10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools Every Marketer Should Know

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Consider posting great content to social media, only to realize days or weeks later that nobody saw it. Instead of engaging your audience and boosting brand awareness, the post had somehow slipped through the cracks. You’d want to know how to measure brand awareness on social media to figure out what happened, right? The same goes for social media monitoring.

When you track the right metrics, you can get valuable insights into your audience and improve their perception of your brand. This guide will introduce you to 10 free social media monitoring tools that can help you boost brand awareness.

Before you know it, you’ll be on your way to measuring what matters.

Monitoring social media means tracking and analyzing online conversations about your brand, competitors, products, or keywords. This practice helps businesses gain insights into audience sentiment, trending conversations, and the performance of their campaigns in real-time. By monitoring social media activity, companies can engage directly with their audience, respond to feedback, and make informed decisions based on data. It’s a proactive way to stay connected with the online world and address opportunities or challenges as they arise.

Tracking online conversations about your brand can help improve brand awareness, boost customer engagement, and inform your broader marketing strategy. Let's take a closer look at each of these benefits.

Build Brand Awareness

Monitoring mentions and hashtags ensure businesses understand how their brand is perceived and discussed online. For instance, a brand might notice increased mentions after launching a new campaign and use this insight to amplify its reach.

Enhance Customer Engagement

Social media monitoring allows businesses to quickly identify and respond to customer queries, feedback, and concerns. For example, responding to a dissatisfied customer’s tweet quickly can turn a negative experience into a positive one.

Drive Competitive Analysis

By tracking competitors’ activities and mentions, businesses can identify gaps and opportunities in the market. For instance, monitoring a competitor’s viral campaign might inspire a similar but unique strategy for your brand.

Provide Insights for Strategy Development

Social media monitoring reveals trends and audience preferences, enabling marketers to craft more effective strategies. For example, noticing a growing trend around sustainability could inspire eco-friendly initiatives that align with audience values.

Manage Crisis Situations

Identifying negative mentions or viral issues early helps businesses address potential crises before they escalate. For instance, a social media storm around a product defect can be managed by quickly issuing a public apology and corrective measures.

Social media monitoring involves tracking keywords, hashtags, and phrases to gather data about online conversations. Here’s a look at some of the ways this process works.

Keyword and Hashtag Tracking

Monitoring specific keywords, hashtags, or phrases associated with a brand, industry, or campaign can help businesses join relevant conversations. For instance, a clothing brand tracks hashtags like #SustainableFashion to align with eco-friendly initiatives.

Platform Integration

Using tools to integrate monitoring across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even forums can help businesses get a complete view of online conversations.

Sentiment Analysis

Evaluating whether mentions are positive, negative, or neutral can help gauge audience sentiment.

Real-Time Alerts

Receiving instant notifications for noteworthy mentions can ensure timely responses.

Tools like Brandwise, Hootsuite, and Google Alerts are designed to automate and simplify social media monitoring: these tools aggregate mentions, hashtags, and comments from multiple platforms into a dashboard for easy management.

While social media monitoring and social listening deal with similar data, they have different goals. Social media monitoring tracks metrics like mentions, hashtags, and keywords to provide quantitative data. For example, you can monitor the number of times your brand is mentioned during a campaign. On the other hand, social listening involves analyzing the data gathered through monitoring to gain deeper insights and create strategies. For example, you might use data to understand why people prefer one competitor over another.

Businesses can monitor social media to improve customer service, track campaign performance, analyze competitors, and manage their online reputation. Here’s how.

Customer Service

Responding quickly to complaints or inquiries can enhance customer satisfaction.

Campaign Performance Tracking

Evaluating how audiences engage with specific campaigns or hashtags can reveal valuable insights for your marketing strategy.

Competitor Analysis

Understanding what is working for competitors and adapting accordingly can help improve your marketing strategies.

Reputation Management

Addressing negative mentions or misinformation swiftly can help maintain a positive brand image.

How Does Social Media Monitoring Work

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Brandwise is an intelligent social media management tool. At its core is an advanced AI that continuously learns and improves, automatically moderating comments on ads and posts while generating intelligent replies to comments and messages. This powerful tool streamlines workflow by consolidating social media interactions in one place and provides valuable AI-driven insights, identifying top FAQs and concerns to enhance customer engagement strategies.

For brands struggling with high-volume social media interactions, Brandwise offers an efficient solution to automatically hide negative comments, provide AI-generated responses, and gain a deeper understanding of customer engagement patterns. Try our social media engagement software for free for 7 days to grow your social media accounts rapidly!

