How do you know if your customers (and potential customers) are talking about you on social media?
If they tagged your social media profile in their posts, you could check your notifications. If they didn’t, maybe you could search on each social media platform every time you want to find out. Sounds tedious? Here’s a better way:
Use social media monitoring tools.
There’s a great deal of wonderful social media tools out there. Among them are tools built specifically to help you pick out relevant conversations on social media — social media monitoring tools. Some of these tools allow you to monitor multiple social media profiles on the different social media platforms from a single place. There are even some that let you monitor social media trends and keywords.
There’s likely one that suits your needs. Let’s take a look at the 19 best ones for small and medium businesses!
Social media monitoring is the process of listening out for social media conversations that are relevant to your brand. Businesses engage in social media monitoring for several reasons, such as to connect with their customers, to provide customer support, to measure their social media reach, or to understand social media trends.
To “listen”, businesses use social media monitoring tools to collect social mentions and track keywords, hashtags, and URLs that they are interested in.
Social media monitoring is also sometimes known as social listening.
The 19 best social media monitoring tools for SMBs
All the social media monitoring tools listed below are not arranged in any particular order. They are all great in their own ways and will suit different social media monitoring needs.
For example, some are standalone monitoring tools while others have it as a feature within a social media management tool. Some gather individual social media mentions and messages while others analyze sets of social media content and trends.
Here’s an overview of all the tools in this blog post:
- Hootsuite
- Sprout Social
- Agora Pulse
- Zoho Social
- Brand24
- Mention
- Social Mention
- Keyhole
- Trackur
- Buzzlogix
- TweetDeck
- Iconosquare
- Tailwind
- Sendible
- Union Metrics
- HubSpot
- NUVI
- Falcon.io
- Talkwalker
I’m sure I’m missing some great tools out there, and it’ll be great to get your help. If you have tried and love any social media monitoring tools for small and medium businesses, I would love for you to share them in the comments section below, including why you love them. Thank you!
Compare the tools easily with this spreadsheet
To make it easier for you to compare the tools, I’ve created a spreadsheet with the following information of each social media monitoring tool:
- How much do the plans cost?
- Does it have a free plan, free trial, or free demo?
- Is it a standalone monitoring tool or is it part of a social media management tool?
- What platforms are supported?
- What are the main monitoring features?
- Can I reply directly through the tool?
1. Hootsuite
Effectively track topics that matter—then respond quickly
Description: Hootsuite’s monitoring tool is part of its entire package of social media management tools. If you were to subscribe to one of their plans, you can also enjoy other features such as scheduling and analytics.
With Hootsuite, you can set up unlimited streams of social media content based on your mentions, selected keywords, hashtags, or locations. Furthermore, Hootsuite integrates with more than a hundred apps to help you do more from its dashboard.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, blogs, forums, and more
Prices: Free, $19 per month, $99 per month, $499 per month, and enterprise pricing
2. Sprout Social
Intelligent, real-time social media monitoring with Sprout
Description: Similar to Hootsuite, Sprout Social’s monitoring and engagement tools are part of its social media management software. Sprout Social has two separate features for social monitoring and engagement.
In the Smart Inbox, you’ll get all your social media mentions and messages. With the discovery feature, you can search for particular keywords on Twitter or Instagram (for example when someone mentions your brand without tagging your social media profile).
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+
Prices (per user): $99 per month, $149 per month, and $249 per month
3. Agora Pulse
Discover what people are really saying about your business
Description: Agora Pulse is also an all-in-one social media management tool, which comes with scheduling, monitoring, engagement, and analytics features.
Its inbox collects all your social media mentions while its listening feature allows you to search for keywords, URL, and handle on Twitter. Agora Pulse also allows you to monitor comments on your Facebook and Instagram ads.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube
Prices: Free, $79 per month, $159 per month, plus enterprise options
4. Zoho Social
Social media management software for growing businesses
Description: Zoho Social is a social media management dashboard where you can publish and schedule posts, monitor social activities, analyze your social media performance.
