social media listening capabilities. - Ravina S., CFO, Small Business, G2
Pricing: It starts at $99/mo for the Professional plan.
G2 rating: 4.2 out of 5.
3.9. Mentionlytics
Talking about tools for social listening that integrate AI, Mentionlytics also leverages a cutting edge technology to offer innovative insights that can help brands scale their campaign's awareness and reputation.
Offering web and social media monitoring, this social media listening platform makes tracking brand awareness, mentions, reach, and engagement a piece of cake.
Mentionlytics is a powerful tool for monitoring online mentions and managing brand reputation. Its intuitive interface and robust analytics make tracking social media engagement and sentiment effortless. Highly recommended for businesses seeking comprehensive social listening solutions. - User in Capital Markets, Small Business, G2
Pricing: Starts at $40/mo — this plan is ideal for small-size brands that need to search for up to 10K mentions per month.
G2 rating: 4.9 out of 5.
3.10. YouScan
YouScan is a top social media listening tool that helps marketers measure brand visibility and gather in-depth consumer insights, having an AI-powered algorithm.
Among the platform's main high-tech features is its Visual Insights section, which provides image recognition and data.
Through its visual analytics metrics, this social listening platform empowers brands to discover influencers and brand ambassadors with whom they could create fruitful collaborations.
We enjoy user-friendly interface of YouScan, and the fact that there's no limitations on the number of users and automatic alerts that we can set up about the important mentions. At the same time it has all the data filters (e.g., by sentiment, sources, and more) and all reports that we need in the social media listening tool. - Anna T., Mid Market, G2
Pricing: Starts at $299/mo, a package that's designed for small businesses and startups.
G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5.
3.11. Mention
Mention is a social media listening platform that allows marketers to listen to their audience through consumer conversations around the web and social media.
Covering a wide range of social listening metrics, Mention is a great brand awareness measurement tool that can equally help businesses create better-performing social strategies starting from their customers' needs.
I love how Mention is able to look for unbranded mentions in article copy, and find those (otherwise) hidden backlinks to my website that helps me track outreach efforts. It also provides a look at websites that sometimes helps when there is a paywall to an article talking about your brand. - User in Online Media, Mid Market, G2
Pricing: Starts at $41/mo, and there's the option of testing it through a free trial.
G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5.
3.12. Awario
Enabling brand monitoring across web and social media, Awario is a social listening tool that can be used for a lot of pusposes, from tracking brand-related conversations and share of mentions, to market research and connecting with influencers.
One of its much appreciated features is also its competitive analysis and reputation tracking, that allows brands to understand how their market's status influence brand image and perceptions.
Awario gives you what you need to create social media monitoring reports at an affordable price. - Karen S, Small Business, G2
Pricing: Starts at $41/mo and offers a free trial.
G2 rating: 3.9 out of 5.
3.13. BrandMentions
BrandMentions is one of those versatile tools for social media listening that can help you keep track of everything mentioned about your brand or product on all channels that matter to you. It also performs a thorough sentiment analysis to determine the tone of the chats and notifies you in real time.
Intuitive management panel and valuable results with many mentions. - Michal P, Small Business Owner, G2
Pricing: Starts at $79/mo. You can also see what BrandMentions can do for you within a 7-day free trial.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5.
3.14. Determ
This tool for social media listening offers all the relevant social media insights for managing brand image and reputation. From mentions monitoring to campaign analysis or sentiment data, Determ simplifies the life of any marketer interested in understanding how his brand is perceived in the online world.
The fact that it monitors keywords across different channels makes it super easy to set up filters and get a social media report. - Mile, Head of Content, Small Business, G2
Pricing: Available upon request.
G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5.
Final thoughts
Given that people are talking about brands on social now more than ever before, leveraging a social listening tool has become crucial for brands aiming to understand how their audiences are talking about them.
Helpful for gathering customer feedback and also crisis management, social listening tools can offer valuable insights that can lead to further product improvement and growth.
FAQs about social listening tools
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What is the best social listening tool available?
There is no such thing as only one best tool for social media listening. Your choice should depend on your needs, as every platform has its specific set of features aimed to serve a certain use case.