20 of the best social media monitoring tools (the ultimate list)
There’s enough social media monitoring tools on the market to get you absolutely confused. This list is here to help. Every tool on the list does what it claims to do (which is not universal among software and products in general) – it either focuses on social media monitoring exclusively or does social media monitoring as a part of a broader toolkit. When in the right hands, it will definitely help improve customer service, raise brand awareness, and prevent a social media crisis. And some of the tools do even more than that.
Are you ready to see the ultimate list? Then let’s get started.
Awario does social media monitoring in real-time across all major social media platforms, blogs, forums, news sites, and the web. It offers a Boolean search mode to make the search more flexible and ensure you only get relevant mentions. Awario performs enterprise-level analytics, such as sentiment analysis and competitive analysis, finds top influencers and potential leads. All analytics are extracted in brandable PDF reports.
Best for: solopreneurs and small businesses.
Pricing: The Starter plan is $29/month, Pro is $89/month, Enterprise is $299/month. Purchasing a yearly plan will save you 15%. Free 14-day trial available.
Mention monitors Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, news and blogs, as well as the web. Its data is in real time only. It finds social media influencers and brand advocates and makes it easy to connect with them. Mention’s analytics is shown in various formats and the results can be extracted in data-rich, customizable reports. For those interested in more than what the tool offers, Mention gives access to their API.
Best for: enterprise companies and agencies.
Pricing: Mention offers a freemium version of the platform. Subscription plans start with Solo, which is $29/mo. Starter is $99/mo, and the price for the Custom plan will be calculated after you contact Mention. Purchasing a yearly plan saves 15%.
TweetDeck is a tool that belongs to Twitter and focuses on Twitter only. You can monitor keywords across the platform and specify your search by using language, location, engagement, and date filters. You can also schedule posts.
Best for: solopreneurs.
Pricing: free
Keyhole monitors Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, news, and blogs. It performs extensive analysis on the mentions found, such as sentiment analysis, keyword clouds, and mention maps that display languages and locations. The data is presented in graphs, pie charts, and every other way you can think of, and is easily exportable.
Best for: enterprise-level businesses.
Pricing: Professional is $199/mo, Team is $349/mo, Corporate is $599/mo, and Agency is $999/mo. Pricing for the Enterprise plan is available on demand.
Brandwatch monitors all major social media platforms, news sites, forums, and blogs. It’s a robust social media listening tool with top data analytics. In addition to standard social listening analytics, it offers image recognition, demographic data about your audience, trending topics in your niche, and API access. It’s integrated with Google Analytics, Buzzsumo, and Hootsuite.
Best for: enterprise-level businesses and agencies.
Pricing: available upon request.
Sprout Social is a social media management platform which also does social media monitoring. It monitors major social media platforms and the web. You can use Boolean search to refine any search query and get more relevant results. The tool offers deep insights into your mentions and mentions of your competitors, and creates customizable reports. It shows industry trends, influencers, campaign performances and sentiments. Sprout Social also lets you assign tasks to other team members.
Best for: enterprise-level businesses and agencies.
Pricing: subscription plans start at $99 per user/month. The Corporate plan is $149 per user/month, and Enterprise is $249 per user/month. Free 30-days trial available.
Agorapulse is another social media management platform that combines social media listening and social media scheduling. It monitors Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The tool finds social media influencers and brand ambassadors, and lets you interact with the audience straight from the app. You can also assign conversations to team members.
Best for: mid-level businesses.
Pricing: The pricing starts at $49/mo for the Small plan, which comes with 3 social media profiles and a single user. Large is their most popular option at $199/mo, with 25 profiles and 6 users to manage. Agorapulse’s Enterprise solution is $299/mo, with 40 profiles and 12 users. A free 28-day trial is available.
Talkwalker is a comprehensive social media listening tool which monitors blogs, forums, all major social media platforms and many niche social media platforms such as Flickr, Foursquare, SoundCloud, Twitch, and Pinterest. It analyzes both mentions and images, and produces automated reports. It’s also integrated with Google Analytics.
Best for: enterprise-level businesses and agencies.
Pricing: Talkwalker has a premium version. The Basic plan is $9600/year. Corporate and Enterprise pricing is available on request.
Digimind is a social media monitoring tool that covers Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and the web. It analyzes mentions’ growth and sentiment, shows customer demographics and their location, and finds influencers. The tool lets you create customizable reports. It’s also integrated with Hootsuite.
Best for: mid- and enterprise-level businesses.
Pricing: available upon request.
Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management platforms. It monitors Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blogs and the web, and performs a whole range of analytics: sentiment analysis, demographics breakdown, breakdown by location and language, top influencers identification. You can create customizable reports. You can also engage with the users straight from the app.
Best for: solopreneurs, small and mid-sized businesses.
Pricing: The Professional plan is $19/month, Team is $99/month, Business is $599/month, and the price for Enterprise is calculated based on your needs. A free 30-day trial is available.
SentiOne is a social listening and customer engagement platform. It monitors major social media platforms, news, blogs, forums. Its analytics includes sentiment analysis, finding influencers, gender analysis, and competitive analysis. You can respond straight from the dashboard and even use a mobile app for this.
Best for: enterprise-level businesses and agencies.
Pricing: Team is $299/month, and the Enterprise pricing is available upon request. A yearly plan will save you 20%. You can sign up for a free 14-day trial.
Crimson Hexagon is a social media monitoring tool with a strong analytics focus. It monitors Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo, blogs, forums, news, comments, reviews, and the web. It analyzes images as well as texts and offers one of the biggest social data libraries to work with.
Best for: enterprise-level businesses and agencies.
Pricing: depends on the amount of data users will have access to.
As you can guess from its name, Reputology is highly focused on securing your reputation online. It monitors review sites such as Yelp, Google, and Facebook reviews as well as industry-specific review sites. You can respond to mentions straight from the app. It’s also integrated with Hootsuite.
Best for: small and mid-sized businesses.
Pricing: Reputology charges from $10 to $49/month for every location. A free trial is available.
Linkfluence does social listening and social data analysis. It monitors Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Sina Weibo, websites, forums; performs demographic and sentiment analytics, recognises images and emojis, and shows topics and hashtags associated with your keywords. The tool does robust competitive analysis by comparing all information found on your brand to that of your competitor’s.
Best for: large businesses and agencies.
Pricing: available upon request.
CX Social does social media analytics, engagement and analytics. It monitors data from all the major social media platforms, review sites, forums, blogs, and news sites. It lets you reply to mentions straight from the app, shows customers’ demographics and location, and grades the level of engagement. It also has extensive team collaboration features.
Best for: large businesses
Pricing: available upon request. Free 14-day trial is available.
NUVI is a social listening tool that monitors Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, VK, and blogs. It analyzes customers’ demographics, locations, impressions, interactions and finds influencers. All data is presented in astonishing visualizations and can be extracted in reports. NUVI also publishes scheduled posts for you.
Best for: enterprise-level businesses and agencies.
Pricing: available upon request.
Sendible is a social media management platform. Social media listening is only one of its many functions. The tool tracks conversations on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, review sites and others. It analyzes sentiment, topics surrounding your keywords, lets you engage with mentions, and analyzes social media profiles to suggest the best content for your audience.
Best for: everyone
Pricing: Micro is $29/month, Small is $99/month, Medium is $199/month, and Large is $299/month. Free 30-day trial is available.
Sprinklr is also a social media management platform with social listening being one of its major features. The tool monitors Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Tumblr, Renren, Flickr, WordPress, blogs, and the web. It identifies potentially harmful trends and alerts you in real time. The tool is designed for large teams, so collaboration features are also on top.
Best for: agencies
Price: customized and available on request.
Union Metrics monitors Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It analyzes mentions’ growth, engagement rate, languages, as well as the information on your own social media profile such as top posts and top publishers. It also does competitive analysis. You can generate beautiful reports on all the data.
Best for: solopreneurs and small businesses
Pricing: freemium, paid plans are $49/month for Social Manager, $99/month for Social Marketer, $199 for Marketing Team.
Soho is a comprehensive social media management tool that offers social listening among its many features. Soho’s social media monitoring tool works in real time and monitors Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It lets you respond to mentions and reply to direct messages. Soho also has a mobile app.
Best for: solopreneurs, small and mid-sized businesses.
Pricing: Standard plan is $10/month, Professional is $50/month (plus tax). Agency and Agency Plus are available only as a yearly plan, which is $83.33 and $125/month (plus tax). Free 15-day trial is available.
Conclusion:
Remember that there is no ultimate tool for every brand. The fit depends on your needs, budget, goals, and ambitions. The questions to ask yourself should include ideas on what social networks you need, whether or not you require web and news/blogs/forum monitoring, as well as whether you’re focused on analyzing data or replying to individual mentions – or both. And many more. So naturally, first you should decide on what kind of a tool you need – and then go on to ask for free trials and demos. Afterward, get a tool most suited for your goals – whether it’s to improve customer service, keep an eye on the company’s reputation, increase brand awareness, find leads, or something entirely different.