So, it’s social media monitoring tool then! That’s what brought you here!
It’s great knowing you’re one of the very few people who have understood the importance of using a social media monitoring software for your business!
In fact, social monitoring has helped businesses to a great extent. Right from knowing what people talk about your brand to measuring campaign performance, a social media monitoring tool lets you know everything!
In this read, we’ll be looking at the seven best social media monitoring solutions for your business. Also, we’ll be covering a bit of the basics and other useful information like always!
So, let’s get started, shall we?
What Is a Social Media Monitoring Tool?
A social media monitoring tool is a tracking software that allows you to track all relevant social media conversations happening around your brand.
You can monitor your brand or product or specific campaign. But today’s social monitoring tools allow you to track competitor keywords, hashtags, social media mentions and anything else you think that would help grow your business!
Another thing that a social monitoring tool does great is the metrics part – you get to know in-depth metrics like customer sentiment, the volume of conversation, the share of brand voice, trending topics and more!
This helps you get the insights you need to come up with new strategies for your businesses.
Also, a social media monitoring app allows you to identify issues and take proactive steps before it blows and takes a dig at your online reputation! This comes into the social listening part but still, today’s tools are advanced and come as a package!
We could just continue talking about the benefits you get with a social media monitoring tool but assuming you know that already, we’ll skip this part!
Now that you know what a social media monitoring software is, let’s look at the list of best social monitoring tools you should consider using!
Best Social Media Monitoring Tools for Your Business
Before we start looking at the tools, here are a couple of factors based on which we’ve chosen the tools on our list!
1. Tracking Ability – What will the social media monitoring tool be able to track & monitor online?
2. Supported Platforms – What platforms does the social media monitoring tool track and provide insights from?
3. Insights & Analytics – The type of insights & reports you get with the help of the tool.
4. Trial Plan/Free Plan – What’s the time period you get to explore the tool. And is there a free plan available?
5. In-App Responses – Does the tool allow you to respond to mentions from within?
6. Client Portfolio – What popular brands use the social media management tool or their services?
7. Pricing – How much does the tool cost to use?
The above-mentioned factors can help get an idea of the tool you should be going with! Like we already said, most of the social media monitoring tools are advanced and lets you do more than just social monitoring. We’ll be looking at the overview of the selected including the advanced features as well!
That said, let’s start looking at the first social media monitoring software on our list!
1. Simplify360
Simplify360 is a complete omnichannel customer experience platform that provides end-to-end customer service solutions. However, you get to choose the social media monitoring suite alone if you don’t want to go for the entire package.
Simplify360 is one of the best social media monitoring tools in the market. The platform allows you to track and monitor brand & non-branded keywords, competitor keywords, hashtags and social media mentions.
As for the insights & analytics part, you get in-depth reports based on customer sentiment, demographics, gender, age and more. You also get to know the voice share of your brand when compared with your competitors, discover new trends based on word clouds and measure post/campaign performance.
What really makes Simplify360 stand out is the seamless auto-tagging feature that makes it easy for you to identify social comments & mentions based on customer sentiment – makes prioritization easier. You also get the option to set custom alerts based on the nature of the issue.
The platform allows you to respond to queries and mentions across all platforms from the dashboard itself!
Simplify360 supports platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, specific URLs, news websites, forums and more.
There’s a 30-day free trial for you to explore with no credit card requirements. Also, there’s a free plan on the way! Simplify360 is trusted and used by top brands like Tata Sky, Xiaomi, Hyundai and more.
Pricing: There’s no fixed pricing for Simplify360’s social media monitoring suite. It depends on your needs. But for the basic plan, you can get it for $48 per month with all the features mentioned above.
Know more about Simplify360’s Social Media Monitoring Tool
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is another popular name when it comes to the social media monitoring softwares! The tool comes with the tagline “Social Is Your Superpower” and definitely does justice to that!
Hoostsuite’s social monitoring tool comes as a part of the package – there’s no standalone option here! The tool follows a freemium approach where you have to pay more for features that matter.
Like any other social media monitoring software, you can track specific keywords, hashtags, social media mentions and more with Hootsuite. If there’s one thing special about Hootsuite, it is its ability to integrate with more than 100+ apps from its dashboard.
Hootsuite is used by top brands like Marketo, General Electronic, SXSW and more.
Though Hootsuite offers you plenty of features, you get the social listening option only as an add-on option at the higher tiers which is something you should take into account.
You can reply to social mentions from the tool itself. Supported platforms would be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and a few more.
Like Simplify360, you get a 30-day trial plan. Also, there’s a free plan to get started with!
Pricing: The basic plan starts at $19 per month and goes up to $499 per month. There’s also a custom plan available for enterprises.
3. Sprout Social
Sprout Social doesn’t need an introduction! If you’ve been looking for a social media monitoring software for quite some time now, there’s a high chance you might have come across Sprout Social already!
You get different tools for monitoring, listening, publishing & scheduling and engaging with the audience.
