The pace of change in social media marketing is relentless. For marketers and social media managers, keeping ahead of trends, grasping audience sentiment, and engaging meaningfully are key to a successful strategy. Social media listening tools have become essential for brands aiming to understand their audience and turn insights into actionable strategies.
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Social media listening goes beyond merely tracking mentions of your brand. It’s about diving into the broader conversation—understanding what people are saying, how they feel, and spotting trends before they peak. These insights are crucial for refining your content, improving customer service, and guiding product development.
Key Benefits of Social Media Listening:
Crisis Management: Address potential issues before they escalate, safeguarding your brand’s reputation.
Several tools are leading the way in social media listening this year, each offering unique features to help brands harness online conversations. Here’s a look at some of the top options:
Is your post trending for good or bad reasons? Unlike many tools that offer a basic sentiment breakdown, elv.ai identifies trending topics and links them to specific audience emotions. Analyze trending posts, topics and emotions over time. Rank posts based on comments, likes, emotions to understand audience reactions better and refine content. This depth gives you a nuanced understanding of your audience’s feelings and their evolution.
Pricing: Starts at 79€, with more great features unraveling in the more expensive plans.
Brandwatch is renowned for its robust analytics and data visualization capabilities. It allows brands to dig deep into online conversations, providing detailed insights that help shape strategies. The tool excels in tracking sentiment across multiple platforms and offers customizable dashboards for easy data interpretation. It’s particularly popular among large enterprises for its ability to handle vast amounts of data efficiently.
Pricing: Available on consumer request.
Sprout Social combines powerful social media listening with an intuitive, user-friendly interface. It’s ideal for teams that need to collaborate easily on social media strategies. Sprout Social’s strengths lie in engagement tracking, customer care, and the ability to integrate seamlessly with social media management. Its reporting features are also top-notch, providing clear, actionable insights.
Pricing: Plans start at $199 per month. The higher-tier plans include more advanced social listening and analytics features.
While Hootsuite is best known for its social media management capabilities, its listening tools are also highly effective. Hootsuite allows users to track brand mentions, sentiment, and trending topics across various social platforms. The tool is highly scalable, making it a good fit for both small businesses and large enterprises. It’s particularly strong in social media monitoring, with a focus on real-time engagement.
Pricing: Plans start at $99 per month, with social listening features available in higher-tier plans, which start at around $600 per month.
Mention excels at real-time monitoring, offering instant alerts whenever your brand is mentioned online. It’s a great tool for staying on top of the conversation as it happens, making it ideal for brands that need to respond quickly to customer feedback. Mention also offers sentiment analysis, helping brands understand the context behind the mentions they’re tracking.
Pricing: Plans start at $49 per month, with more advanced features available in higher-tier plans.
Talkwalker is a powerful AI-driven social media listening tool that offers extensive visual analytics capabilities. It’s particularly strong in monitoring visual content, such as logos and products, and tracking how these are represented online. Talkwalker’s AI features help brands gain a deep understanding of how their visual content is performing across social media.
Pricing: Customized based on the brand’s needs, but it typically starts at around $9,600 per year, making it a high-end option for brands that need comprehensive social listening and visual analytics.
Emplifi is known for its comprehensive social media listening capabilities, which are integrated with social media management and customer care tools. Emplifi stands out for its ability to analyze conversations and deliver actionable insights that drive brand engagement. It’s particularly strong in providing AI-powered recommendations that help marketers optimize their strategies across all social channels.
Pricing: Customized based on the specific needs of the business, with plans typically starting at around $200 per month.
BuzzSumo is a versatile tool that combines social media listening with content analysis, making it a great choice for brands focused on content marketing. It allows users to track trending topics, monitor brand mentions, and identify influencers. BuzzSumo’s content analysis features are particularly strong, helping marketers understand what types of content are resonating with their audience.
Pricing: Starts at $159 per month, with more advanced features available in higher-tier plans up to $999 per month.
Integrating social media listening into your marketing efforts isn’t just a trend—it’s essential. Here’s how it can elevate your strategy:
Data-Driven Decision Making: Insights from social media listening help you make informed decisions, from product development to customer service enhancements.
In a crowded field of social media listening tools, elv.ai stands out for its advanced features, ease of use, and deep analytical capabilities. Whether you want to boost your social media engagement, gain detailed audience insights, or simply keep a close watch on customer conversations, elv.ai delivers.
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