Blog / Social Listening

The 20 Best Social Listening Tools for 2026 [Tested & Reviewed]

Updated: May 27, 2026

35 min read

I spent the last 4 months testing and evaluating the most popular social listening tools. In this article, I summarize my findings and explain which of these tools are the best for different use cases.

Best social listening tools shortlist

Here’s my shortlisted choice of the 10 best tools among 20 social listening platforms I tested and reviewed:

1. Brand24 – best for AI-powered brand monitoring and LLM visibility tracking

2. Brandwatch – best for enterprise consumer intelligence

3. Meltwater – best for PR teams combining listening with journalist outreach

4. Talkwalker – best for enterprise visual and audio social listening

5. Mentionlytics – best for mid-market AI social listening

6. Sprinklr – best for enterprise omnichannel CXM monitoring

7. Sprout Social – best for social media management with listening add-on

8. Hootsuite – best for social media management with Talkwalker listening built in

9. Keyhole – best for hashtag and influencer campaign tracking

10. BuzzSumo – best for content discovery and PR pitching

Social listening is on a constant rise. According to Mordor Intelligence, the social media listening market is projected to double its size by 2031 (from 10.91 to 20.51 billion USD).

Unsurprisingly.

In a rising and more sophisticated competition for attention, reputation, and brand visibility, social listening becomes a powerful weapon. It helps serious brands keep their finger on the pulse, detect potential crises, and improve return on investment by even 25%.

The thing is that the market is flooded with tools.

Most of them promise the same things: real-time mentions, AI-powered sentiment analysis, and – of course – “actionable insights”.

That’s why I decided to test the most popular social listening tools in practice, check their real strengths and weaknesses, and find the most accurate use cases for each of them – so you don’t have to.

The following list is a result of my 4-month work. I strongly believe it will help you find the best fit for your and your team’s needs. Enjoy!

Why can you trust our recommendations?

Social listening is what Brand24 has been doing every day since 2011. Our industry knowledge goes far beyond product features and marketing claims.

We’ve grown from a small startup into a widely recognized social listening company – and we didn’t do it in isolation.

Operating in a highly competitive SaaS market forces us to constantly observe, analyze, and benchmark ourselves against other tools.

This ongoing race helps us understand not only our own strengths and limitations, but also where different social listening tools excel – and where they don’t.

This perspective ensures our recommendations are based on real-world experience rather than just theory.

Best social listening tools: Summary

Best media monitoring tools: Reviews 

Below, you can find my thorough reviews of the 19 best social listening tools. They include key details, such as: 

• official and actual ratings from G2 and Trustpilot, 
• trial or demos offerings, 
• pricing bottom lines, 
• short descriptions of what makes each tool unique,
• monitored sources,
• pros & cons, and
• summaries of use cases for each tool to help you find the best match.

The best specialized AI social listening tools:

01 Brand24

Brand24 is a social listening and brand monitoring tool that links real-time mention tracking with a stack of AI features – including a dedicated module for tracking how LLMs answer prompts about your brand.

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 I picked Brand24?

Let’s make it clear: I work at Brand24, so I won’t pretend to be unbiased. However, as I know this tool really well, I can tell you what differentiates Brand24 from the rest of this list.

Two things that stand out are:

• AI Visibility – the add-on that lets you define prompts you’re interested in (e.g. “best CRM for SaaS”) and tracks how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and other major LLMs mention you, your competitors, and the sources they cite. Priceless in the AI search age.
• AI Brand Assistant – a chat feature that allows you to ask questions about your mentions and brand visibility.

The rest of the toolkit builds a complete brand visibility monitoring ecosystem.

There is an accurate AI-powered sentiment analysis (with +96% accuracy), crisis-preventing anomaly detection, personalized AI Insights, demographic insights, customizable alerts, exportable reports, and much more. 

More than enough to keep an eye on your overall brand performance.

🔍 Monitored sources

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, Bluesky, Telegram, Twitch, 
• Non-social sources – websites, blogs, podcasts, video platforms, news sites, review platforms, and newsletters.
• LLMs – ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot, AI Overview, AI Mode gatheirng AI mentions

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• AI Visibility module for tracking brand presence inside LLM answers
• AI Brand Assistant & ChatGPT app integration for conversational mention analysis
• Friendly UX and quick onboarding process
• Anomaly detection that actually flags useful spikes
• Demographic insight

❌ Cons

• Historical data limited – no deep archive for long-term trend research
• Sentiment analysis occasionally don’t recognize sarcasm and misinterprets niche-language posts

02 Brandwatch

Brandwatch is an enterprise-level consumer intelligence platform owned by Cision. It is built for organizations with dedicated analytics teams and high budgets.

