Best Social Listening Tools in 2024

What are Social Listening Tools? 

Preparing an out-of-tune social media marketing strategy with a one-dimensional view of audience insights, such as demographics, location, etc. can only get your brand momentary engagement. Social listening is a powerful tool to help brands dive deep into audience preferences, sentiments, behaviour, and conversations for maximizing marketing efforts. 

Social listening tools help you increase the success of your marketing campaigns, product strategies, and the overall perceived value of your brand. This is done by tracking various social media channels to monitor brand mentions, keywords, and conversations around industry-related topics.  

Things to consider when choosing a Social Media Listening Tool

From the wide array of social media listening and monitoring tools, finding the software that perfectly aligns with your business needs requires certain considerations in terms of AI integration, user-friendliness, omnichannel support, and pricing: 

• Platform Support: The social listening platform of choice should not restrict your reach to limited channels. Compare different social monitoring tools based on the integration support provided across various social media tools. This includes Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Facebook, as well as the business website.  
• Analytics and Reporting: Studying volumes of data related to customer feedback and behaviour in the absence of prompt reporting functionalities can be challenging. Analyse different social listening tools based on custom report-generation capabilities and analytical features to get personalized recommendations for improving marketing strategies.  
• AI Capabilities: Make sure that the social listening tool has in-built AI capabilities to automate workflow and enable sentimental analysis. This helps in understanding the nature of customer feedback and creating segments accordingly. 
• User-Friendliness: An important factor to consider when looking for a social listening tool is the user-friendliness of the software, which ultimately leads to easy adoption across the organization. Opt for an easy-to-use social listening tool with a comprehensive and customisable dashboard that offers quick access to information. 
• Customer Support: Technical support is another driving force that influences the choice of the best social media listening tools. Make sure that the social listening tool offers end-to-end assistance as well as technical documentation to resolve common issues easily.  
• Customization Capabilities: Every organisation has different requirements and preferences for the included features in the social listening tool, dashboard overview, and reports. Compare the customisation capabilities of the social media listening software so that you can personalize the dashboard and reports to the unique requirements of your business.   
• Third-Party Integrations: Social media listening tools must integrate CRM systems, email marketing tools, analytical software, and other marketing systems for a smooth data flow. It is crucial to ensure that the software offers integration support with popular third-party applications.

Features of Social Listening Tools you should look for

Some of the key features to look for in a social listening tool include data management and analytics, keyword and hashtag tracking, sentimental analysis, and competitor analysis:  

• Data Management: When exploring the different options for social monitoring tools, analyse the data management capabilities of the software. The best social listening tools comprise a centralized location to store and manage data from various sources, such as social media platforms, websites, blogs, forums, etc. Moreover, the software must also provide functionalities to filter the information based on location, demographics, keywords, topics, and hashtags.  
• Data Analysis: The social monitoring tools must also offer data analysis capabilities to draw meaningful insights from vast pools of data. Real-time data visualization capabilities prompt quick actions and maximized efficiency. Another important consideration in choosing the best media listening tools is the integration of the software with natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. Through this feature in the analytics and reporting module, filtering the intent, and meaning of customer feedback becomes easy.  
• Keyword Tracking: Keyword and hashtag tracking not only offers an organization insight into product feedback and brand value. Organizations can leverage social media listening tools to discover untapped opportunities by studying ongoing conversations around industry-related topics. It is important for social listening tools to include a robust keyword and hashtag-tracking module. This helps in identifying industry trends, potential threats, and perceived value of online campaigns.  
• Sentiment Analysis: Sentimental analysis refers to the process of identifying the true meaning of customer feedback with the help of NLP and AI integration. This enables organisations to address feedback, understand customer requirements, and frame marketing campaigns accordingly. Sentimental analysis is a key feature to look for in social media listening tools to avoid clutter and access only the relevant information. Analysing customer sentiments also enables the organisation to filter and segregate audiences to create targeted marketing campaigns.  
• Competitive Analysis: Social listening is a powerful tool for competitor analysis. With the help of social media listening tools, an organization can track metrics like engagement levels, brand reach, and customer feedback on competitor brands and products. This allows organizations to identify customer pain points and capture the audience by outperforming competitors.  

What are the benefits of Social Listening Tools? 

Social listening tools are imperative for discovering market insights and delivering campaigns accordingly. The tools help in tracking brand reputation, compare the brand with competitors, take measures to create brand identity, and build successful social media campaigns: 

• Discover Key Insights and Industry Trends: Social media monitoring tools offer insights into customer feedback, brand loyalty, and the factors affecting customer behaviour. Through the data-driven insights media listening tools provide, users can identify industry trends and plan marketing campaigns based on in-depth sentimental analysis.  
• Build Targeted Marketing Campaigns: Social listening tools offer a detailed overview of customer feedback for marketing segmentation. The scope of social listening goes beyond age groups, income levels, regions, etc. offering more personalised data to run targeted marketing campaigns.  
• Track Brand Awareness and Reputation: Social listening is the key to tracking brand awareness and reputation. By analysing content on social media, social listening tools help in tracking product awareness, brand awareness, and brand reputation over a defined period of time.  
• Track the Performance of New Products: Social monitoring tools help in tracking the performance, reach, and feedback for new product launches. The software gathers customer reviews from multiple data sources to analyse the success of a product or service.  
• Leverage Social Media Marketing: With the help of social listening tools, you can monitor the success rates of social media marketing campaigns. The software allows you to analyse the impact of social media marketing efforts, collect user-generated content, and identify influencers to endorse your brand.  