In the Zoho Social dashboard, you’ll get real-time updates of how people are interacting with your brands. I find this great for events, where I might want to monitor related social media posts and engage with the attendees.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+
Prices: Free, $10 per month, $50 per month, $1,000 per year, and $1,500 per year
5. Brand24
Smart social media monitoring for businesses of all sizes
Description: Brand24 is a powerful yet affordable tool for those who want to dive deep into social media monitoring. Besides the major social media platforms, Brand24 also monitors blogs, forums, and other sites for mentions of your brand.
Apart from collecting your mentions and allowing you to reply, Brand24 analyzes your social media reach, interactions, sentiment, and more.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blogs, forums, and more
Prices: $49 per month, $99 per month, and $399 per month
6. Mention
Media monitoring made simple
Description: Mention is more than just a monitoring tool for social media; it also monitors mentions of your brand across the web such as on Yelp, Booking.com, Tripadvisor, and Amazon. On its custom company plan, you can get in-depth insights and reports of your brand mentions.
If you connect your social media profiles to Mention, you can reply mentions directly within Mention. (You can even add a Buffer account and schedule your social media posts.)
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blogs, forums, and more
Prices: $29 per month, $99 per month, and enterprise pricing
7. Social Mention
Real-time social media search and analysis
Description: Not to be confused with Mention above, Social Mention is a free social media search engine for user-generated content across the web. It lets you find and measure what people are saying about your brand and products on places such as Twitter, YouTube, and blogs.
Since an account is not required, I believe Social Mention doesn’t save your searches.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, and other websites
Price: Free
8. Keyhole
Hashtag tracking for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
Description: Rather than finding individual mentions of your brand, Keyhole provides trends, insights, and analysis of your preferred hashtags, keywords, or accounts. This makes it better for gathering data and reporting results than replying your social media mentions.
If you want to test out its tools, it offers free hashtag, keyword, and account tracking.
Platforms supported: Twitter and Instagram
Prices: $165 per month, $349 per month, $599 per month, $999 per month, and enterprise pricing
9. Trackur
Simple, fast, and affordable social media monitoring
Description: Like Keyhole, Trackur is a monitoring and analytics tool. It can help you find mentions of your brand (or your keywords) on social media, blogs, forums, and more and then analyze the trends, sentiment, and influence level.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blogs, forums, and more
Prices: $97 per month, $197 per month, and $447 per month
10. Buzzlogix
Social media monitoring and engagement made simple
Description: Buzzlogix helps you with both social monitoring and social engagement. For social monitoring, you can track content with your preferred keywords and get the statistics in easy-to-understand graphs. For social engagement, you can monitor multiple social media profiles and response to social mentions and messages.
Platforms supported: Google+, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, forums, and news sites
Prices: $19.95 per month, $49.95 per month, $99.95 per month, and $399.95 per month
11. TweetDeck
The most powerful Twitter tool for real-time tracking, organizing, and engagement
Description: TweetDeck is the official Twitter management dashboard, where you can manage multiple Twitter accounts and monitor mentions, keywords, Twitter lists, and more in separate columns. And it’s free!
Platform supported: Twitter
Price: Free
12. Iconosquare
Instagram analytics and management platform
Description: Iconosquare is one of the most popular Instagram analytics and management platforms. Besides its robust analytics and management features, Iconosquare offers custom feeds, which you can use to monitor specific Instagram content. For each feed, you can add up to 50 users and 20 hashtags.
Platforms supported: Instagram
Prices (per Instagram account): $9 per month, $29per month, $49 per month, and from $990 per month
13. Tailwind
Social media monitoring for Pinterest and Instagram
Description: Tailwind is built specifically for Pinterest and Instagram, the two visual social media platforms. Apart from its scheduling and analytics features, Tailwind enables you to monitor your content and your competitors. It also provides information about emerging trends so that you can tap into them.