Why I picked Brandwatch?

With its rich historical database, Brandwatch is one of the strongest enterprise-level tools for market intelligence, customer insights, and data segmentation.

Two specific things I tested and like about Brandwatch are:

• Iris AI + AI Query Writer – Iris is the intelligence model that runs across the whole toolkit. It allows you to filter data based on natural language briefs, generate dashboards, and answer ad-hoc questions through the “Ask Iris” chat. Huge time-savior for analysts.
• Deepest historical archive in the category – reportedly 1.4 trillion historical posts and 70,000+ podcast transcripts. If you need to compare a 2018 crisis to a 2026 one, Brandwatch is one of the few platforms you can actually do it.

In short, Brandwatch isn’t a tool for a marketing intern. It’s a platform for enterprise communication, research, and insights teams with the need of strong analytics.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit
• Non-social sources – review sites, blogs, forums, online news platforms, and newsletters

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• A huge historical archive
• Iris AI for natural-language query writing and dashboard explanations
• Highly customizable dashboards and chart types
• Strong TikTok and podcast coverage

❌ Cons

• Difficult and time-consuming onboarding
• Low coverage of LinkedIn
• Expensive plans – affordable only for big organizations

📚 Learn more about Brandwatch:

• Check out Brandwatch on their website
• Discover the best Brandwatch alternatives

03 Meltwater

Meltwater is a media intelligence platform dedicated primarily to PR and communication specialists that combines social listening, journalist outreach, and press distribution.

Why I picked Meltwater?

Meltwater tracks brand mentions, analyzes sentiment, identifies emerging trends, and generates insights from social conversations. It also helps you analyze the market, monitor competitors, and engage with the audience across social media and online platforms.

There is one general thing worth noting about Meltwater: most tools treat PR and listening separately. Meltwater combines them in one platform.

It is one of the few tools where finding a journalist talking about your category and pitching them is possible from the same place.

As for Meltwater’s features, there are two special ones:

• Mira AI assistant – a Meltwater AI assistant. It creates briefings, analyzes competitors, and allows teams access to Meltwater insights directly in Microsoft Copilot.
• GenAI Lens – a module that monitors brand visibility in ChatGPT and other LLMs. Together with Mira, it helps teams track both media coverage and AI-generated mentions.

🔍 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Threads, Bluesky, Snapchat, WeChat, Weibo, Pinterest, Tumblr, and more
• Non-social sources – news, blogs, forums, podcasts, video platforms, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and other print publications

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Unified PR, social listening, and journalist database in one platform
• Mira AI assistant with Microsoft Copilot integration
• GenAI Lens for tracking brand mentions inside LLM answers
• Solid share of voice analytics
• Responsive customer support

❌ Cons

• The sales process is a bit aggressive (according to frequent G2 reviews)
• Journalist contact database has accuracy issues

📚 Learn more about Meltwater:

• Check out Meltwater on their website
• Discover the best Meltwater alternatives

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.

Why I picked Talkwalker?

Talkwalker has been doing visual listening since before most competitors knew what to call it. Two reasons why it stands out from the crowd are:

• Image, video, and audio recognition at scale – Blue Silk AI tracks 40,000+ brand logos, objects, and scenes across images and video. It also monitors speech-to-text on podcasts and broadcasts. If your brand shows up in a TikTok without a single text mention, Talkwalker still catches it.
• 5-year historical data – useful for long-term trends research, crisis pattern analysis, and pitching that need a multi-year view.

Basically, Talkwalker allows you to find influencers, topics, and content ideas aligned with your niche. 

It also works well for tracking the performance of digital marketing campaigns and analyzing consumer sentiment. 

