Imagine understanding your customers’ values, interests, and motivations—insight that would make crafting targeted messages and managing brand reputation much easier. While mind-reading isn’t possible, social listening tools offer a close alternative by tracking and analyzing social media conversations about your brand or topics of interest. These tools help monitor online discussions, providing data that can inform key marketing decisions.
However, the quality of insights depends heavily on the tools you use. Here are the top social listening tools to consider for gaining valuable audience insights.
What Is Social Media Monitoring?
Social media monitoring, often called social listening, entails tracking and evaluating online discussions that mention your brand. For example, if someone talks about your company on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or X (formerly Twitter), these interactions can reveal valuable insights into how your brand is perceived, through both posts and user comments.
Keeping track of all these online conversations can feel overwhelming. Even with advanced social listening tools, engaging directly with your audience is crucial for building relationships and enhancing brand loyalty. Manually reviewing every conversation across platforms would require a large team working constantly—a task most businesses simply cannot manage. Social media monitoring tools streamline this process, capturing and analyzing the relevant conversations to provide actionable insights for your brand.
To maximize social listening, detailed social listening reports are key, helping track trends, assess sentiment, and understand brand perception. For more, see this guide on generating effective reports.
What is a Social Listening Tool?
A social listening tool functions similarly to a search engine. Just as search engines deploy crawlers to scan the web for content related to specific terms, social listening tools monitor social media platforms to gather mentions of your brand or relevant topics. This information is then collected and organized, enabling your marketing team to respond to inquiries, address feedback, and conduct thorough social media analysis.
Social listening tools track conversations, brand mentions, and trends across platforms, providing valuable insights for marketers. For more, see this detailed overview of social listening.
The Importance of Social Listening
Social listening and monitoring are crucial for any brand. While customer reviews and data reveal useful insights into your audience, they often don’t provide the full picture.
Key benefits of social listening include:
Enhances Customer Support
When customers are dissatisfied or have questions, they often reach out on social media rather than through email or the brand’s website. In these situations, it’s crucial for brands to notice and respond promptly. Ignoring social media inquiries—intentionally or accidentally—can leave customers feeling overlooked. A timely response, on the other hand, makes customers feel valued and heard, strengthening their connection to the brand.
Measures Brand Awareness
Building brand awareness starts with understanding current perceptions. Social listening tools provide data on where discussions about your brand are happening and highlight areas that may need more attention. For example, if customers are actively discussing your brand on Instagram but not on X, this insight can guide your strategy to increase engagement where it’s lacking, ensuring a broader and more balanced audience reach.
Monitors Brand Reputation
Monitoring social media not only shows where and how often your brand is mentioned but also provides insights into the overall sentiment surrounding it. Customers frequently express their feelings—whether they are happy, upset, curious, or confused—through social platforms. According to statistics, 73% of consumers read comments on social media ads to evaluate a brand’s reputation, and one in three users has encountered negative feedback on a brand’s social media pages.
Developing a strong social listening strategy enables brands to engage effectively with their audience, respond to feedback, and adapt to shifting market trends. A comprehensive approach can strengthen customer relationships and foster brand loyalty. Learn more about creating a successful social listening strategy.
Given the importance of monitoring online sentiment, let’s explore affordable options. Many social listening tools on the market can help you track and understand these conversations, allowing you to find the best fit for your brand’s needs.
Top 11 Free Social Listening Tools to Consider
Tracking brand mentions, customer sentiments, and trending topics can reveal valuable insights to shape your strategies. Free social listening tools offer essential features to monitor online conversations without budget strain. Here’s a rundown of the top 11 free options to consider for staying on top of what matters most to your audience.
Twilert
Twilert is a comprehensive Twitter monitoring tool designed to help digital marketers and businesses track X conversations without wasting time or money. By supporting advanced Boolean search operators, Twilert allows users to tailor Twitter alerts by including or excluding specific keywords, locations, and languages, providing laser-focused insights. The platform offers scheduled and real-time alerts sent directly to email, making it easy to stay on top of breaking news, customer queries, and PR opportunities.
Twilert’s features also include search history and digest reports, which allow users to revisit important tweets and delete unwanted retweets or likes from their own accounts. The platform’s geo-targeting tools enable targeted searches within specific areas, and its grouping feature supports multiple users, accounts, and email groups, making it ideal for agencies. With over a decade of service, Twilert’s robust toolset ensures brands can monitor their presence effectively, engage with relevant conversations, and discover valuable opportunities across X.
Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a powerful and free tool that keeps brands informed about consumer trends and industry insights. It’s easy to use and helps monitor mentions of your brand, direct competitors, or even a broader set of related topics. Including alternative spellings and company nicknames ensures comprehensive tracking of mentions across various channels.
To get started, simply enter your brand name (or that of a competitor) in Google Alerts. The tool will then send notifications whenever it finds new content relevant to your specified keywords. This feature is particularly useful for tracking product updates, new content releases, and significant news in your industry. It’s an effective way to monitor ongoing market changes with minimal effort.