Top 10 Social Listening Tools Comparison 

Here is a list of the top 10 social listening tools, compared in terms of key features and pricing: 

Best Social Listening Tools
Softwares	Key Features	Prices
Hootsuite	Unlimited Post Scheduling, Hashtag Generator, One Inbox for all Social Accounts, Custom Analytics and Reports, Competitive Benchmarking Tool	Starts at $129/month
Sprout Social	All-In-One Social Inbox, Publish, Schedule & Draft Posts, Social Content Calendar, Review Management, Profiles, Keywords & Locations Monitoring, Group, Profile & Post-Level Reporting	Starts at $49/month
Talkwalker	Extensive Coverage, Advanced Boolean Catalogues, Customizable Dashboards, AI Insights, Real-Time Alerts, Instant AI Summaries	Starts at $119/month
Brandwatch	AI-Powered Insights, Segmentation and Flexibility, Emotions and Sentiment Analysis, Reliable Data Access, Social Media Management	Available on request
Mention	Query Building, Keyword-Based Monitoring, Page-Based Monitoring Alert, Influence And Sentiment Analysis, Analyse Online Conversations, Social Media Management	Starts at $89/month
Meltwater	Competitive Monitoring, Customized User Lists, Consumer Segmentation, Content Strategy Markers, Audience Optimization	Starts at $79/month
Agorapulse	Centralized Inbox, Post Scheduler and Shared Calendar, Monitor and Track Your Brand, Social Media Reports, Sales, Leads, and Traffic Insights	Starts at $149/month
Brand24	Monitor Brands, Analyze Sentiment, Create Reports, Track Reach, Measure Awareness	Starts at $29.99/month
Digimind	Unlimited Social Media Coverage, Custom Sources, Real-Time Updates, Geolocalization, Automatic Sentiment	Starts at $67/month
BuzzSumo	Mentions, Trends, and Updates, Topics, Brands, and Keywords Alert, Monitor Competitor Mentions, Track Content from Key Publications	Available on request

Social Listening vs. Social Media Tracking 

While social media monitoring and social listening are often used interchangeably, they serve distinct purposes. Both are essential for a comprehensive social media marketing strategy and understanding their differences is crucial for gaining deeper audience insights: 

Social Media Monitoring 

Social media monitoring involves tracking and observing what customers say about your brand on social media, with the primary goal of responding directly to them. This process typically includes: 

1. Responding to Customers: Engaging with customer queries, issues, and comments in real time. 
2. Tracking Brand Mentions: Identifying mentions of your brand, using hashtags and keywords. 
3. Providing Customer Support: Acting as a form of customer service by addressing complaints and resolving issues promptly. 

Social Media Listening 

Social media listening goes beyond monitoring to understand broader consumer sentiments and trends. This process involves: 

1. Generating Insights: Analysing online conversations to uncover actionable insights. 
2. Tracking Industry Trends: Observing discussions about your industry and competitors. 
3. Manual Analysis: Interpreting data and conversations to inform long-term strategies. 

Differences Between Social Media Monitoring and Social Listening 

The key difference between social media monitoring and social listening lies in the focus areas, approach, and process of analysing data: 

1. Focus Area: While social media monitoring focuses on individual brand mentions and direct customer interactions, social media listening observes broader conversations about the brand, industry, and competitors. 
2. Approach: Social media monitoring tools follow a streamlined approach of addressing customer comments and issues as they arise. Social media listening, on the other hand, proactively seeks out insights to inform long-term strategies and improvements. 
3. Analysing Data: Social media monitoring often requires manual effort to track untagged mentions and direct responses. Social media listening involves the analysis of audience data to interpret complex conversations and derive actionable insights. 

Conclusion 

While social media monitoring provides immediate, short-term solutions by addressing customer interactions and feedback, social media listening offers long-term benefits by uncovering deeper insights and trends. An optimal combination of both strategies can enhance customer service and develop a more informed, customer-centric approach.  

How much does a Social Listening Tool cost? 

The average cost of media listening tools ranges between $50 - $800 per month, variable in terms of features, number of users, and business requirements. While there are several open-source and free social media listening tools with basic features and functionalities, an enterprise-level social monitoring tool starts from $400.  

Pricing plans for the top social listening tools are payable in monthly or annual cycles. The cost of these tools depends on CRM integrations, analytical capabilities, channels supported, data filters, AI integrations, and so on.