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Bluesky, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, Line
• Non-social sources – news sites, blogs, forums, podcasts, video platforms, and newsletters

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Image, video, logo, and audio recognition
• Up to 5 years of historical data (most plans default to 2)
• Conversation Clusters that automatically segment large datasets into common topics
• Blue Silk GPT for natural-language data exploration
• Now integrated into the Hootsuite dashboard for social media management and listening in one place

❌ Cons

• Enterprise-only pricing puts it out of reach for SMB
• Account offboarding requires a third-party request

📚 Learn more about Talkwalker:

• Check out Talkwalker on their website
• Discover the best Talkwalker alternatives

05 Mentionlytics

Mentionlytics is an AI-powered listening tool dedicated mostly for medium-sized brands and agencies that want advanced features without enterprise-level commitment.

Why I picked Mentionlytics?

One of the standout Mentionlytics’ features is SIA – the Social Intelligence Advisor. 

Instead of opening a dashboard and asking “what should I know today,” SIA starts with a daily brief informing you about the most crucial facts about your project.

That kind of proactive AI feature is rare at this price point.

Two things make Mentionlytics work for me:

• SIA daily AI advisor – pushes recommendations and detects anomalies before you even start looking for them
• Wide source coverage at relatively low pricing – the tool allows you to monitor Bluesky, Telegram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Reddit, and more popular sources, with public pricing starting around $49 per month.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube
• Non-social sources – websites, blogs, forums, online news outlets

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• AI-powered Social Intelligence Advisor for ready-to-use insights
• Coverage includes Bluesky and Telegram, which most competitors don’t provide
• Easy setup, intuitive onboarding
• Customer support is consistently praised in G2 reviews
• Great value for money

❌ Cons

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

📚 Learn more about Mentionlytics:

• Check out Mentionlytics on their website

06 Sprinklr

Sprinklr is an enterprise-level customer experience management platform, with social listening as one of four product suites built on a shared CXM.

Why I picked Sprinklr?

What sets Sprinklr apart from 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.

Two real differentiators of Sprinklr are:

• True Unified-CXM – a listening insight can go directly into a contact center queue, an ad audience, or a community manager’s inbox without integrations. Very convenient solution for an inter-department workflow.
• Strong enterprise focus – Sprinklr positions itself as an enterprise-ready AI platform, with features like AI audit logs, role-based access, and AI agent monitoring. Recent updates added GenAI noise filtering and a proactive Copilot assistant.

Thus, Sprinklr is a great fit for global enterprise brands and Fortune 500 customer experience teams.

🔎 Monitored sources:

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

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Unified-CXM that connects social listening data with customer care, marketing, and ad workflows
• Visual, video, and voice recognition
• GenAI noise filtering and Deep Research
• Advanced enterprise governance features

❌ Cons

• Steep learning curve – requires consultants or trained specialists for implementation
• Cost is a barrier for non-enterprise brands

📚 Learn more about Sprinklr:

• Check out Sprinklr on their website
• Discover the best Sprinklr alternatives

07 Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management tool first and a listening tool second. Listening is a paid add-on for the number of users, not a core feature.

Why I picked Sprout Social?

If you’re looking for a great social media management platform for publishing and inbox management – with a secondary role of social listening – Sprout Social can be a perfect match.

Two things worth knowing:

• Listening-to-action workflow – the tool allows you to build a complex workflow – discovering mentions through Listening, replying from Smart Inbox, logging them to your CRM, and assigning them to a teammate.
• Exceptional reporting UX – Sprout Social usually occupies the top 1 position in G2’s Social Media Analytics software recommendations, mostly due to its great reporting and analytics. That makes it a good choice for multi-purpose agencies.

🔍 Monitored sources

• Social media (listening) – Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Tumblr
• Non-social sources – blogs, news sites, forums, review sites (Google My Business, TripAdvisor), other websites

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Great internal collaboration between social listening data, publishing, Smart Inbox, and CRM
• Exceptional reporting and analytics
• Wide publishing environment with strong multi-platform scheduling
• AI Assist for caption suggestions and sentiment analysis

❌ Cons

• User-based pricing escalates fast
• Listening is a separate paid feature, and it starts from $999 a month

📚 Learn more about Sprout Social:

• Check out Sprout Social on their website
• Discover the best Sprout Social alternatives

08 Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a well-known social media management platform that delivers social listening through Talkwalker (which Hootsuite acquired in 2024). Native Hootsuite gives you basic monitoring – deep listening sits behind a Talkwalker add-on.

