The 15 Best AI Social Listening Tools & Software of 2025 (Features, Pricing)

Whether you’re a marketer, brand manager, or business owner, the right social listening software can transform how you monitor conversations, track mentions, and uncover audience insights across the web. In this guide, I’ve created a list of the top social listening tools, including both free and paid options. All to help you understand what people are saying about your brand, competitors, and industry!

So, if you’re looking for a powerful AI-driven platform or a simple free social media listening tool, you’ll find the perfect fit here.

Let’s dig in!

Quick summary:

– Social listening tools are software that allows users to monitor, track, and analyze social media conversations.

– They can track mentions containing brand names, specific keywords, phrases, or hashtags.

– Lately, some advanced tools offer AI features that automatically analyze data and present valuable insights.

– Depending on your needs, you can either use an advanced AI-driven social listening platform with deeper insights, a tool focused on social media, or a free social listening tool without advanced analytics.

There are a number of different social listening tools available, but not all are created equal. Here are the most popular social listening tools to try in 2025!

To make it easy to navigate, I divided these social listening software into four categories:

1. All-in-one AI social listening tools
2. Social media management tools with listening
3. Social listening tools for small businesses
4. Free social listening tools

💡 Important note: Remember that those tools can evolve fast!

I curated the list based on my own experience working with social listening software and publicly available sources, such as the G2 platform, Capterra, or Reddit users’ opinions.

I added the number of reviews and the comparison of the top social listening tool’s performance online to give you more background.

Let’s dive in!

The best all-in-one AI social listening tools:

01 Brand24

Free 14-day trial.

Brand24 is one of the market’s most robust and affordable AI-powered social listening and online media monitoring tools.

This social listening software monitors mentions in real-time. Brand24 uses AI technology to provide insights about your brand, competitors, and industry.

Inside this social listening software, you will find:

• Mentions tab where you can browse all your mentions with advanced filters
• Advanced AI features, such as Event Detector, Topic Analysis, Emotion Analysis, and Brand Assistant
• Estimated social media reach – telling you how many people could have come in contact with your social media posts
• Sentiment analysis – offering an overview of how your brand, product, or campaign is perceived on social media
• Customizable alerts – on Slack, mail, and other platforms.
• Top public profiles (influencers) that talk about your brand
• Emotion and emoji analysis
• AI insights about your brand performance
• Geo analysis
• Highly customizable and shareable social listening reports

This is what its dashboard looks like:

Brand24 uses AI in many ways, but the most helpful feature is definitely the AI Brand Assistant, a chat that combines ChatGPT knowledge with your media monitoring projects’ data.

Why is this AI social listening feature so good?

Well, it can cover most of the important analysis and help you manage brand reputation.

Here are a few examples of questions you might ask a Brand Assistant:

• How do customers feel about [brand]?
• Which social media platforms are generating the most buzz for [brand]?
• What are the most trending topics related to [brand] on social media?
• What time the target audience is most active on [social media platform]?

credits: Phil Pallen

Want to learn more about how social listening software uses AI? Check other Brand24 AI Solutions.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Quora, Telegram, and Twitch
• Review sites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, Booking, App Store, Google Play, Trustpilot
• Blogs
• Video platforms
• Podcasts
• Discussion forums
• Newsletters
• Online news sources

💪 Strengths:

• Many AI features – from AI Brand Assistant to features that enable detailed analysis within a few clicks.
• Notification system – every time there is a new mention in the dashboard, you can receive an in-app notification, an email, or integrate your account with a dedicated Slack channel.
• Highly customizable reports – you can export reports in various formats or keep them online and share with anyone you need using a simple link.
• Easy integration – you can easily integrate this social listening software with your current tool kit, for example slack or Google Sheets.

👎 What could be better:

This social listening tool doesn’t have access to historical data. You’ll get an analysis of data that was gathered once you set up your monitoring project.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.6 (300 reviews)

Price:

• Starting from 149$ per month

⭐️ Overall verdict:

This social listening software will be perfect for medium and enterprise companies. It introduces lots of new features and develops rapidly, which helps to keep up with the ever-changing digital world. Brand24 offers fantastic AI-based solutions. It’s a great value for money.

Here’s what people say about Brand24 on G2:

“I reviewed and tried several different brand and media reach & monitoring services, and Brand24 was the best. They offer the most complete toolkit for setting up your monitoring, especially tracking #hashtag mentions, which not many services do. As a marketing agency, I especially valued the AVE to show my clients the dollar value of our social media and podcasting work. The reports were both detailed and visual, and can be customized. My clients loved them.“

Rob S., Founder and President of marketing agency

Discover our client’s success story — read the case study.

