10 Best Social Media Monitoring Tools To Manage Your Brand Reputation

According to the 2021 Hootsuite report, about 15 new users create a social media account every second. Moreover, 45% of global internet users say they use social media instead of search engines to find products or services.

These stats don’t surprise us anymore. Over the last few years, social media has become one of the most crucial marketing channels. Today, starting online campaigns is built into almost every small business strategy.

? Read Media Monitoring: The Ultimate Guide

However, managing an online reputation is a huge challenge for small business owners. Monitoring mentions and keeping track of the data manually requires a tremendous amount of time and effort.

You probably already know this, and that’s why you’re here. You need a hand to boost your productivity and streamline your workflow, and that doesn’t mean hiring somebody to tackle this job.  

Instead, take a look at these alternatives. An effective social media monitoring tool can become your new superpower. 

Top 10 Social Media Monitoring Tools

Now that you’ve seen the overview and comparison of the top 10 social media monitoring tools, let’s take a more detailed look into the features, pros, and cons of each tool!

#1 Determ

Determ is a high-performance monitoring tool that allows users to be notified as soon as their company, product or service gets mentioned in any language and across more than 100 million online sources. What’s more, it offers an unlimited number of users, keywords, and media reports on all paid plans. 

It’s a great tool if you want to react quickly to all mentions, and you can even see notifications in real-time through its mobile app, email, and Slack integrations. This is a tool used by marketers to manage their brand’s online reputation and to respond to crises. 

As many users state, the interface is simple to use and anyone can quickly learn how to use the tool effectively. What’s more, Determ stands out with its exceptional support. Their customers can gain from the significant experience of a team who are friendly and always ready to assist.

✔  Main Pros of Determ

1. Real-time competitors, mentions, and trend tracking in every language.
2. 24/7 alerts via email (customized frequency and limits), Slack, the Determ mobile app, and digest scheduling.
3. Advanced filtering options that deliver precise and relevant results (+ Boolean Operators that allow for tracking of all forms of keywords, creating context, and avoiding mention limit breaches).
4. In-depth reports can be almost fully customized and exported in the form of PDF, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents.
5. White label solution, so you can brand your own ready-to-go media monitoring tool.
6. A well-developed blog that assists users with many topics of social listening, reputation management, and online trends. 

✗ Main Cons of Determ

1. No monitoring of print, radio, or TV sources.
2. Optimizing queries can be a little difficult. However, once correctly set-up this is no longer problematic.

Pricing

Determ doesn’t have the pricing info available online, but the prices are available upon request.

#2 BrandMentions

BrandMentions also provides real-time tracking and notifications, but only from the mid-priced plan up. So if you choose a more expensive plan, you will always be able to stay up-to-date with your brand’s status. The developers guarantee that you can learn about your customers and their interests to create a product that suits their needs by using this tool.

Although it has a lot of advanced features (such as white-label reports), they’re only available on the higher-priced plans. 

✔  Main Pros of BrandMentions

1. Clean, easy-to-use interface. 
2. Historical data for web and social mentions. You can access data from six months to ten years ago, depending on the subscription level.

✗ Main Cons of BrandMentions

1. No mobile app.
2. PDF reports don’t provide much data. For small companies with limited mentions, more specific details about each one should be available.
3. There is no option to select only the features you need (non-customizable offer). 
4. A small range of features in the lowest-priced plan. 

Pricing

The cheapest plan starts at €83 per month, but it allows only 15 keywords and 10,000 mentions. The most recommended plan costs €250 monthly. All plans are limited by the number of users and keywords. There is no option for a customized price plan depending on chosen features. BrandMentions offers a 7-day free trial. 

#3 Brand24

Brand24 is a simple social media monitoring solution. It will work in companies of all sizes, helping to manage brand reputation, tracking competitors, reaching out to influencers, and monitoring marketing campaigns. It will provide you with everything that most such platforms do.

However, Brand24 not only collects data based on keyword phrases but also analyzes the sentiment of these mentions. It’s a really good option if you want to understand your audience better. 

✔  Main Pros of Brand24

1. Sentiment Analysis (positive, negative, neutral) to better understand customers’ attitudes. 
2. Well-developed YouTube channel that helps users solve problems relating to the platform.
3. Wide range of sources from which data are collected.

✗ Main Cons of Brand24

1. Complicated set-up process.
2. If you don’t carefully plan your monitoring project, you may run into trouble with keyword limitations (especially if you’re not too familiar with the topic).

Pricing

The cheapest plan with 5 keywords and 5 users costs only about €41 per month. However, this option doesn’t allow you to download the reports or use more advanced features. The most popular plan (premium, for €83 monthly) provides a good range of features and helps you to make more professional mention analyses. Brand24 provides a 14-day free trial without requiring a credit card.

#4 Mention

Mention is a tool that allows you to monitor your social media, but it goes further by playing the role of a social media management tool. As a result, it also provides features that streamline the publication of your content. This tool (on the top price plan) enables users to reduce noise and refine the quality of mentions.

✔  Main Pros of Mention

1. A billion tracked sources.
2. Planning & managing social media posting (available with each plan).
3. Industry reports (the latest one is the Instagram Engagement Report 2020).

✗ Main Cons of Mention

1. Many people complain about the quality of their support. 
2. Getting familiar with the platform can be challenging.

Pricing

The cheapest plan costs about €24 per month, but it’s recommended for personal use rather than small businesses. That is why we will focus on the more expensive plan, which costs €83 monthly and is dedicated to small business owners. It’s not limited by the number of users, only by keywords. Mention offers a 14-day free trial and a demo of the highest-priced plan for big companies. 