Why I picked Hootsuite?

Because Hootsuite is much broader than just a “social listening add-on”. It’s a huge ecosystem that combines publishing, engagement, analytics, employee advocacy, and listening in one place.

Two special things about Hootsuite are:

• Talkwalker’s Blue Silk AI inside the Hootsuite dashboard – you get image recognition, audio listening, and over 30 social media sites of coverage without leaving the platform you publish from. As of January 2026, Truth Social data was added to the Listening suite.
• Listening Basics on every Hootsuite plan – even low Hootsuite plans include a basic listening feature. It’s enough for basic community monitoring (but advanced social listening capabilities require the Talkwalker integration)

In practice, Hootsuite works best for brands, companies, and agencies that already focus on social media publishing and simply need a more advanced listening without replacing their existing toolset.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube
• Non-social sources – news outlets, blogs, and forums

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• SMM + Talkwalker-grade listening from one vendor
• Listening Basics included on every plan as an entry-level monitor
• Strong scheduling across 20+ networks
• Unified inbox + PDF reporting for agency client work
• Big integration marketplace

❌ Cons

• Native Streams monitoring is shallow vs. real listening tools – the two-tier experience can confuse
• Pricing perceived as high vs. SMB alternatives

📚 Learn more about Hootsuite:

• Check out Hootsuite on their website
• Discover the best Hootsuite alternatives

09 Keyhole

Keyhole is a hashtag, campaign, and influencer analytics platform that joined the Muck Rack PR software ecosystem in 2024.

Why I picked Keyhole?

For years, Keyhole has been one of the most popular social listening tools for small brands and creators. 

Even after joining Muck Rack, it still works great if you’re running event campaigns, influencer collaborations, or branded hashtag launches.

Two special things about Keyhole are:

• Real-time hashtag and campaign tracking – Keyhole was built around live event tracking. Reach, impressions, and influencer attribution occur automatically and in real-time without.
• Predictive virality scoring – the tool forecasts which hashtags and topics are gaining popularity before they peak. Very useful for campaign-launch decisions.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok
• Non-social sources – online news platforms, blogs, and forums

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Exceptional hashtag campaign tracking
• Predictive virality scoring that helps in forecasting trending topics
• Real-time reach measurement for live events
• User-friendly interface

❌ Cons

• Quite expensive compared to similar social listening tools
• No Pinterest coverage and low LinkedIn coverage

📚 Learn more about Keyhole:

• Check out Keyhole on their website
• Discover the best Keyhole alternatives

10 BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content discovery and performance tool with a built-in journalist database that also allows you to track your online mentions.

Why I picked BuzzSumo?

BuzzSumo isn’t trying to be a social listener in the classic sense. It’s a content intelligence platform that happens to do alerts. That framing changes what you should expect.

Two things make it useful:

• Best content discovery engine in the category – paste a keyword or domain, get the most-shared content across the web, ranked by engagement. The historical content archive is unmatched.
• Journalist database with ~700K contacts – post-Cision integration, BuzzSumo doubles as a PR pitching tool. Find a story angle, find the journalist who covers it, pitch from the same dashboard.

Best fit: content marketers, SEO teams, and PR pros who care more about “what content wins” than “what people are saying about my brand.”

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
• Non-social sources – online news outlets, blogs, and forums

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Unmatched content discovery and trending feeds
• Built-in journalist database (~700K contacts) for PR outreach
• Strong competitor content benchmarking
• AI-assisted content idea generation
• Easy keyword alerts on top of the content layer

❌ Cons

• Not built for crisis-style listening — limited sentiment, no real-time mention firehose
• Repetitive results when stories get syndicated across portals

📚 Learn more about BuzzSumo:

• Check out BuzzSumo on their website

11 Determ

Determ is an AI-powered media monitoring platform that tracks and analyzes brand mentions in real time. It is especially useful for PR specialists and monitoring non-English source coverage for EU brands.

Why I picked Determ?

The two things makes Determ stand out from the crowd are:

• Synthia AI assistant – ChatGPT-powered assistant that allows seamless per-chart analysis  – any spike or drop on a dashboard won’t go unnoticed. Beyond that, it summarizes topics, analyzes tone of voice, and displays recommendations.
• Multilingual coverage – non-English source quality on most US-built tools causes trouble. Determ was built in Croatia, and the multilingual coverage is really good.