Social Champ is a social media management tool combining post-scheduling and monitoring features. It helps marketers track engagement on published content and monitor brand mentions.

Key Features

Schedule posts across platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Track engagement metrics such as likes, shares, and comments.

Offers a basic content calendar for planning campaigns.

Best For

Small businesses and startups are looking for a simple tool to manage content and monitor performance simultaneously.

3. Mentionlytics

Mentionlytics is a social media and web monitoring tool that provides insights into brand mentions, competitor analysis, and audience sentiment.

Key Features

Tracks are mentioned across social media platforms, blogs, and news sites.

Sentiment analysis to determine whether mentions are positive, negative, or neutral.

Integrates with Google Analytics for deeper insights.

Best For

Businesses that want to monitor brand reputation and competitive activity comprehensively.

4. Brand24

Brand24 is a real-time social media monitoring tool that tracks mentions, sentiment, and engagement across various platforms.

Key Features

Sentiment analysis to identify positive, neutral, and negative mentions.

Visual reports showing trends in mentions and engagement.

Tracks hashtags, keywords, and specific phrases.

Best For

Marketers looking to test a premium tool’s advanced features through a free trial.

5. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo specializes in content discovery and influencer tracking. It monitors trending topics and popular content related to your brand or industry.

Key Features

Tracks the performance of content, including shares and backlinks.

Identifies key influencers in your niche for potential partnerships.

Alerts for brand mentions and specific keywords.

Best For

Content marketers who want to find trending topics and analyze their impact.

6. NapoleonCat

NapoleonCat provides social media monitoring, scheduling, and analytics tools. It’s designed for marketers managing multiple platforms and looking to optimize their workflows.

Key Features

Tracks mention and hashtags across social media.

Automates responses to frequently asked questions.

Provides competitor analysis for benchmarking.

Best For

Teams managing several accounts and platforms who want to streamline their efforts.

7. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a Twitter-specific tool with a customizable dashboard to monitor real-time mentions, hashtags, and trends.

Key Features

Customizable columns for mentions, hashtags, or direct messages.

Allows management of multiple Twitter accounts.

Provides instant updates for fast response.

Best For

Businesses focus heavily on Twitter as part of their social media strategy.

8. Keyhole

Keyhole monitors hashtags and keywords in real time and offers in-depth analytics to track campaign performance.

Key Features

Tracks mention hashtags and account performance.

Visual analytics such as heat maps and graphs.

Provides insights into audience demographics.

Best For

Marketers running hashtag campaigns or influencer collaborations.

9. Mention

Mention tracks brand mentions, keywords, and competitor activity across the web and social media platforms.

Key Features

Real-time alerts for brand mentions.

Tracks keywords and phrases across multiple platforms.

Fundamental sentiment analysis and analytics for tracking trends.

Best For

Small businesses and freelancers are looking for a straightforward tool to track mentions.

Sprout Social is a social media management and monitoring tool that provides advanced analytics and insights into audience engagement.

Key Features

Monitors mention hashtags and keywords.

Provides a social inbox for managing conversations across platforms.

Advanced reporting and analytics for campaign performance.

Best For

Medium-sized businesses and agencies looking for detailed analytics and engagement features.

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Information Overload: What to Do About It?

With the staggering amount of data generated on social media every second, it’s overwhelming to track, filter, and make sense of all mentions, comments, and trends.

How to Overcome

Use AI-Powered Tools: Tools like Brandwise automatically filter out irrelevant data and prioritize actionable insights, saving time and effort.

Set Specific Goals: Monitor key metrics like brand mentions, hashtags, or competitor activities to avoid tracking unnecessary data.

Create Alerts for Critical Mentions: Use tools like Google Alerts or Mention to get real-time notifications for mentions that matter most.

Tracking Across Multiple Platforms

Each platform has unique formats, algorithms, and audience behaviors, making monitoring effectively across all channels difficult.

How to Overcome

Centralized Monitoring with Unified Tools: Platforms like Brandwise consolidate social media activity from multiple channels into one dashboard.

Prioritize Key Platforms: Focus on the platforms where your audience is most active instead of trying to track everything everywhere.

Schedule Regular Reviews: Allocate specific times for platform-specific reviews to ensure everything is noticed.

Difficulty in Measuring Sentiment

Understanding whether positive, negative, or neutral mentions can be subjective and challenging, especially at scale.

How to Overcome

Leverage Sentiment Analysis Tools: Use tools like Brand24 or Sprout Social to automatically categorize mentions based on sentiment.

Refine Sentiment Keywords: Define keywords that indicate positive or negative sentiment (e.g., “love,” “hate,” “frustrated”) and adjust filters accordingly.