Sprout Social allows you to track keywords and hashtags, monitor customer sentiment and even set up alerts for high-priority cases.
Sprout Social supports platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc and is used by top brands like Unicef, Purdue University, Shopify and more.
The tool is robust to use but the social listening feature comes as a premium feature which could take a dig into your pockets! If that’s not your priority, then there’s nothing to worry about!
There’s a 30-day free trial plan available with a no credit card requirement.
Pricing: The Standard Plan costs $99 per month and the Advanced Plan costs $249 per month. However, if you need advanced features, you’ve got to pay more.
That’s that with the Sprout Social tool! Let’s move on to the next social media monitoring tool!
4. Zoho Social
Zoho Social is Zoho’s dedicated version of a social media monitoring app. Put simply, Zoho Social is everything you need when it comes to social media monitoring.
The tool allows you to monitor, listen, publish & analyze, all from one place. What makes Zoho Social really cool is its live stream dashboard that lets you monitor your social engagements in real-time.
You can also generate custom reports based on a number of filters and timelines to analyze your brand.
Zoho Social supports Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google+. Like other social media monitoring apps, you can reply from within the tool itself.
There’s a 15-day free trial available with no credit card requirements!
Pricing: There are different pricing plans for businesses and agencies. Plans start from $10 per month and go up to $1500 per year.
5. AgoraPulse
AgoraPulse is a no surprise social media monitoring software. The tool gets the job done with ease – no hassle or whatsoever!
Like all other social monitoring tools, you can monitor, analyze, publish content and reply from within the tool itself. What makes AgoraPulse special is its ability to monitor comments on your Facebook & Instagram ads!
AgoraPulse supports five platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. There’s a forever free plan available and a 30-day free trial for other premium plans.
Pricing: Apart from the free plan, paid plans start at $79 per month and go up to $159 per month. There’s a custom plan for enterprises as well.
6. Keyhole
is another social media monitoring solution we didn’t want to miss out on our blog! The tool is more like a miniature version of what we were seeing above.
Keyhole is more like a hashtag and keyword tracking tool that gives you in-depth analytics like impressions, engagement, brand health, competitor tracking and more.
The platform coverage is limited to Twitter and Instagram. But the in-depth analytics features cover this part so well that you don’t feel the blank!
Keyhole allows you to reply from within the tool and is trusted by top brands like L’Oreal, H&M, Mashable and more.
There are a couple of free tools on offer and a 3-day free trial offered by Keyhole!
Pricing: Basic plan starts from $79 per month and goes up to $999 per month.
7. Talkwalker
is another premium social media monitoring tool on our list. The term premium is because of the high pricing which makes it inaccessible to most businesses out there.
Talkwalker is special because of its ability to track on an extensive number of platforms including TV and radio broadcasts. In fact, it can even recognize images and pull out social media posts for you if the brand name isn’t mentioned!
Other features include customer sentiment analysis, custom set auto alerts and more. With Talkwalker, you can monitor 10+ social networks along with websites, TV and radio broadcasts. And yes, you can reply from within the tool!
Simply said, a social monitoring tool that’s powerful both feature-wise and pricing wise.
Pricing: There’s a free demo available. As for the pricing, it costs somewhere above $8000 per year and goes up to $12,000. There’s a custom plan for enterprises as well!
Which Social Media Monitoring Tool Should You Go With?
If you’re reading this, it’s pretty sure that you’ve come across all the social media monitoring tools we’ve mentioned above!
Though there are a lot of social monitoring platforms out there, we stuck to seven to make your job easier.
Before you choose a social media monitoring software, ask yourself a couple of questions,
What exactly do you want to do with a social media monitoring tool – whether it’s just for the monitoring and analyzing part? Or you’re okay with listening & publishing as well?
How much can you afford to pay for a social monitoring tool – since a few solutions are highly priced, check whether you/your business can afford it!
What platforms do you want to cover? And how are the tracking capabilities of the chosen tool?
What kind of insights does the social monitoring tool give you? Will they help you get a clear picture and make better business decisions?
How is the customer support of the chosen product? Is there a 1-1 personalized onboarding/demo session?
These questions should help you narrow down and choose a social monitoring tool! Also, remember that businesses grow and as they grow, the needs might increase! You’ve got to be ready when you reach that phase!
Just because you don’t exist on LinkedIn or Instagram doesn’t mean you should not choose a tool that covers these platforms. It’s always better to go with a tool that’s light on the price and powerful on the features as well (you do know which one we’re talking about)!
Final Few Words
We’re definitely not going to tell you which social media monitoring platform you should be going with. It could be the first one, or the fourth or even the last one. It’s totally up to you!
But what we can tell you is that social media monitoring isn’t a choice anymore. Only by monitoring what people are saying, you get to make better decisions for your business. And a social monitoring tool helps you do just that!
Now that you’ve got the best social media monitoring tools right in front of you, all that’s left is for you to choose one and get started!
That being said, we’re wrapping it up! Let us know in the comments section which tool you’re going to go with!
Cheers!