02 Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a social listening software that offers a wide range of functionalities, but people on G2 consider it quite expensive.

Brandwatch is a holistic social media monitoring tool that includes features such as:

• AI analysis, including sentiment
• Image recognition
• Powerful demographic data
• Industry trends analysis

Its advanced AI features enhance sentiment analysis and provide predictive analytics, helping businesses identify valuable consumer insights and trends before they peak.

Besides that, Brandwatch also offers a data visualization platform called Vizia. 

Vizia helps you visualize real-time data and turn complex information into easily understandable insights.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit
• Review sites: Trustpilot, Google Play, App Store
• Blogs and forums
• Online news platforms, newsletters

💪 Strengths:

• Extensive AI capabilities, including predictive analytics and image recognition.
• Great data visualization through Vizia.
• Demographic and geolocation data.

👎 What could be better:

• High costs make it less accessible to smaller companies.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.2 (1480 reviews)

Price:

Available upon request

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Brandwatch is a social listening tool ideal for large enterprises and organizations with complex social listening needs. It has advanced AI features and comprehensive analytics. However, it may not be affordable for smaller businesses and saas companies.

Not a fit? Check Brandwatch Alternatives.

03 Meltwater

Meltwater is a social listening platform that provides advanced media monitoring and analysis across social media, forums, podcasts, online news, and review sites.

The tool tracks brand mentions, analyzes sentiment, identifies emerging trends, and generates insights from social conversations.

It will also help you analyze the market, monitor competitors, and engage with the audience across social media and online platforms.

Plus, it offers a great AI solution called Mira – a chat that answers questions regarding your analysis.

It provides features like:

• AI Insights provided by their Mira Studio
• Media monitoring
• Sentiment analysis
• Customizable alerts
• Influencer marketing

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube
• Forums and blogs
• Podcasts
• Online news outlets
• Review sites

💪 Strengths:

• Monitors many sources, including social media, news outlets, forums, and podcasts.
• Provides in-depth sentiment analysis and trend identification.

👎 What could be better:

• Users have noted restrictions in accessing Instagram and Facebook data due to their privacy policies.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.0 (2,289 reviews)

Price:

Available upon request.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Meltwater is a great social listening tool choice for medium to large enterprises focused on their PR and marketing strategies. It has great source coverage and many advanced analytics, including AI features.

04 Talkwalker

Talkwalker is a social intelligence platform. It allows monitoring relevant conversations across social media, forums, news sites, and blogs.

What is interesting, despite real-time monitoring, Talkwalker allows access to up to 5 years of historical data.

With Talkwalker, you can:

• Find influencers, topics, and content ideas aligned with your niche.
• Track the performance of digital marketing campaigns.
• Analyze consumer sentiment and identify trending topics.
• Protect your brand reputation.
• Create reports on your social media presence and overall performance.

It also offers some interesting AI features that include image and video recognition. Talkwalker AI Engine enables the detection of logos, which adds depth to monitoring visual content and analyzes the context around your sentiment.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit
• Review sites
• Blogs and forums
• Online news outlets, newsletters
• Visual content

💪 Strengths:

• Five years of historical data access.
• Advanced AI features, including image and video recognition.

👎 What could be better:

• High pricing makes it less accessible to smaller companies or startups.
• While reports are comprehensive, some users find customization options limited (especially if compared to competitors).

Ratings:

• G2: 4.3 (132 reviews)

Price:

Available upon request.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Talkwalker is a social listening platform ideal for large businesses and enterprises that need powerful analytics and comprehensive data access. Its ability to provide historical data and AI-driven insights makes it a leader in the industry.

Still not it? Check Talkwalker Alternatives

05 Mentionlytics

Mentionlytics is an intuitive social listening tool designed for businesses of all sizes.

It has features like:

• Sentiment analysis
• Competitor tracking
• Influencer discovery
• Crisis detection powered by AI insights
• Customizable reports

Plus, it provides SIA – an AI-driven Social Intelligence Advisor. 

It provides valuable insights, such as identifying potential crises, discovering trends, or suggesting ways to improve.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube
• Blogs and forums
• Online news outlets

💪 Strengths:

• AI-powered Social Intelligence Advisor for ready-to-use insights.
• User-friendly interface – ideal for beginners.