Combine Automation with Manual Checks: While tools provide a good baseline, manually review critical mentions to ensure accurate interpretation.

Responding in Real-Time

Missed opportunities due to delayed responses can harm customer satisfaction and brand reputation.

How to Overcome

Set Up Real-Time Alerts: Tools like Keyhole or Brandwise notify you immediately when your brand is mentioned or tagged.

Create a Response Strategy: Develop pre-approved templates for common queries or concerns to speed up response times.

Assign Dedicated Teams: Allocate specific team members to monitor and respond on high-traffic platforms.

Managing Negative Feedback

Negative comments or mentions can escalate quickly, damaging your brand's reputation if not handled appropriately.

How to Overcome

Use Moderation Tools: Tools like Brandwise can automatically hide spam or inappropriate comments.

Respond Professionally and Promptly: Address concerns with empathy and offer solutions publicly or privately.

Monitor Trends for Recurring Issues: Analyze negative feedback to identify patterns and address systemic issues.

Difficulty Proving ROI

Justifying the time and resources spent on social media monitoring can only be easy with clear evidence of its value.

How to Overcome

Track Measurable Metrics: Monitor engagement rates, sentiment improvement, or conversions driven by social media.

Generate Insightful Reports: Use tools like Sprout Social or Mentionlytics to create detailed reports showing the impact of monitoring efforts.

Tie Monitoring to Business Goals: Align social media monitoring metrics with broader business objectives, such as lead generation or customer satisfaction.

Lack of Integration with Broader Strategies

Social media monitoring efforts can feel siloed from overall marketing or customer experience strategies.

How to Overcome

Collaborate Across Teams: Share insights from social media monitoring with marketing, sales, and customer service teams.

Integrate Tools with CRM or Analytics Platforms: Use tools like Brandwise that integrate with other systems to ensure actionable insights across departments.

Develop a Unified Strategy: Ensure social media monitoring is part of your larger marketing and customer engagement strategies.

Balancing Automation with Personalization

Over-reliance on automation can make interactions feel impersonal, while manual monitoring is time-consuming.

How to Overcome

Blend Automation with Manual Efforts: Use tools like Brandwise for automated moderation and responses, but personalize replies for sensitive issues.

Segment Audiences: Categorize mentions based on customer importance or urgency to prioritize personalized responses where they matter most.

Monitoring Competitors Effectively

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the volume of competitor activity, making it hard to extract actionable insights.

How to Overcome

Focus on Key Competitors: Track the top 3-5 competitors relevant to your industry.

Use Dedicated Competitor Tracking Features: Tools like Mentionlytics and Brand24 offer specialized features for monitoring competitor performance.

Analyze What Works: Study competitor campaigns that resonate with their audience and adapt similar strategies for your brand.

Handling Multi-Language Mentions

Global brands often face challenges understanding and responding to mentions in multiple languages.

How to Overcome

Use Translation Features: Tools like Brandwise provide automatic comment translation, allowing teams to effectively engage with a global audience.

Hire Multilingual Support Staff: For key markets, have native speakers manage social media interactions.

Focus on High-Priority Languages: Prioritize monitoring in regions where your brand has the most significant presence.

Let’s talk about Brandwise

Brandwise is a social media management software that helps you measure and improve brand awareness on social media. At its core is an advanced artificial intelligence that improves over time and enables you to track social media engagement by automatically moderating comments on ads and posts while generating intelligent replies to comments and messages. This powerful tool streamlines workflow by consolidating social media interactions in one place. However, what sets Brandwise apart are the AI-driven insights that help you identify the top FAQs and concerns to enhance customer engagement strategies.

For brands struggling with high-volume social media interactions, Brandwise offers an efficient solution to automatically hide negative comments, provide AI-generated responses, and gain a deeper understanding of customer engagement patterns. Try Brandwise for free for 7 days and see how it can help you rapidly grow your social media accounts!

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10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools Every Marketer Should Know

What Is Social Media Monitoring?

Why Is Social Media Monitoring Important?

Build Brand Awareness

Enhance Customer Engagement

Drive Competitive Analysis

Provide Insights for Strategy Development

Manage Crisis Situations

How Does Social Media Monitoring Work?

Keyword and Hashtag Tracking

Platform Integration

Sentiment Analysis

Real-Time Alerts

Tools That Help with Social Media Monitoring

Differences Between Social Media Monitoring and Social Listening

Use Cases of Social Media Monitoring

Customer Service

Campaign Performance Tracking

Competitor Analysis

Reputation Management

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