🔍 Monitored sources

• Social media – Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit
• Non-social sources – news sites, blogs, forums, review sites, podcasts

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Synthia AI explains chart spikes and drops in plain language
• Strong multilingual coverage for EU and non-English markets
• Easy onboarding
• Powerful Boolean search and filtering

❌ Cons

• G2 reviewers frequently complain about missed mentions 
• Keyword and query limits on lower tiers are quite restrictive

📚 Learn more about Determ:

• Check out Determ on their website

12 Awario

Awario is an affordable brand monitoring platform with a built-in lead-generation module that lets you easily turn mentions into sales prospects.

Why I picked Awario?

If I were running a small marketplace or a SaaS startup and someone asked me to recommend a social listening tool under $100 per month, Awario would be the answer.

Two specifics make it stand out:

• Awario Leads module – identifies competitor mentions and phrases with buying intent with your product description, and then flags them as sales prospects. CRM integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce close the funnel. It’s a social-selling mechanism most competitors don’t have.
• Best value for money for SMBs – Starter plans around $29-49 monthly and provide tracking of X (Twitter), Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, news, and blogs. Sentiment is basic – but it works!

🔎 Monitored sources:

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

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Leads module for social-selling and prospecting
• One of the most affordable social listening tools
• Easy setup
• Boolean search supports complex queries

❌ Cons

• Misses Reddit comments inside threads
• Sentiment analysis is a bit shallow when you compare it to other tools
• TikTok and review-site coverage is low

📚 Learn more about Awario:

• Check out Awario on their website
• Discover the best Awario alternatives

13 Critical Mention

Critical Mention is a media monitoring tool built around traditional broadcast media, such as TV and radio. Since 2022, Critical Mention has been a part of Onclusive’s PR and earned-media stack.

Why I picked Critical Mention?

Almost every tool on this list is built around social listening and web monitoring. Critical Mention is a platform where TV and radio are the most – nomen omen – critical.

Besides, it also allows tracking some major social and non-social media platforms.

Two things you won’t easily find elsewhere:

• Top broadcast TV and radio coverage – over 2,000 global stations with searchable caption transcripts and on-demand video clip creation. If your brand shows up on local news, you can identify the clip and share it within minutes.
• Integrated journalist contact database – the broadcast monitoring is connected with a media contact CRM, so PR teams can pitch journalists from the same tool that discovers their coverage.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube
• Non-social sources – news sites, blogs, podcasts, forums
• Traditional media – TV, radio, and newspapers

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• TV and radio coverage with searchable transcripts
• On-demand video clip creation from live broadcasts
• Validated journalist contact database
• Fast and customizable reporting

❌ Cons

• Social media coverage is low – not enough if you’re looking for extensive social media tracking
• High pricing

📚 Learn more about Critical Mention:

• Check out Critical Mention on their website
• Discover the best Critical Mention alternatives

14 Google Alerts

Google Alerts is one of the most popular free tools for monitoring mentions across the web. Not a social listening platform in the strict sense, but worth knowing as a no-cost solution.

Why I picked Google Alerts?

Let’s be honest about what this is and isn’t. Google Alerts will not replace professional (and paid) social listening tools. It’s a keyword notifier built on Google’s web index – and that’s exactly the reason it deserves to land on this list.

Two reasons to use Google Alerts are:

• It’s free – set up a Gmail address, type your keyword, and choose frequency. You’re done in 90 seconds. No credit card, no trial, no demo call.
• Backed by Google’s index – for SEO-relevant brand mentions on niche keywords, Alerts catches indexed sources that even some paid tools miss.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Online news outlets
• Blogs
• Websites

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Completely free to use
• Simple to set up and manage
• Provides timely updates via email
• Integrates with Gmail and RSS readers

❌ Cons

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

📚 Learn more about Google Alerts:

• Check out Google Alerts on their website
• Discover the best Google Alerts alternatives

15 AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a research tool that visualizes online search behavior from platforms like Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and TikTok to help marketers and social listening specialists discover the questions, comparisons, and topics people are actively discussing online.

Why I picked AnswerThePublic?

This one’s the wild card on the list. AnswerThePublic doesn’t monitor brand mentions or online conversations directly. 