👎 What could be better:

• Coverage for niche platforms is not as extensive as some competitors.
• Advanced users might find the reporting features too restricted.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.9 (90 reviews)

Price:

Starting from 69$.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Mentionlytics is a social listening tool suitable for small to medium businesses and agencies. Its AI-based insights and ease of use make it a good choice for marketers looking to improve their social listening without investing in lots of training.

06 Sprinklr

What sets Sprinklr apart of other social listening tools is its omnichannel monitoring, which includes not just social platforms but also traditional media.

Plus, Sprinklr also offers image and video recognition. This enables the identification of logos and visual content in social media posts, advertisements, and other media formats.

Such an approach ensures a 360-degree view of customer sentiment and trends.

This social listening software uses AI that shares these insights with the right teams, like marketing or support, so they can take action quickly.

With Sprinklr, you can:

• Manage and analyze customer interactions.
• Benchmark performance against competitors.
• Detect and respond to crises early.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube
• Traditional media
• Review sites
• Blogs and forums
• Online news outlets, newsletters

💪 Strengths:

• Omni-channel coverage across social and traditional media.
• Advanced AI features, including image and video recognition.

👎 What could be better:

• High cost, limiting accessibility for smaller businesses or startups.
• A steep learning curve that requires significant time and resources for onboarding.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.1 (1,628 reviews)

Price:

Starting from 299$.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Sprinklr is an excellent social listening tool choice for companies with complex customer management needs and brands that want to analyze their traditional marketing campaigns. Its comprehensive monitoring and AI-driven analytics make it a standout option.

Social media management tools with listening:

07 Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management tool with a social listening platform twist. It has over 2.000 5-star reviews on G2.

It offers social media automation to help you manage your online presence and get the insights you need to boost your business.

Plus, it offers AI features to help you take good care of your customers, for example, by enhancing your replies.

It offers features like:

• Monitoring of keywords and hashtags
• Social media sentiment analysis
• Measure the share of voice
• Competitive Analysis
• Social media management and performance reporting

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok
• Blogs and forums
• Online news outlets

💪 Strengths:

• Intuitive interface that’s easy for teams to use.
• Excellent social media management and publishing tools.

👎 What could be better:

• Costs can be a challenge for smaller teams or startups.
• Lacks advanced AI features.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.4 (4,500 reviews)

Price:

Starting from 249$.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Sprout Social is a top social media listening software choice for businesses looking for a blend of social listening and social media management. Its analytics and automation features make it ideal for small to medium-sized teams. However, its higher pricing may not be suitable for smaller startups or budget-conscious users.

Need something else? Look at Sprout Social Alternatives

08 Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management tools. It allows you to view and respond to messages, comments, and brand mentions.

And, my favorite part – you can use it for multiple accounts.

It also has social listening features. So it enables you to monitor brand mentions.

With Hootsuite, you can:

• Schedule posts across major social networks.
• Monitor social media conversations to stay updated.
• Analyze performance with detailed analytics.
• Get AI ideas for social media content.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Major social media platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube
• Blogs and forums
• Online news outlets

💪 Strengths:

• A comprehensive platform integrating scheduling, monitoring, and analytics of your social media.
• AI for content creation.

👎 What could be better:

• Users report that social accounts need to be reconnected periodically.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.2 (6,600 reviews)

Price:

Starting from 99$.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Hootsuite is a great option for businesses of all sizes looking for a reliable, user-friendly social media management platform and thinking about giving media monitoring a try. It’s great in terms of generating content and managing social media accounts, but it might not be the right social listening tool if you want deep insights.

09 Keyhole

Keyhole is another social listening tool that offers both monitoring features and social media management.

It lets you track the performance of your accounts through various social channels and provides the data necessary for improving strategies.

One of the strong features of this social listening tool is hashtag tracking.

You can track the performance of your hashtags across different digital channels. Such social data can be used to measure the results of your social media campaigns.

It covers features like:

• Monitoring of keywords and hashtags
• Sentiment analysis
• Brand comparisons
• Notifications
• Exporting reports in formats like PDF and XLS

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok
• Blogs and forums
• Online news platforms

💪 Strengths:

• Exceptional hashtag tracking for social channels campaigns.
• Provides detailed sentiment analysis and keyword insights.
• User-friendly interface.

👎 What could be better:

• Limited monitoring of traditional media.
• Lack of advanced AI features for deeper insights.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.3 (69 reviews)

Price:

Starting from 99$.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Keyhole is the right social listening tool for small to medium-sized businesses running social media campaigns. Its focus on hashtags and campaign tracking makes it a great tool for marketers who need actionable insights.