Platforms supported: Pinterest and Instagram
Prices: $15 per month, $799.99 per month, and enterprise pricing
14. Sendible
Seize opportunities via social listening
Description: Sendible is a full social media management tool, built for agencies that manage multiple clients. On top of scheduling and collaborating on social media content, you can also respond to comments and messages from an inbox and monitor hashtags, keywords, and your competitors on social media and the web.
Platforms supported: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google+, blogs, review sites (e.g. Yelp), and more
Prices: $49 per month, $199 per month, and $499 per month, and enterprise pricing
The remaining social media monitoring tools are more pricey than those above. I have not had the opportunity to try them out myself (as they do not provide free trials). I’ve selected them based on reviews and their brand name. If you have used any of them before, it’ll be great to hear your experience.
15. Union Metrics
Social intelligence. Designed for marketing teams.
Description: Union Metrics provides the social intelligence that can help you improve your social media strategy. With Union Metrics, you can track and analyze social media posts, monitor your competitors and trends, conduct research, and more.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr
Prices: $99 per month, $199 per month, and enterprise pricing
16. HubSpot
Connect with the people you care about
Description: HubSpot is a comprehensive marketing automation software that includes everything from social media and emails to SEO and lead management. The social media management features are included in the plans starting from $200 per month.
Because HubSpot integrates many parts of marketing together (such as customer relationship management and social media), it allows you to better monitor your leads and customers on social media.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Xing, YouTube, blogging platform with RSS feeds, and Pinterest
Prices: Starting at $200 per month, $800 per month, and $2,400 per month
17. NUVI
Real-time social intelligence
Description: NUVI gathers all your social media data in real-time and displays it in insightful visualizations to help you make decisions quickly and effectively. Like most social media management tools, NUVI can help you publish and schedule posts, analyze your social media activities, and create reports.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, VK, blogs, and RSS feeds
Price: Custom pricing
18. Falcon.io
Manage your brand
Description: Falcon.io is a marketing platform that helps social media marketers with social listening, customer engagement, content marketing, and audience management. Its social listening features help you monitor your brand, stay on top of popular topics, and engage influencers.
Platforms supported: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube
Prices: $1,000 per month, $1,750 per month, and enterprise pricing
19. Talkwalker
Put social data intelligence to work. Instantly.
Description: Talkwalker is one of the most powerful media monitoring tools. Besides being able to monitor social media platforms and websites, it can also monitor print and TV and radio broadcasts.
It even has image recognition technology to help you pick up social media posts of your brand or product even when your brand isn’t mentioned in the caption.
Platforms supported: More than 10 social platforms, websites, print, and broadcasts
Prices: $8,400 per year, $12,000 per year, and enterprise pricing
While the tools above are all social media monitoring tools, they are different in subtle and big ways and serve different needs. I hope you found one suitable for your company. Otherwise, do check out this comprehensive list by G2 Crowd:
Best Social Media Monitoring Software
Once you have picked your social media monitoring tool, I would love to hear which tool you decided on and what considerations you have made. I believe it can help others make the right decision for their company, too.
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FAQs
What are the right social media tools to use for business? ›
- Best Overall: Sprout Social.
- Best for Analytics: Hootsuite.
- Best All-in-One Tool: Zoho.
- Best for Automation: MeetEdgar.
- Best for Large Team Collaboration: Loomly.
- Best Integration: Sendible.
- Best Budget Option: Buffer.
- Best for Small Teams: SocialPilot.
To “listen”, businesses use social media monitoring tools to collect social mentions and track keywords, hashtags, and URLs that they are interested in. Social media monitoring is also sometimes known as social listening.
How do employers monitor social media? ›Computer Surveillance
Employers can monitor an employee's social media usage on the computer through computer surveillance software.
Social media monitoring involves the tracking of online brand mentions and the subsequent responding of them. Monitoring keeps your brand on top of messages before they might become viral for the wrong reasons. They also help you maintain a positive brand image among consumers and identify potential influencers.
What are the four main types of social media tools? ›- Content curation tools. ...
- Social media scheduling apps. ...
- Content creation tools. ...
- Social media analytics tools.