Instead, it shows what people are actively searching for across platforms like Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and TikTok. That’s a different but valuable layer of consumer and search intelligence.

Two things that make AnswerThePublic unique are:

• Visual wheel format for content gaps – when you paste a topic, the tool presents a wheel of real user questions, prepositions, and comparisons. No other tool presents intent data this way.
• AI Dashboard – the tool aggregates signals from ChatGPT and Gemini outputs, Reddit conversations, YouTube threads, and shopping data into an intent combined with a sentiment view.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and TikTok

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• The visual wheel format makes content-gap discovery fast
• Unusual coverage, including TikTok, Amazon, YouTube, Google, and Bing
• AI Dashboard tracks how ChatGPT and Gemini describe topics
• Adds an intent and sentiment layer over raw keyword data

❌ Cons

• The free tier allows only up to 3 searches a day
• English-language data is much stronger than non-English-language data

📚 Learn more about AnswerThePublic:

• Check out AnswerThePublic on their website

16 YouScan

YouScan is a social listening platform built focusing strongly on visual recognition. It allows you to monitor text, image, and audio mentions live in the same dashboard.

Why I picked YouScan?

If your brand produces a lot of user-generated photos (like fashion, food & beverage, or hospitality), YouScan identifies mentions that text-only tools miss. 

YouScan claims this adds over 80% more brand mentions compared to text monitoring alone.

Two aspects that make YouScan unique are:

• Visual Insights – logo, scene, object, and demographic recognition on user images. Deeper than the visual layers in Brandwatch or Talkwalker, because YouScan was built around it from its beginning.
• Insights Copilot and Audio Monitoring on YouTube – Copilot is a conversational AI agent that answers natural-language questions. Audio Monitoring transcribes spoken brand mentions inside YouTube videos, which is a niche almost no one else covers.

🔎 Monitored sources:

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), TikTok, Reddit, and Telegram
• Non-social sources – news sites, blogs, forums, and review platforms

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Powerful visual recognition (logo, scene, object)
• Audio Monitoring transcribes brand mentions inside YouTube videos
• Insights Copilot answers natural-language questions with cited sources
• Strong TikTok integration

❌ Cons

• Per-module pricing can quickly escalate
• No native mobile app
• Query-building UI is a bit awkward

📚 Learn more about YouScan:

• Check out YouScan on their website

17 Agorapulse

4.5/5

G2 (971 reviews)

4.6/5

Capterra (713 reviews)

30 days/strong>/ Free trial

From $79 / Per user per month

In general, Agorapulse is social media management platform with publishing, inbox, and reporting at the core. Advanced social listening exists as a paid add-on.

Why I picked Agorapulse?

Agorapulse is the option I would recommend when a team needs a friendly all-in-one social media management tool and wants a social listening without buying a second platform.

Two things worth noting about Agorapulse are:

• Reddit social listening without a Reddit account – you can monitor brand and competitor conversations on Reddit without logging in or jumping through APIs.
• Listening-to-action loop – Agorapulse allows you to discover a mention in Advanced Listening, reply from the unified inbox, and pass it to a teammate.

🔍 Monitored sources

• Social media – Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads
• Non-social sources – news sites, blogs, forums

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Reddit listening without the need of a Reddit account
• Listening, publishing, and unified inbox in one workflow
• Customer support consistently praised in G2 reviews
• AI inbox assistant for reply suggestions on higher tiers

❌ Cons

• Advanced Listening is an add-on – and it costs a lot
• Some sites and blogs excluded due to data-provider limits

📚 Learn more about Agorapulse:

• Check out Agorapulse on their website
• Discover the best Agorapulse alternatives

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18 Semrush

4.5/5

G2 (3,383 reviews)

4.6/5

Capterra (2,317 reviews)

7 days/strong>/ Free trial

From $149 / Monthly

Semrush is an SEO and digital marketing platform that delivers social and web mention tracking through two paid apps in the Semrush App Center – Brand Monitoring and Media Monitoring.

Why I picked Semrush?

Semrush isn’t really competing with Brandwatch or Talkwalker on the depth of listening. It deserves to be on this list because of how multi-purpose tool it is.

