The Best Social Media Listening Tools for Brands in 2021

Social listening - "A new word, huh?"
Yes. This is a new inclusion in the digital marketing dictionary and the underlying concept is quite scientific. This is the process of identifying and collecting conversations on the internet relevant to your brand or product, automatically and at scale. Social listening tools are obviously invaluable when it comes to audience research and understanding – they provide accurate solutions to the problems like what does our audience think about this brand/product/industry?

Listening tools also play a relevant part in community management and customer care as they allow rapid engagement with customers and audiences who are requesting support or simply attempting to connect with their favorite brands.

This idea is known as brand monitoring tools (although this term implies less robust functionality – for more learn about the difference between social listening and social monitoring), social listening tools are absolutely necessary for businesses because they play a core part in three crucial processes:

1. They mitigate risk and prevent brand crises by allowing marketers to identify and address negative sentiment before it spirals out of control.
2. They allow brands to engage with audiences and customers quickly and at scale, providing crucial aid when it comes to customer care and support. Good listening tools filter through noise and allow brands to respond to relevant, actionable posts quickly, which can result in quick positive results because, contrary to popular belief, many consumers are more likely to leave positive reviews than negative ones.
3. They provide invaluable insights regarding the sentiment of audiences and how they feel about specific products, features, competitors, etc. Social listening tools can be integral components of marketing strategy.

Ongoing social listening is a critical part of maintaining your brand’s reputation, and following the insights that you gather allows you to take actions that will create further positive engagement with your audience.

As always, our definition of a good tool is one that doesn’t sacrifice functionality for ease-of-use. Here we’ve collected a few of the best social media listening tools for brands in 2021that offer robust features and functionality, in addition to being both simple and quick to use:

1. Brandwatch
2. Digimind
3. Sprout Social
4. Falcon.io
5. Sprinklr
6. YouScan
7. BuzzSumo
8. Mention
9. BrandsEye
10. Agorapulse
11. Brand24
12. Buffer
13. Khoros
14. Sysomos Listen (Now Meltwater Social)