Read How to Promote Your Small Business on Social Media With A Limited Budget in 6 Steps

#5 Digimind

Digimind was founded in 1998, so they can be proud of their huge customer base. It’s a social media monitoring software solution that emphasizes its AI-powered intelligence. This tool provides a set of comprehensive analytical features that optimize content strategy, identify market trends, and keep pace with innovation. 

✔  Main Pros of Digimind

1. AI capabilities that process even slang. 
2. Consumer insights include behavior, demographics, and interests. 
3. Digimind Academy – e-learning with certification (videos, text explanations, quizzes).

✗ Main Cons of Digimind

1. Sorting data is very time-consuming and demanding.
2. The platform is more complicated than other tools, and its complex set-ups can be challenging for most users.

Pricing

The Digimind website does not provide pricing information. 

#6 Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a social media analytics tool that is intended more for large companies’ services than for small businesses. It provides many advanced features based on AI. It’s best for clients who need comprehensive coverage, but not necessarily unlimited mentions. 

✔  Main Pros of Brandwatch

1. Recently updated, very modern interface design.
2. Access to historical data going back to 2010. 
3. AI-powered features: AI analyst, Image analysis, Auto segmentation (classifying segment data automatically), Instant analysis.

✗ Main Cons of Brandwatch

1. No mobile app.
2. No free trial to check whether it’s right for you. To try a demo, you need to book a meeting with an expert (making it a better choice for large companies rather than small businesses).
3. People complain that the pricing structure is unclear.

Pricing

The Brandwatch website does not provide pricing information. 

#7 Talkwalker

Talkwalker is a good option for businesses that need an all-in-one solution. Combining advanced Artificial Intelligence provides relevant data and features that help build brand reputation. Their services and products are sorted by industries to simplify access to information.

✔  Main Pros of Talkwalker

1. Highly flexible dashboards.
2. Simple interface makes it easy to use and learn. 
3. Great customer support.

✗ Main Cons of Talkwalker

1. No mobile app. 
2. Slightly outdated interface with no dynamic graphs.
3. Missing LinkedIn and Facebook real-time monitoring.
4. Slow response and challenging to master.  

Pricing

Talkwalker divides its offer into three categories: Listening, Analytics, and Research. It does not provide much more pricing information, apart from that the social listening solution costs €6,000 annually. To get more details about the rest of the offer, you need to contact their sales team.

#8 Meltwater

Meltwater is a user-friendly tool for marketers that provides media monitoring, outreach, social listening, and a few social media management tool features. However, if you already use tools for scheduling and publishing posts, this solution might not be suitable for you.

It may, however, work well if you’re looking for a monitoring and managing tool in one and you don’t need to make complex reports and analytics. It also gives you the ability to publish and schedule posts.

✔  Main Pros of Meltwater

1. Easy to navigate dashboard.
2. Data presented in an interesting way using stunning graphs.

✗ Main Cons of Meltwater

1. Analytics are limited. 
2. Difficult to configure for monitoring. 

Pricing

The Meltwater website does not provide pricing information. 

#9 Awario

Awario is mainly targeted towards smaller businesses because of its low cost. It does not offer many features, but the most important ones for social monitoring are available. It’s a good tool for searching for basic mentions. This is a relatively young platform that could grow in the future. 

✔  Main Pros of Awario

1. Awario Learning Center – tutorial videos help users discover the capabilities of the tool. 
2. Sentiment Analysis (positive, negative, neutral).
3. Good data visualizations make the platform fun to use. Pop-ups and dynamic animations appear with mouse movement. 

✗ Main Cons of Awario

1. Not a comprehensive or complex tool.

Pricing

The offer includes three plans, the cheapest starting from €25 monthly. However, it is limited to only three keywords and basic features. A much better option for small businesses is the Pro Plan (which is the most popular too) that costs €75 per month. Even the highest-priced plan (€250 monthly) has a limited number of mentions and keywords. A free, 14-day trial is available.

#10 Mentionlytics

Mentionlytics uses algorithms to analyze all mentions and insights to provide the optimal solution automatically. The setup seems to be very easy and the process of mastering the tool shouldn’t be a problem, especially with the guide for it that is available. It offers features tailored to agencies that streamline collaboration, and it’s great if you have to work using a tool together with colleagues.

✔  Main Pros of Mentionlytics

1. Problem-solving supportive team. 
2. Collaboration features that can streamline the workflow.
3. A step-by-step guide with instructions on how to set up an account and how long it takes. 

✗ Main Cons of Mentionlytics

1. UX could be improved (it is not exactly user-friendly).
2. The mobile app has a limited set of features.

Pricing

Mentionlytics offers four price plans that vary by the limits on the number of keywords, mentions, social profiles, users, available features, and type of alerts. The costs range from €85 to €380 per month. A free trial is available for 14-days without requiring a credit card.

Read 7 Social Media Monitoring Benefits

Summing up on Social Media Monitoring Tools

In this article, we’ve brought you a detailed comparison of the top 10 social media monitoring tools. On top of that, you can also find an in-depth overview of each tools’ features, pros, and cons.

Armed with this knowledge, you can easily select the right social media monitoring tool that suits your business needs and goals. Luckily, there are many to choose from.

Fancy Determ? Book a demo call with our experts and we’ll take you on a test ride.