Social listening tools for small businesses:

This section is dedicated to less popular but more niche-specific tools. Here’s the list:

10 BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a social media listening tool focused on improving your social media content and tailoring it to your target audience. 

This social media listening tool will help you learn about your top-performing content, find influencers to promote your social media channels, and monitor your predefined keywords.

In terms of social listening, we’re interested in the last component.

You can create alerts and get notifications once a keyword that matters is used online.

But BuzzSumo is mainly a social media intelligence app. One of its strongest features is the assessment of shared content. That way, you can see what type of content performs best.

It covers features like:

• Tracking of topics, brands, and keywords
• Searching backlinks
• Alerts and notifications
• Social media reports

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
• Blogs and forums
• Online news outlets

💪 Strengths:

• Excellent for discovering top-performing content and trends.
• Easy-to-set alerts for relevant keywords.
• Strong influencer identification features.

👎 What could be better:

• Limited social listening features compared to more comprehensive social listening platforms.
• Doesn’t monitor platforms like TikTok or Telegram.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.5 (103 reviews)

Price:

Starting from 199$.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

BuzzSumo is a social listening tool best for content marketers and social media managers looking to create impactful content. Its content discovery and performance tracking features are particularly useful for crafting shareable posts. However, it might not offer the in-depth monitoring features required for large-scale social listening.

11 Determ

Determ is one of the top social media listening software that provides real-time insights into your brand’s public image and media presence.

The tool analyzes the sentiment and offers competitive analysis features. This allows you to monitor competitors’ mentions and performance.

It offers features like:

• Real-time monitoring
• Historical data access
• Spike alerts

Determ’s real-time alerts and notifications system quickly informs you of any spikes in activity and shifts in sentiment.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit
• Review sites
• Blogs and forums
• News sources

💪 Strengths:

• Provides real-time insights and alerts.
• Covers a wide range of social media and review sites.
• Offers historical data access for trend analysis.

👎 What could be better:

• This social listening software lacks advanced features like sentiment analysis or context of discussion for in-depth analytics.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.7 (43 reviews)

Price:

Available upon request.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Determ is a strong social media listening choice for businesses of all sizes looking for real-time monitoring. Its competitive analysis features make it a great option.

12 Awario

Awario is an online monitoring software with analytical and reporting features.

It will help you grow brand awareness, find sales opportunities, engage with customers on social media, and find influencers.

Awario is one of the most affordable social listening tools… And it is quite basic at the same time. That’s why it is a good choice for small to medium companies looking to track mentions across the Internet.

It offers features like:

• Real-time monitoring
• Sentiment analysis
• Email alerts
• Influencer detection

Awario uses AI for sentiment analysis and to help you discover key influencers.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit
• Blogs and forums
• Online news outlets

💪 Strengths:

• Affordable pricing, making it accessible for smaller companies.
• Real-time monitoring ensures timely insights.
• White-label reports are great for agencies managing multiple clients.

👎 What could be better:

• Limited platform coverage, excluding Telegram and TikTok.
• Fewer advanced analytics features compared to higher-tier social listening tools.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.0 (40 reviews)

Price:

Starting from 49$.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Awario is an excellent social listening software option for small and medium-sized businesses. Its affordability and simplicity make it perfect for teams new to social listening. However, it lacks some advanced features and TikTok monitoring, which may limit its use for larger enterprises.

13 Critical Mention

Critical Mention is a social listening tool that analyzes important metrics such as sentiment analysis, share coverage, reach, and engagement.

It also offers custom reports and email alerts.

Its main asset is monitoring traditional media like TV and radio.

The tool helps you measure the impact of your public relations and marketing campaigns.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Major social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube
• Traditional media
• Podcasts
• News sources

💪 Strengths:

• Includes traditional media monitoring (TV and radio).
• Real-time insights and alerts.
• Great for measuring PR impact.

👎 What could be better:

• Doesn’t monitor TikTok, Reddit, or Telegram.

Ratings:

• G2: 4.3 (215 reviews)

Price:

Available upon request.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Critical Mention is a social listening software best suited for PR professionals and organizations that need to track both traditional and digital media. Its comprehensive coverage of TV, radio, and online platforms makes it a valuable tool for managing public relations.

Free social listening tools:

In this section, I listed free tools for social listening. Unfortunately, there aren’t many… But here’s what you can consider!

These free social listening tools don’t include AI insights, social media management, and reporting, but can still be a good starting point.

