Top 13 Social Monitoring Tools for 2024

TL;DR:

• Social monitoring is crucial for tracking brand mentions, engaging with prospective buyers, and staying on top of trends and competitors.
• Top social monitoring tools for 2024 include Letterdrop, Sprout Social, Brandwatch, Sprinklr, Mention, Hootsuite, HubSpot, Agorapulse, Talkwalker, BuzzSumo, Keyhole, Brand24, and Meltwater.
• When using social monitoring tools, be cautious of inaccurate sentiment analysis, overreacting to negative feedback, and spam and bot activity.

So, you're looking to automate your social monitoring.

This will allow you to track mentions, measure sentiment, and react to conversations circulating about your brand in real-time.

Ultimately, this enables you to keep a pulse on what is being said about you, and what conversations you should be joining to drive the needle for your business.

Why Social Monitoring Matters

Brand perception is everything when it comes to furthering conversations with in-market buyers, especially in today's markets where everyone is overloaded with spam.

More specifically, social monitoring helps you to:

1. Engage With Prospective Buyers: By tracking brand or keyword mentions, you can start conversations with prospects in your orbit, keeping your brand top-of-mind when it's time to buy
2. Keep On Top of Trends: If you know which keywords or hashtags to track, you can spot trends early and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to what your customers and prospects care about
3. Keep Track of Competitors: Social monitoring helps you see what competitors and even influencers are up to in the space, allowing you to capitalize on opportunities and potential gaps in the market
4. Protect and Promote Your Brand: Social monitoring is excellent for PR efforts, allowing you to see what people say about you, and letting you spot opportunities to extend the reach of your brand

An Example of Social Monitoring

A good use-case for social monitoring that furthers brand reach is through promoting user-generated content, like this post from a Warmly user.

Warmly got tagged in this and were sure to repost it to their network.

13 Social Monitoring Tools for 2024

1. Letterdrop

G2 Review Score: 4.7/5

Letterdrop is built for social monitoring on LinkedIn and on your website — we have a guide to social listening on LinkedIn here.

You're able to identify in-market accounts and track relevant conversations easily to keep on top of what your ICP are saying about you online.

You're also able to automatically boost these posts natively in LinkedIn to reach more networks.

Key Features:

• Automated Keyword Monitoring and Alerts: Track LinkedIn keywords and mentions, with alerts delivered via Slack
• ICP Filtering: Easily label and segment engaged accounts according to your ICP
• Historical Engagement Data: Get detailed historical engagement data delivered directly from LinkedIn or your website into an organized dashboard
• Automatically Boost Posts: You can automate likes, comments, and reposts from your team to amplify posts to more networks

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2. Sprout Social

G2 Review Score: 4.4/5

Sprout Social has powerful social monitoring capabilities alongside its social management features. It allows users to track mentions, hashtags, and keywords across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Key Features:

• Real-Time Monitoring: Track brand mentions, keywords, and hashtags in real time across multiple platforms
• Sentiment Analysis: Quickly gauge how users feel about your brand (positive, negative, or neutral)
• Competitor Analysis: Understand what competitors are doing and spot opportunities for improvement

3. Brandwatch

G2 Review Score: 4.3/5

Brandwatch is a powerful tool for larger enterprises needing in-depth social listening across multiple platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, and more. It offers advanced filters and robust reporting for tracking brand health.

Key Features:

• Unlimited Search Queries: Perform extensive searches across platforms without limits
• Boolean Operators: Use advanced filtering to refine search results
• Sentiment & Trend Analysis: Understand public sentiment and track emerging trends
• Real-Time Alerts: Get notified of spikes or drops in mentions to react quickly to crises or opportunities​

4. Sprinklr

G2 Review Score: 4.2/5

Sprinklr is an enterprise-grade platform offering extensive social listening across 30+ digital and social channels, making it ideal for larger brands.

It makes it easy to see positive versus negative brand association.

Key Features:

• AI-Powered Insights: Automatically detect trends, themes, and anomalies across large datasets
• Competitor Benchmarking: Track your brand’s performance against competitors
• Crisis Management: Detect crises early with real-time alerts for spikes in negative mentions or media coverage
• Multi-Channel Listening: Monitor conversations across social networks, blogs, forums, and more​

5. Mention

G2 Review Score: 4.4/5

Mention is designed for real-time tracking of brand mentions across the web and social media, making it an excellent choice for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers real-time notifications and simple, intuitive dashboards.

Key Features:

• Real-Time Alerts: Get notified the moment your brand is mentioned online
• Custom Dashboards: Personalize the display of metrics and insights that matter most to you
• Sentiment Tracking: Track the tone of conversations around your brand to monitor public perception​

6. Hootsuite

G2 Review Score: 4.1/5

Hootsuite is best known for its social media management capabilities but also offers powerful social monitoring features.