Two things that make Semrush special are:

• Brand Monitoring inside an SEO stack – the Brand Monitoring add-on uncovers unlinked brand mentions. If your team already lives in Semrush for SEO, you get a mention tracker without the need of purchasing another tool.
• AI Visibility Toolkit – tracks how your brand shows up inside ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Gemini. 

🔍 Monitored sources

• Social media – Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Reddit
• Non-social sources – news sites, blogs, forums

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Brand Monitoring adds unlinked mentions into Semrush’s link-building workflows
• AI Visibility Toolkit tracks brand mentions across ChatGPT and AI Overviews
• Smart Alerts and Automated Digests added summarize mention activity
• AI Irrelevancy Detection filters off-topic mentions automatically

❌ Cons

• Data refreshes every 12 hours, not real-time
• Add-on apps are extra paid

📚 Learn more about Semrush:

• Check out Semrush on their website

19 BrandMentions

4.9/5

G2 (237 reviews)

5.0/5

Capterra (63 reviews)

7 days / Free trial

From $99 / Monthly

BrandMentions is an affordable web and social monitoring tool that helps companies track and analyze mentions in real-time across multiple platforms, including social media platforms, news, video sites, and other non-social sources.

Why I picked BrandMentions?

The tool offers what you’d expect from a social listening platform – the usual core features are all there. 

What really makes BrandMentions stand out is how well everything works together and how smooth the overall user experience is.

Two things I especially like about BrandMentions are:

• Up to 10 years of historical data on entry plans – at this price, most competitors provide historical data at a maximum of 1 or 2 years. 10 years of historical data access makes BrandMentions useful for brands that want to map long-term sentiment shifts for a fair price.
• SEO-aware framing baked in – the BrandMentions’ founder also runs cognitiveSEO, so the product treats unlinked brand mentions and link-building opportunities as first-class use cases.

🔍 Monitored sources 

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube
• Non-social sources – websites, blogs, forums, and review sites

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Up to 10 years of historical data at a low price
• AI sentiment analysis available across over a 100 languages on all plans
• SEO-friendly framing for unlinked mentions
• Customizable social listening reporting
• Real-time alerts genuinely fast

❌ Cons

• Repeated billing complaints on Trustpilot (auto-renewal disputes, refund difficulties)
• No dedicated mobile app

📚 Learn more about BrandMentions:

• Check out BrandMentions on their website

20 Vista Social

4.8/5

G2 (1,104 reviews)

4.9/5

Capterra (895 reviews)

14 days / Free trial

From $64 / Monthly

Vista Social is an all-in-one social media management platform that connects publishing, engagement, analytics, listening, and reviews management.

It positions itself as an alternative to Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Agorapulse.

Why I picked Vista Social?

Vista Social sits in the same social media management category as Hootsuite, Sprout, and Agorapulse, but with one important change: social listening is available in paid plans rather than sold as a premium add-on.

Two things make it stand out for me:

• Native social listening is included in the Professional plan – Vista Social’s direct competitors charge extra for social listening. Here, you’ve got it included in a plan. And for a fair price.
• Built-in reviews management, Vista Page, and approval workflows – Vista Social places reviews into the same inbox as social mentions. Combined with the Vista Page link-in-bio and approval workflows, it’s a strong fit for multi-location businesses (restaurants, hotels, healthcare) and agencies managing those clients.

🔍 Monitored sources

• Social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest, Reddit
• Non-social sources – news sites, blogs, review platforms (Google Business, Trustpilot, Yelp, Tripadvisor, OpenTable), web search

Pros and cons

✅ Pros

• Native social listening exists in paid plans, not sold as a separate add-on
• Reviews management across Google Business, Trustpilot, Yelp, Tripadvisor, and OpenTable
• AI Assistant powered by ChatGPT for captions, hashtags, and reply suggestions
• Strong short-form video support

❌ Cons

• No native mobile app 
• Listening data refreshes every 4-6 hours, not real-time

📚 Learn more about Vista Social:

• Check out Vista Social on their website

Media monitoring tools: Evaluation criteria 

To ensure our recommendations are maximally structured, trustworthy, and neutral, we used the following evaluation framework. 