Social media listening tools let you analyze and provide actionable responses to the insights you've collected through social monitoring, using more advanced features. Together, these tools help you meet higher standards for your customers and improve overall brand health.
What is online monitoring tools? ›The system compiles all relevant information about every project in one system. These data can then be accessed by different users (beneficiaries, committees, controllers, the Joint Secretariat etc.) depending on the user rights of each user and what they need to know.
How do you do media monitoring? ›Media monitoring involves three separate yet related considerations: 1) Listening intently across a wide spectrum of channels for all mentions of your brand. 2) Gauging the overall sentiment of these mentions. 3) Stringing together multiple snapshots of brand mentions to follow trends.
What type of monitoring tool can be accomplished over the Internet? ›Overall PRTG is great for monitoring internet availability and performance because it blends monitors for networks, servers, and applications. Websites involve every level of the stack and so problems with internet performance can have any of a long list of causes.
Is there an app that combines all social media? ›Hootsuite (Web, iOS, Android, Chrome)
If you're looking for a complete solution to all of your social media management needs, Hootsuite will cover all your bases. The app is compatible with over 20 social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest.
How do you manage multiple social media clients? ›
- Document Your Social Media Strategy. ...
- Use Social Media Management Software. ...
- Create an Editorial Calendar. ...
- Monitor Social Media Activity and Engage. ...
- Analyze Your Social Media Strategy.
If you want a 100% free Hootsuite alternative – the best option is TweetDeck. The only serious limitation is that it only works with Twitter. Regardless, there are no limitations on posts you can schedule which is great. Ultimately, the best Hootsuite alternative is the one that serves your needs best.
What are the three methods of employee monitoring? ›“Employee monitoring” refers to the methods employers use to surveil their workplaces and their staff members' whereabouts and activities. These methods include employee monitoring software, time clocks, video surveillance, GPS systems and biometric technology.
Is it legal to monitor employees social media? ›In NSW, the Workplace Surveillance Act classifies all overt surveillance as unlawful unless employers provide 14 days' notice before the surveillance begins.
How do I detect employee monitoring software? ›Check Your Background Processes. If you're on Windows 10, press the Alt + Ctrl + Del keys and open the Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab and check if there any known employee monitoring software running in the background. If you use a MacBook, navigate to Utilities, and launch the Activity Monitor.
What is an example of social media monitoring? ›Social media monitoring means tracking hashtags, keywords, and mentions relevant to your brand in order to stay informed about your audience and industry.
What is the 90 10 rule in regards to social media posting? ›So what exactly does 90-10 mean? It means, spend 10% of your social media time talking about yourself and the other 90% paying attention and listening to your network. It's simple human psychology. People love the people who make them feel good.
What is the best social media monitoring tool for Facebook? ›...
Below you'll read about the following tools:
- Brand24.
- Agorapulse.
- Awario.
- YouScan.
- Zoho Social.
- Buffer.
- Loomly.
- Listen.
What Are the 6 Types of Social Media? The six types of social media, though this can be broken down in many ways, include social networking, bookmarking, social news, media sharing, microblogging, and online forum sites.
What tools does a social media manager use? ›- Buffer. The platform for successful social media management. ...
- Hootsuite. Manage all your social media in one place. ...
- Sprout Social. Real people. ...
- Agora Pulse. Social media management simplified. ...
- Sendible. The #1 social media management tool for agencies. ...
- eClincher. ...
- Social Pilot. ...
- MavSocial.
What are the 7 functions of social media? ›
In "Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media", researchers provide a framework that defines social media, which includes seven functional social media building blocks: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups.
Is Hootsuite worth the money? ›Hootsuite is best for businesses that need an all-in-one social media management tool that will integrate with a wide range of social networks. The entry-level packages are priced sensibly and provide access to a great platform for publishing and monitoring social media content.
Is there an app that will post to all social media free? ›1. Postly. Postly is a freemium social media management platform that lets you post to Instagram business accounts, Facebook groups and pages, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok. It's got a lot of useful features that help you schedule text, image, and video posts.