14 Google Alerts

Google Alerts is one of the most popular free social listening tools for monitoring mentions across the web.

It allows you to track specific keywords and phrases by setting up alerts that deliver updates directly to your email.

While the features of this social listening tool are very limited, it is a valuable resource for tracking brand mentions, competitor activity, or industry trends without any cost.

It enables you to:

• Monitor mentions of specific keywords or phrases
• Email notifications for updates
• Customizable settings for alert frequency

However, Google Alerts lacks advanced features that most social listening software cover (like sentiment analysis or social media monitoring). It’s a great starting point for those new to social listening or with a limited budget.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Online news outlets
• Blogs
• Websites

💪 Strengths:

• Completely free to use.
• Simple to set up and manage.
• Provides timely updates via email.

👎 What could be better:

• No social media monitoring or sentiment analysis features.
• Limited to publicly available web content, excluding private forums or platforms.
• Users report it misses some mentions.
• Alerts are sent as raw links with no categorization or analysis.

Ratings:

• not available

Price:

It’s a free social listening tool.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

Google Alerts is a social listening tool ideal for small businesses, bloggers, or individuals who need basic monitoring without investing in paid tools.

15 AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a unique free social listening tool focused on understanding what people are searching for online.

It analyzes search queries to provide a visual map of questions, prepositions, and related topics that users input into search engines.

While it’s not directly a social listening software, it’s an excellent resource for marketers seeking inspiration or wanting to better understand their audience.

It enables you to:

• Identify trending topics and popular queries
• Generate content ideas based on search behavior

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Search engines

💪 Strengths:

• Visual representations make data easy to understand.
• Provides insights into audience intent and interests.

👎 What could be better:

• No social media monitoring or sentiment analysis.
• Limited functionality beyond content and keyword discovery.

Ratings:

• not available

Price:

It’s a free social listening tool.

⭐️ Overall verdict:

AnswerThePublic is a free social listening tool alternative. It is best suited for content marketers, bloggers, and SEO professionals looking to create engaging, audience-focused content. It doesn’t track social media or online mentions, but focuses on search behavior, filling a unique niche.

The best social listening tools comparison

As you probably realised, there are so many social listening software out there. So, how do you choose the best social listening tool for you?

Let’s understand consumer attitudes about each of them!

Here’s a comparison of social listening tools based on actual online conversations (I used Brand24 to extract the data).

The best all-in-one AI social listening tools:

• Brand24 – number of mentions: 733 (75 positive, 4 negative)
• Brandwatch – number of mentions: 1382 (256 positive, 9 negative)
• Meltwater – number of mentions: 1055 (110 positive, 21 negative)
• Talkwalker – number of mentions: 758 (110 positive, 26 negative)
• Mentionlytics – number of mentions: 69 (13 positive, 0 negative)
• Sprinklr – number of mentions: 1133 (103 positive, 21 negative)

Social media management tools with listening:

• Sprout Social – number of mentions: 1775 (163 positive, 14 negative)
• Hootsuite – number of mentions: 9425 (804 positive, 89 negative)
• Keyhole – number of mentions: 14 (0 positive, 0 negative)

Social listening tools for small businesses:

• BuzzSumo – number of mentions: 1158 (108 positive, 4 negative)
• Determ – number of mentions: 135 (27 positive, 5 negative)
• Awario – number of mentions: 76 (7 positive, 2 negative)
• Critical Mention – number of mentions: 86 (2 positive, 3 negative)

Free social listening tools:

• Google Alerts – number of mentions: 4356 (140 positive, 83 negative)
• Answer ThePublic – number of mentions: 1722 (174 positive, 6 negative)

The performance above was analyzed during the last 30 days.

FAQ

What are social listening tools?

Social listening tools are software designed to track online conversations about your brand, competitors, or industry.

You can track your brand name, a product, a hashtag – actually, any keyword you need. The only rule is to make sure it is unique. Otherwise, your data won’t be relevant.

They monitor online platforms for mentions and analyze the data to provide you with insights.

As a marketer, I’ve seen the difference they can make. 

These tools allow you to better understand your audience, stay ahead of competitors, protect your brand reputation, and more!

What social listening tools can do?

• Monitor brand mentions: Find out what people are saying about you, even if they don’t tag your account.
• Sentiment analysis: Measure whether the talk is positive, negative, or neutral.
• Identify trends: Spot emerging topics in your niche.
• Competitive insights: See how your competitors are performing and what’s being said about them.
• Reputation management: Catch potential issues early to avoid PR crises.
• Customer feedback: Gather insights from reviews, comments, or direct messages.
• Content inspiration: Use trending topics and audience preferences to plan posts that resonate.

credits: Krzysiek Radoszewski

How to use social listening tools?