Key Features:

• Keyword and Hashtag Monitoring: Track specific terms, hashtags, or brand mentions in real-time across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
• Post Scheduling and Engagement: Hootsuite allows you to schedule posts across platforms and respond to comments and messages without switching between native apps
• Analytics: View engagement analytics that help you understand the performance of your posts and campaign

7. HubSpot

G2 Review Score: 4.5/5

Key Features:

• Post Performance Tracking: Monitor interactions, engagements, and content performance across all major social platforms
• Integrated CRM: Connect social data directly to your CRM for a seamless marketing experience
• Custom Dashboards: Create custom dashboards to track the most relevant metrics for your business

8. Agorapulse

G2 Review Score: 4.5/5

Agorapulse is a well-rounded social media management tool that also offers in-depth social monitoring capabilities. It’s particularly valuable for agencies and businesses managing multiple accounts and platforms.

Key Features:

• Unified Inbox: Manage all social messages and comments in one place, improving response times and collaboration
• Competitor Insights: Keep tabs on your competitors by tracking their mentions and engagement metrics
• Customizable Reports: Generate easy-to-digest reports on your brand’s performance across various social platforms

9. Talkwalker

G2 Review Score: 4.2/5

Talkwalker is a powerful tool for social monitoring that goes beyond traditional platforms by including visual recognition and other advanced analytics.

Key Features:

• Trend and Sentiment Analysis: Monitor both the latest trends and public sentiment to stay ahead of industry shifts
• Visual Recognition: Talkwalker can identify brand logos and images in social media posts, adding a unique layer to brand monitoring
• Influencer Identification: This tool helps you discover and engage with influencers that are relevant to your brand
• Competitive Benchmarking: Track and compare your brand’s performance against competitors across various platforms

10. BuzzSumo

G2 Review Score: 4.6/5

BuzzSumo focuses on content discovery and social listening, helping businesses track trending topics, competitors, and influencers across multiple platforms.

Key Features:

• Content Performance Tracking: Monitor the performance of specific content pieces across social media to understand what resonates with audiences
• Influencer Identification: Find and engage with key influencers within your industry
• Trend Monitoring: Stay up-to-date on trending topics to ensure your brand is part of relevant conversations
• Competitive Analysis: Track what content is performing well for your competitors

11. Keyhole

G2 Review Score: 4.3/5

Keyhole specializes in tracking conversations around specific hashtags, keywords, and influencers, providing detailed reports and real-time insights.

It is particularly suited for businesses focused on influencer marketing and tracking social campaigns.

Key Features:

• Influencer Tracking: Identify and track influencers who are relevant to your campaigns, enabling you to start conversations in the space
• Hashtag & Keyword Analytics: Track engagement around specific hashtags or keywords to understand campaign performance
• Real-Time Data: View mentions and engagement data in real-time, helping you optimize on-the-fly

12. Brand24

G2 Review Score: 4.6/5

Brand24 is a cost-effective social media monitoring tool ideal for small to mid-sized businesses. It provides comprehensive social listening, including forums, blogs, and review sites, in addition to social networks.

Key Features:

• Mention Analytics: Monitor mentions across various channels and analyze the sentiment behind them
• Influence Score: Identify key influencers and their potential impact on your brand
• Custom Reports: Generate detailed reports to track brand awareness and campaign performance​

13. Meltwater

G2 Review Score: 4.2/5

Meltwater offers robust tracking, able to do so across social media, blogs, news outlets, and review sites. It’s ideal for businesses that want a broader perspective beyond just social media.

Key Features:

• Cross-Platform Monitoring: Monitor mentions across not only social media but also news sites and forums
• Sentiment Analysis: Understand the sentiment of online conversations to react accordingly
• Crisis Management: Receive alerts for negative mentions or issues before they escalate​

Take AI-Driven Insights With a Pinch of Salt

When using social monitoring tools, especially those that claim to "analyze sentiment", it’s important to avoid a few common pitfalls:

1. Inaccurate Sentiment Analysis: AI-driven sentiment analysis isn't perfect. It can misread sarcasm, slang, or context, leading to misleading insights. Always double-check critical data manually.
2. Overreacting to Negative Feedback: Not every negative mention needs an immediate response. Overreacting to minor issues can make them bigger than they are. Pick your battles wisely.
3. Spam and Bot Activity: Be cautious about relying on all mentions—bots or fake accounts might inflate your data, skewing results. Focus on genuine engagement.

If you want to focus on accurate and data-driven social monitoring on LinkedIn specifically, feel free to reach out to us over here at Letterdrop.