What tools are necessary for social media marketing in 2022? ›- Planning 🎨
- Content Calendar & Scheduler 🗓
- Mention Follower 👥
- Analytics 📊
- Social Media Advertising 📱
- URL Shortener 💻
- Chat Bot 🗣
To solve this problem, we've created Simple Social – the easiest tool to manage all your social media. With Simple Social, you can manage all your accounts in one place, schedule and preview your content with a powerful drag and drop interface, and visualize your campaign and content on a calendar.
What social media marketing is best? ›...
Best Social Media Marketing Platforms for 2022:
- Brandwatch (Formerly Falcon.io) ...
- Sendible. ...
- Loomly. ...
- Brand24. ...
- AgoraPulse. ...
- Iconosquare. ...
- NapoleonCat. ...
- Visme.
- fenced.ai. fenced.ai is one of the most advanced, reliable, and trustworthy parental controls app out there. ...
- Qustodio. ...
- Norton family. ...
- Kaspersky Safe Kids. ...
- Bark. ...
- OurPact. ...
- Google Family Link For Parents. ...
- Kuukla Parental Control.
Social media monitoring identifies brand mentions on a micro scale, while social media listening occurs on a macro scale to see how customers are talking about your brand, products, and industry — including competitors.
What is Hootsuite used for? ›Create, schedule, publish, and manage your content and ad campaigns across social networks from a single dashboard. We help maximize the impact of your social marketing by providing real-time insights, so you can focus on other areas of your business.
How can I monitor my childs text messages without them knowing? ›Another way to view their text message is via parental control apps like AirDroid. AirDroid Parental Control app is an all-in-one app. It allows users to manage and monitor the target device remotely. It runs in stealth mode, so they wouldn't know you have it installed on their phone.
What is a monitoring app? ›
It is a complete Android tracking app with many features from the basic GPS tracking, phone logs and call recording, SMS tracking, to a big list of social media apps tracking including Voip call recordings and notes recordings, browser logs, apps tracking and many live control features.
How can I view my childs text messages? ›For free text-monitoring on Android, try the Phone Tracker app from Spy Phone Labs. This free app lets you keep tabs on up to five phones. You can track GPS, phone calls, text messages and even web activity. You just install it on your kids' phones and set up an account.
What is a social listening tool? ›A social media listening tool is a software that monitors and analyzes online conversations about your brand, a specific topic, your competitors or anything else that's relevant to your company. It pulls in mentions of specified keywords and helps marketers analyze these mentions.
What is social monitoring in marketing? ›Social monitoring is the process of identifying, tracking, and responding to individual brand mentions on social media, blogs, websites, review sites, and forums to learn what people are saying about your brand, products, and competitors online.
Is Hootsuite good for small business? ›Hootsuite has features that will appeal to businesses of all sizes, but the subscription packages offer the best value for small- and medium-sized enterprises. Hootsuite integrates with a very wide range of social networks and provides an effective dashboard for managing all of your social media activity in one place.
Is there a free alternative to Hootsuite? ›If you want a 100% free Hootsuite alternative – the best option is TweetDeck. The only serious limitation is that it only works with Twitter. Regardless, there are no limitations on posts you can schedule which is great. Ultimately, the best Hootsuite alternative is the one that serves your needs best.
Is Hootsuite still free? ›To get your free Hootsuite account, simply sign up for a 30-day trial of Hootsuite Professional. After 30 days, you can switch to Free or stick with the Professional plan.
What are the types of social media analytics? ›- Descriptive analytics.
- Diagnostic analytics.
- Predictive analytics.
- Prescriptive analytics.
- Likes.
- Engagement.
- Followers growth.
- Traffic conversions.
- Social interactions.
- Social sentiment.
- Social shares.
- Web visitors by channel source.
- Step 1: Build Your Spreadsheet. ...
- Step 2: Identify Categories and Subcategories. ...
- Step 3: Outline your Target Demographics and Calls To Action. ...
- Step 4: Collecting your data. ...
- Step 5: Formatting, and Sorting your Data. ...
- Step 6: Analyze Categories.