Google Alerts also works well alongside Google Trends, which allows access to real-time data about consumer interest in your brand and competition. By combining Google Alerts with Google Trends, brands gain a complete view of what’s being discussed and searched, supporting more informed strategic decisions.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a widely used tool that provides comprehensive insights into how users interact with your brand’s online presence. While it’s often known for tracking basic metrics like page views and clicks, Google Analytics also reveals detailed data on user behavior patterns, helping identify what truly engages your audience. With real-time analytics, brands can make timely, data-driven decisions that adapt to current trends, while long-term trend analysis helps in shaping larger strategic goals.
This tool is also invaluable for assessing the effectiveness of various campaigns, helping brands see which elements drive the most engagement and conversions. Whether monitoring traffic sources, bounce rates, or content performance, Google Analytics offers a complete view of what’s working and what might need adjustment, all for free.
Google Trends
Google Trends is a practical tool for tracking worldwide search behavior, offering insights into what people are searching for and their intent. This information helps in spotting emerging trends and understanding audience interests. With its dynamic visualizations, Google Trends provides a quick snapshot of trending topics, while more detailed data analysis reveals patterns that can support content creation, product development, and overall marketing strategies.
Using Google Trends allows brands to stay informed by monitoring trending topics and adjusting strategies based on real-time search data. This tool helps align brand messaging with current interests, enabling the creation of relevant and timely content that connects with audiences.
Fedica
Fedica provides more than simple hashtag and keyword tracking. It offers timely email alerts for brand mentions and keyword updates, making it easier to monitor important conversations as they occur. With Fedica’s geo-targeted trending topics, businesses can increase content relevance by aligning with local interests. Additionally, Fedica helps businesses stay competitive by analyzing competitor followers and identifying profitable niches through a detailed review of X lists, accounts, and specific discussions.
Answer the Public
Answer the Public is a widely-used free social listening tool that taps into autocomplete data from search engines like Google, helping users uncover common questions and phrases related to their keywords. This tool is a valuable source of consumer insights, enabling brands to create fresh, relevant content and improve customer experiences.
For more extensive needs, Answer the Public offers a Pro subscription with unlimited daily searches, weekly email digests, data export options, team workspaces, and training resources, ideal for brands aiming for deeper insights and more comprehensive usage.
Buffer
Buffer provides a robust analytics dashboard centered on engagement metrics across platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. This tool delivers detailed insights into engagement patterns, hashtag performance, and the reach of both organic and paid content. With daily report updates and practical insights, Buffer supports brands in monitoring, interacting, and making timely strategic adjustments to enhance their social media performance.
Followerwonk
Followerwonk is a versatile social listening and Twitter analytics tool that helps optimize social profiles for growth. It allows users to explore follower demographics, analyze X bios using advanced filters, sort and track followers, and much more. Followerwonk is free for users managing a single profile, while paid plans are available for connecting up to 20 profiles, offering greater flexibility for larger social strategies.
Social Mention
Social Mention is a user-friendly, free social listening tool that compiles user-generated content from over 100 social media platforms into a single, streamlined feed. This tool enables real-time tracking of what people are saying about your brand, products, or any chosen topic across social networks like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, FriendFeed, Digg, and more. It’s ideal for capturing insights and staying updated on public sentiment.
Owler
Though not exclusively a social listening tool, Owler offers valuable insights that support social media monitoring. It provides daily updates on competitors by aggregating data from various online sources, including social media. Owler specializes in delivering timely, community-driven business insights, making it easy to track competitor activities, industry news, and market changes. Additionally, Owler offers detailed competitor profiles, including updates on funding, leadership shifts, and acquisitions, helping brands stay informed on industry movements.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch empowers teams to collect and analyze data from social media platforms and review sites, providing valuable insights to enhance brand perception. Through its collaboration with ReviewTrackers, Brandwatch helps pinpoint customer pain points, address feedback on social channels, and discover opportunities to elevate brand reputation and ratings.
Brandwatch offers advanced features like author analysis, page type analysis, and topic and sentiment analysis, making it straightforward to interpret large-scale social conversations. Interested users can access a free demo to explore the capabilities of Brandwatch.
Top Social Listening Tools with Free 7-Day Trials
If you’re looking to try out social listening tools before committing, several options offer seven-day free trials. While not entirely free, a week provides ample time to explore features, evaluate their performance, and decide if they’re worth the investment for your brand. Here are some popular tools to consider:
Emplifi
Emplifi is a customer engagement platform designed to boost social media marketing and improve customer experience. With its easy-to-use interface, teams can research, schedule, and publish content across major social media channels. Emplifi offers real-time insights that support fast, data-driven decisions, allowing brands to respond to trends effectively and meet audience expectations more efficiently.
Brand Mentions
Brand Mentions goes beyond its name, providing comprehensive social listening by scanning the internet for any mention of your brand in online discussions. It gathers and categorizes results around trending topics, delivering an organized report that shows conversations about your brand across platforms like X, Facebook, YouTube, and others.
Konnect Insights
Konnect Insights expands beyond social media, ensuring you capture all relevant conversations about your brand across the web. This tool allows you to analyze customer data, gain real-time market intelligence, and adjust your marketing strategies based on valuable insights. Konnect Insights also offers competitor tracking to reveal what’s resonating with their audiences, helping you stay ahead.
