Thanks to social media, people can voice their opinions on individuals, companies, and brands. In short, they can talk about anything or anyone. They can ask questions, lodge complaints, and even give praise. These days, customers communicate with brands via social media more than any other medium. Therefore, companies and brands must listen carefully to what’s being said online.

Social media listening (or social media monitoring) means identifying and assessing what people are saying about you, your product, company, or brand online. Billions of conversations happen daily, and when you know what’s being said about your company or brand, you can make wise business decisions. The objective of social listening isn’t to know what people are saying about you, it is to act on what they are saying. Many social media marketers assume that social monitoring means focusing on metrics. However, metrics are just a part of the equation.

Social listening gives you a deeper insight into customers, competitors, and influencers. But in order to optimize social media listening, you need to monitor social networks. Getting insights takes time, and you have to use the right tools. Here are 4 amazing tools for social media monitoring.

4 Must-Have Social Listening Tools

#1 Google Alerts



One of Google’s less popular gems, this free tool generates results based on the keywords you provide and sends them via email. Many marketers and businesses depend on these alerts to learn more about their products and competitors. You can also use Google Alerts to keep track of interesting topics, trends, and any news on the web.

To start using the service, enter the keyword you’d like to receive alerts on. A sample of your alert will appear. After you enter a valid email address, Google will send the results. You can choose the sources you would like to search from, how frequently you would like to receive results and the search volume. You can use Google Alerts to maximize your brand, sales, and traffic. It is easy to set up.

#2 Mention



Mention is a tool designed to search the web and find conversations about your brand. Much similar to Google Alerts, it monitors search engines, social networks, blogs, and other sites in real time and informs you every time someone mentions your brand, name, or target keyword. It also displays the source, language, and time of the mentions. It offers detailed analytics and allows you to sync social accounts. Mention can be used on the web, desktop, iPhone, and Android. It also sends summary alerts on a daily basis which show the top mentions for that day.

Mention allows you to filter unwanted mentions, such as those meant for people with the same name as you. It allows you to easily find the most important mentions. You can monitor your mentions in 42 languages. The tool has an interface that is easy to use and built-in task management functionality. Whether you want to see customer complaints or to track your competitors, Mention is the tool to use. It has a 14-day free trial and the Pro plans start at €29 per month.

#3 Social Mention



Social Mention is your eyes and ears on social media. You can use it to learn more about an individual, company, or brand. It helps you to see who is talking about you, your company, or any topic you are interested in. It combines content from different social platforms and puts it in one place so you can analyze it easily. The best thing about the tool is that it is free yet highly effective.

You can search the platform or opt to receive daily email alerts of your company, brand, marketing campaign, or competitor. A search will display a list of mentions, which you can sort by source, date, and time. Each search result gives a percentage for passion, sentiment, strength, and reach. To receive specific results, use the advanced search feature when searching. Select the places you want the search tool to look for your keyword in. It could be videos, blogs, images, or microblogs.

#4 Keyhole



Keyhole is a real-time social media analytics tool that tracks keywords and mentions across Instagram and Twitter. The tool’s dashboard analyzes data around total posts, impressions and reach. It ranks influencers based on average post engagement rate which makes it easy to identify the most influential users in the space. Keyhole is well known for tracking hashtags but the tool is also able to track keywords, account mentions, and URLs.

What we liked about this tool is the Influencers View, where you can see a list of top influencers engaging with your brand. You can easily compare them based on their engagement rates, follower count, exposure or impressions. This is very useful when recruiting brand advocates.

Check out this article to find out how to do a complete Instagram hashtag research using keyhole and JARVEE, in just 10 minutes.

Wrapping Up

Social media has changed the way people communicate, form new friendships and promote their brands or products. If you use social media for marketing purposes, you have to monitor what’s being said about you or your brand online. While it’s no secret that social listening is a difficult task, the right tools can help you to perform the task efficiently. You can monitor your mentions, track your progress, and determine the impact that social media has on your brand.

Now, over to you: What are your favorite social media monitoring tools? Let us know in the comment section!