Core social listening features (25%) 

Each tool on the list must include the most essential social listening capabilities: 

• Real-time brand mentions tracking 
• Sentiment analysis 
• Influencer and key sources discovery
• Competitive intelligence 
• Reporting and analytics 

Additional features (20%) 

We also considered features that go beyond the core features. They are the real differentiators between tools that help gain deeper insights or streamline workflows. These may include: 

• AI-powered features 
• Advanced filtering and customization
• Social media management
• Integrations and add-ons
• Demographic insights

Source coverage (20%) 

The range of platforms and sources each tool monitors, such as: 

• Social media platforms 
• News outlets 
• Review sites 
• Traditional media coverage 
• Newsletters 

Daily usability (15%) 

How comfortable and intuitive each tool is for everyday use, especially for users without advanced technical skills. This criterion takes into account: 

• Great UI and UX
• Ease of onboarding and setup process 
• Access to learning resources and documentation 
• The quality of customer support 
• Accessibility 

Value for money (10%) 

We considered how well each tool’s pricing aligns with the features and capabilities offered. This includes: 

• Pricing transparency 
• Free trial and demos availability 
• Plan structure and feature limits 

Customer reviews (10%) 

To include an external, user-driven perspective, we analyzed customer reviews and ratings from independent review platforms. We focused on: 

• Overall ratings on platforms such as G2 and Capterra 
• Frequently mentioned pros and cons 
• Customer support feedback

Social listening tools FAQ

What are social listening tools?

Social listening tools are software that track and analyze online conversations about your brand, competitors, or industry.

They monitor social media platforms, websites, review platforms, forums, and other online sources in real time to identify brand mentions, uncover competitive advantages, understand sentiment, spot trends, and protect the brand’s reputation from potential crises.

What are the key features of social listening tools?

When choosing a social listening tool, look for the following features:

Feature	Short description
User-friendly UX	The tool should be accessible to every user (including non-experienced ones) and present social mentions and analytics in a clear way.
Real-time monitoring	The ability to track mentions as they happen is crucial for staying updated and proactive.
Sentiment analysis	Understanding the tone of conversations helps you gauge public perception of your brand.
Customizable alerts	Notifications should reach you the moment monitoring catches content of interest. They help you detect PR crises at an early stage.
Data visualization & reporting	Clear and customizable dashboards and reports make it easy to analyze and share insights with your team.
Competitor monitoring	Tracking competitor mentions provides valuable insights into their strategies and helps identify market gaps.
Advanced filtering	Social listening tools gather thousands of mentions daily. Advanced filters like Boolean Search help find the data that matters.
AI features	Look for advanced AI features like detecting anomalies, topic analysis, advanced emotion detection, and AI-powered reports to take your social listening strategy further.
Integration capabilities	Seamless integration with tools like CRMs, Slack, or project management software enhances productivity and workflow.
Historical data access	The ability to analyze past data helps identify long-term trends and compare campaigns over time.

At Uber, we use social listening on a daily basis, which allows us to understand how our users feel about the changes we’re implementing. As soon as we introduce a modification, we know which parts of it are greeted with enthusiasm, and which need more work. We’re happy that the new app was received so well because we’ve put a lot of work into it.

Krzysiek Radoszewski

Marketing Lead, Central & Eastern Europe at Uber

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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.

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

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 or presence 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.

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Conclusion

There are lots of social media listening tools out there, but not all will meet your expectations. Simply put – there is not and there would never be an universal winner.

Different tools fit different jobs, and the best stack is the one that matches what your team actually does every day.

If you’re an enterprise brand looking for advanced consumer intelligence, Brandwatch and Talkwalker have features most small and medium businesses will never touch.

If you’re a PR specialist in need of blending social listening with journalist outreach, Meltwater builds that workflow into one platform.

If your primarily focuses on exceptional listening with accurate sentiment analysis and AI features, Brand24, Mentionlytics, or BrandMentions will give you all that.

The key here is to define your needs, calculate your budget, and 2 or 3 tools in practice.

I’ve done all I could. Now, the ball is in your court.

Final thoughts:

• Look for AI features. They are no longer differentiators – they had become baseline. Check if the tool provides AI brand visibility in LLMs, sentiment analysis, and AI-powered insights.
• Source coverage matters. Consider which platforms are a must-have and which are nice-to-have.
• Use trials and demos. Every paid tool allows you to test it in practice. Don’t hesitate to!
• Listening is one piece of a bigger reputation puzzle. Pair it with engagement tracking, good reporting, and creative workflows.