Top Social Listening Tools Offering Two-Week to Month-Long Free Trials
Take your time exploring these social listening tools with extended free trials ranging from two weeks to a full month. This extra trial period lets you thoroughly test features, evaluate performance, and decide which tools best suit your brand’s needs.
Facelift
Facelift is a comprehensive social listening tool that operates across all major social media platforms. It enables brands to create authentic, data-driven content that not only broadens reach but also enhances conversion rates. By providing insightful analytics, Facelift helps brands connect with their audience on a deeper level and assess the overall social impact of their efforts. With a two-week free trial, you can explore its features and see how it fits your social media strategy.
Sendible
Sendible is a top-tier social media management platform designed to help companies efficiently oversee their social media activities. Its automation features make it easy to drive engagement and build a dedicated following. With detailed, data-rich reports on social media performance, Sendible offers valuable insights into the effectiveness of campaigns, empowering brands to refine their strategies. A two-week free trial lets you test the platform’s capabilities to see if it meets your needs.
Mentionlytics
Mentionlytics is a robust brand monitoring tool that supports companies in managing their reputation and tracking brand mentions. With its social listening capabilities, it keeps a close watch on competitor activity and delivers sentiment analysis to gauge audience opinions. The platform also identifies industry influencers, helping brands forge meaningful connections and generate new leads. Take advantage of a two-week free trial to experience its full suite of features.
Mention
Mention simplifies brand monitoring by allowing users to input specific terms, such as brand names or related keywords. The tool scans the internet for any content containing these terms, gathering mentions from social media posts, blogs, news articles, images, and videos. All of this data is then presented on one user-friendly platform, making it easy for brands to stay informed about their online presence. The two-week free trial provides an opportunity to test its efficiency and see how well it aligns with your monitoring needs.
Brand24
Brand24 goes beyond basic tracking with its AI-powered technology, monitoring a vast range of online conversations across news platforms, blogs, social media, and more. By tapping into over 25 million sources in real time, it provides a comprehensive overview of your brand’s online presence. Advanced sentiment analysis categorizes mentions into positive, negative, or neutral, creating a clear picture of the emotional tone around your brand. Report creation is enhanced with AI-generated word clouds and essential metrics, offering actionable insights. With support for 108 languages, Brand24 breaks language barriers for a truly global reach. A two-week free trial lets you experience these powerful features firsthand.
Zoho Social
Zoho Social is a versatile tool for managing brand conversations, focusing on key areas like core keywords, brand hashtags, and product reviews. Its real-time insights are accessible through a customizable dashboard featuring columns for @mentions, keyword searches, and comprehensive hashtag tracking. Filters allow you to zero in on specific activities across multiple social platforms, while CRM integration helps in labeling and tracking valuable leads. Test Zoho Social’s capabilities with a 15-day free trial to see how it enhances your social media management.
Welov.io
Welov.io empowers brands to maximize their impact across various social platforms, offering a wealth of insights from detailed metrics and KPIs to performance analysis and content intelligence. Designed to simplify complex data, Welov.io provides clear, actionable insights to support strategic decision-making for marketing teams. With a three-week free trial, you can explore Welov.io’s potential to optimize your social media performance and streamline your strategy.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a robust social media management tool that includes Hootsuite Insights, a social listening feature that consolidates brand mentions from platforms like Facebook, YouTube, X, and Instagram. Instead of manually checking each channel, Hootsuite gathers all relevant posts in one place, allowing brands to respond efficiently. With a 30-day free trial, you can experience Hootsuite’s streamlined social listening and management tools to see if it’s the right fit for your needs.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a powerful content analysis tool with extensive social listening capabilities. It allows brands to search the web for mentions, compiling engagement metrics—such as views, likes, clicks, and shares—on each social media post. This insight reveals not only which platforms are most active in discussions about your brand but also where the most meaningful conversations are happening. Take advantage of BuzzSumo’s 30-day free trial to explore its robust analytics and social listening tools.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social offers scalable, intuitive social media solutions designed to enhance collaboration and boost engagement. With real-time insights, this platform supports smarter, faster decisions by providing tools for team collaboration, audience engagement, and streamlined publishing workflows. Its comprehensive analytics allow businesses to make data-driven choices and achieve stronger social media results. Sprout Social’s 30-day free trial lets you experience its extensive capabilities firsthand.
AgoraPulse
AgoraPulse is a comprehensive social media marketing and CRM suite tailored for agencies, business owners, and marketers managing social platforms like Facebook, X, and Instagram. It provides tools for publishing, reporting, monitoring, and team collaboration, along with a unified inbox to help keep communications organized. AgoraPulse streamlines social media management, saving time and making it easy to stay on top of your accounts. Try all its features with a 30-day free trial to see how it can optimize your social media workflow.
Final Thoughts
These social listening tools come with various features to help brands monitor their audience interactions, manage their online reputation, and collect useful insights. With options ranging from free trials to entirely free tools, there’s plenty to choose from. Whether you’re focused on tracking mentions, engaging customers, or collecting data insights, each tool on this list can support your brand in making effective, informed decisions in 2024.
