Before we start comparing social media listening tools, let's talk about what they are and why it's important to track mentions of your brand on social media.
Social Media Listening Tool is a service that allows you to track, analyze, and respond to mentions of your brand, your competitor's brand, or keywords you specify. Data is usually collected automatically from social networks such as Reddit, X (Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. This tool helps you understand how people perceive your product or service. Many tools allow you to analyze mentions using AI, so you will always know whether there are more positive or negative mentions.
These tools include an analytics section that will give you an understanding of whether your business is moving in the right direction in the eyes of your customers. It is critical for businesses to know these metrics so that they can respond in a timely manner and fix the problem before it escalates.
It is practically impossible to manually track brand mentions; it takes a lot of time and the response to problematic mentions will be too slow, so using a social media listening tool is practically a necessity.
There are many such tools, all of which differ in functionality and price. I spent some time testing the five most popular social media listening tools.
Brandmentions was originally designed to track mentions in blogs and forums, but over time they added the ability to track mentions on social media. Mentions are updated once a day (Starter plan), which is generally slow for responding to negative mentions. This service allows you to track mentions in the archive for up to one year, which is useful if you need to find old mentions of your brand.
The service offers a seven-day trial, but the initial setup can be difficult because the service interface is confusing.
Prices start at $99 per month, which includes 5,000 mentions of your brand per month and AI sentiment analysis of those mentions.
We have a detailed article about the Brandmentions service, which you can read here.
The MentionTracking tool is quite different from Brandmentions. MentionTracking was originally developed specifically as a social media listening tool, and therefore works best with social networks, although it also supports tracking mentions in blogs, forums, and news.
A big plus of MentionTracking is that it has a free plan that includes tracking mentions on Reddit and HackerNews. Paid plans offer the ability to track mentions on Reddit, X (Twitter), Instagram, HackerNews, YouTube, blogs, and forums. Mentions are updated every hour, which is fast enough to respond to negative mentions. This service is primarily designed as a real-time tracker, so if quick updates on new mentions are important to you, this service is a good choice. In the analytics section, you can easily understand the general sentiment of people regarding your brand, as well as generate a detailed PDF report. The service also offers the option to download all mentions with filtering capabilities in XLS format. The interface in this service is convenient and intuitive, and adding keywords is easy.
Prices start at $29 per month, for which you get 1,000 mentions per month, AI sentiment analysis, and the ability to set up notifications to your email or Slack. In my opinion, setting up notifications is a must-have, as this way you will receive notifications on your phone in almost real time and will always be able to respond in time.
Brand24 is a comprehensive tool for tracking mentions on social media, with a strong emphasis on AI in analyzing mentions and generating reports. This tool allows you to automatically generate daily reports on PR coverage, campaigns, and metrics. Brand24 supports various filters and can filter out irrelevant mentions and use geolocation. This service is particularly focused on large businesses, with clients including companies such as Uber and Panasonic.
To test the service, you can get a 14-day trial on the Individual plan.
Prices for this tool start at $199 per month, which once again shows that this service is focused on big business. With this plan, you will receive 2,000 mentions per month, updates every 12 hours, and AI sentiment analysis.
Mentionlytics is a web and social media monitoring tool with a clean, pleasant, but slightly outdated interface. The tool can be automatically integrated with the Hootsuite platform, so if you use Hootsuite, you will find Mentionlytics convenient to use. This tool also features AI sentiment analysis of mentions and trend identification. The tool provides personalized recommendations, helps find influencers, and conducts competitor benchmarking. The service's clients are mainly large and medium-sized businesses.
The service offers a 14-day trial period during which you can get acquainted with the features and performance of the service.
Prices start at $59 per month. This plan includes 5,000 mentions, updates every 12 hours, but most AI features are not included.
Another popular tool for tracking mentions on social media is Syften. The service mainly positions itself as a tool for indie developers and technical specialists. Therefore, the service interface may seem confusing, and you will have to read several manuals to understand how the filters work. The Entry plan does not allow you to track mentions on X (Twitter) and has many restrictions on functionality in general, so you will have to purchase a more expensive plan for normal functionality. The service also offers AI sentiment analysis of mentions, but only in the most expensive plan. Overall, Syften finds many irrelevant mentions, which makes working with the service difficult, as you have to manually delete these mentions. It is also unclear how often mentions are updated, but based on my experience using this service, I can say that mentions were updated approximately once a day.
Prices start at $19.95 per month, but this price does not include tracking mentions on X (Twitter) or YouTube, nor does it include any analysis features. Therefore, only the $99.95 per month plan is suitable for comfortable work.
If you're a small or medium-sized business or startup, MentionTracking is likely your primary social media listening tool. Easy setup, and you can start receiving mentions directly in your Slack or email. MentionTracking includes all the essential features, an affordable price, and responsive support.
For larger businesses with a large budget, Brandmentions is likely the best choice, as it includes many features needed by large teams, such as crisis management and community influencers.
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