Here’s a list of 5 social listening expert tips:

1. Use unique keywords.
2. Use filters to focus on actionable insights that matter to you.
3. Let AI handle monotonous tasks like trend detection, sentiment analysis, and reports.
4. Track competitor mentions to uncover gaps, opportunities, and strategies to improve your own brand presence.
5. Use notifications to stay updated and act quickly.

What features should every social listening tool have?

That’s the most important question. To give you a comprehensive answer, I asked an expert with over 12 years of experience in the social listening industry.

Here’s the list of features a social listening platform should have:

1. User-friendly UX
   The most important differentiator of the social listening tool is UX. Why? The tool should be accessible to every user (also non-experienced ones). Furthermore, it should present the social mentions and analytics in a clear and user-friendly way.
2. Real-time monitoring
   The ability to track mentions as they happen is crucial for staying updated and proactive.
3. Sentiment analysis
   Understanding the tone of conversations helps you gauge public perception of your brand.
4. Customizable alerts
   The tool should allow you to set up notifications that will come to you immediately as soon as the monitoring catches content of interest. Setting up storm alerts can be extremely helpful in detecting PR crises at an early stage.
5. Data visualization and reporting
   Clear and customizable dashboards and reports make it easy to analyze and share insights with your team.
6. Competitor monitoring
   Tracking competitor mentions provides valuable insights into their strategies and helps identify market gaps.
7. Advanced filtering
   Social listening tools gather thousands of mentions each day. From a technical point of view, it is essential if the tool allows easy filtering of data. Thanks to advanced filters, such as Boolean Search, we can find the information we care about most effortlessly and quickly.
8. AI features
   The AI revolution has arrived. That’s why you should look for a tool with advanced AI features, such as an Event Detector, Topic Analysis, Emotion Analysis, and AI insights. They will take your social listening strategy to another level.
9. Integration capabilities
   Seamless integration with tools like CRMs, Slack, or project management software enhances productivity and workflow.
10. Historical data access
    The ability to analyze past data helps identify long-term trends and compare campaigns over time.

Why do companies use social listening tools?

Here’s what experts say:

“I use social listening tools to uncover opportunities for high-authority backlinks by identifying unlinked brand mentions across various platforms. These tools allow me to proactively engage and turn these mentions into valuable SEO assets. It’s a big part of my workflow to enhance my clients’ organic visibility and authority. Also being able to connect directly to our slack channel allows us to quickly get onto the mentions.“

Adam Stewart, Digital Marketing Consultant

credits: Mateusz Zdziński

What are the benefits of social media listening tools?

As marketers, we always look for ways to stay ahead of our competitors and boost our marketing strategy.

With the proper social listening tool, you will be able to:

1. Track brand mentions and stay up-to-date on the latest conversations happening across social media.
2. Conduct sentiment analysis to identify any negative sentiment and take action to address it. It will help you to recognize potential PR crises early and take steps to mitigate the damage.
3. Measure the key social media metrics such as reach, sentiment, share of voice, presence score, and reputation score.
4. Find trending hashtags that match your business niche.
5. Track hashtags to discover their social media engagement and reach, the volume of mentions, sentiment, etc.
6. Improve influencer marketing by finding influencers that match your business niche.
7. Benchmark against competitors.

Are there any free social listening tools?

Yes, tools like Google Alerts and AnswerThePublic offer free options to monitor keywords and trends online. However, their functionality is limited compared to premium tools.

Conclusion

There are lots of social media listening tools out there, but not all will meet your expectations.

Social media management tools with listening, such as SproutSocial or Hootsuite, focus on many areas. As a result, the social listening features might not be perfected and might not be so advanced.

The question is, do they develop their products and expand the number of monitored sources?

If you care about accurate monitoring data without lots of manual analysis, I recommend focusing on dedicated AI social listening tools such as Brand24 or Brandwatch.

But if your budget is the most important factor, free social listening tools are also a great starting point – go for Google Alert or AnswerThePublic.

Final thoughts:

• Look for AI features. These can save you time while keeping the analysis top-notch!
• The most important thing is setting up your social media listening project well. Choose your keywords wisely!
• Look for tools with customizable alerts and reports. It makes a difference in day-to-day work.

So, ready to try the social listening tool? Start a free trial!