We use 5 top social listening tools to help enterprises interested in tracking their online presence, understanding audience engagement, and measuring sentiment. This is the summary of our results:
- Sprout Social for monitoring engagements with a brand’s social media
- Brand24 for observation of all mentions of a brand
- BuzzSumo for monitoring change in the number of brand mentions
- Mention for real-time mentions track of a brand
- Awario for analysis of brand mentions
Comparison of social listening platforms
Table 1. Pricing and integration
Last Updated at 05-16-2025
| Tools | Free Trial* | Pricing** | Social Platform Integrations*** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sprout Social | 30 | $199 | Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest, Threads, Tik Tok, YouTube etc. |
| Brand24 | 7 | $199 | |
| BuzzSumo | 30 | $159 | X |
| Mention | 30 | $46 | Instagram, LinkedIn, X |
| Awario | 7 | $29 |
* days
**per month, as of May 2025.
***All of the listed tools can be connected with Facebook. This includes only integrations, not tracked social media platforms
Table 2. Market presence
Last Updated at 05-16-2025
| Tools | User Ratings | Number of Employees | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sprout Social | 4.3 based on 3,240 reviews | 1,666 | ||
| Brand24 | 4.7 based on 398 reviews | 97 | ||
| BuzzSumo | 4.4 based on 277 reviews | 1,108 | ||
| Mention | 4.3 based on 440 reviews | 609 | ||
| Awario | 4.2 based on 87 reviews | 6 |
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a platform that aggregates mentions and messages from various social media networks, offering a way to engage and analyze your brand’s performance. However, its limitations include the inability to track interactions beyond the connected profiles.
Analytics: Offers metrics like number of mentions, reach, sentiment analysis, social media reactions, platform-specific mentions, and presence score compared to other brands.
Integrations: Supports Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, etc.
Strengths:
- Unified platform to manage messages and mentions across all connected social media profiles.
Limitations
- Cannot monitor beyond connected social media profiles.
Notable features
- Provides a centralized inbox for all messages for some social media channels.
Brand24
Brand24 excels at tracking mentions across social platforms and websites by using historical data. While its sentiment and influence analysis are not always accurate, the platform offers a robust AI-driven approach to social listening. It’s particularly valuable for tracking brand presence in digital channels such as online news and social media platforms.
Analytics: Offers metrics like number of mentions, reach, sentiment analysis, social media reactions, platform-specific mentions, and presence score compared to other brands.
Integrations: Supports Facebook and Instagram.
Strengths
- Enables access to a wide range of mentions across social platforms and the web.
- Provides sentiment analysis and influence scores for each mention.
- Offers AI-driven actionable insights.
Limitations
- Sentiment analysis and influence score determination may lack accuracy.
Notable features
- Comprehensive monitoring capabilities.
- AI-powered topic analysis and key influencer tracking.
- Customizable reports with visual elements.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo provides mention analytics, but it lacks the comprehensive social listening tools in other platforms. It misses some mentions that Brand24 captures, but it does allow for team collaboration, which can be valuable for group analysis.
Analytics: Provides data on total mentions.
Integrations: Connects with Facebook and X.
Strengths
- Allows addition of team members to the account.
Limitations
- Only offers analytics for total mentions.
- May miss some mentions compared to other platforms like Brand24.
Notable features
- Team collaboration features.
Mention
Mention provides detailed insights into sentiment, mentions, and topics, including language and influence scores of mentions. However, the platform can sometimes miss mentions and limits tracking over extended periods.
Analytics: Tracks number of mentions, reach, sentiment, platform-specific mentions, topics, and mentions by country.
Integrations: Supports Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.
Strengths
- Offers sentiment analysis and influence scores for each mention.
- Provides topic cloud visualization.
Limitations
- May not capture all mentions compared to platforms like Brand24.
- Time frame for data analysis is limited.
- Supports up to 10 language selections for monitored sources.
Notable features
- Comprehensive analytics dashboard.
- Customizable reports and visualizations.
- Social media management tools.
Awario
Awario offers a view of mentions, sentiment, and topics, including the ability to identify influencer mentions. However, its analytics features, like topic clouds and author demographics, need improvement.
Analytics: Monitors number of mentions, reach, sentiment, sources, topics, and mentions by language.
Integrations: Connects with Facebook and Instagram.
Strengths
- Allows observation of all mentions over customizable periods.
- Identifies key influencers and top mentions.
- Supports team collaboration
Limitations
- Analytics graphs may not be effectively provided, including topic cloud and author age.
Notable features
- Real-time monitoring across various platforms.
- Comprehensive analytics with sentiment analysis.
- Customizable, white-label reports.
Benefits of social listening platforms
Social listening tools help you track what people say about your brand online. They collect data from social media, blogs, forums, and other digital channels. With this information, you can make smarter decisions and improve your connection with your audience. Here are some key benefits:
1. Know your audience better
Social listening helps you understand what your customers think, want, and expect. You can learn what they like about your brand and what bothers them, allowing you to make improvements that truly matter to your audience.
2. Stay ahead of trends
By monitoring social media posts and online conversations, businesses can identify emerging trends, track brand mentions, and stay ahead of industry gaps.
3. Protect your brand reputation
Not all brand mentions include a tag. Social listening finds hidden comments and mentions. You’ll know when people have a negative brand perception and can fix the issue before it grows into a bigger problem.
4. Improve products and services
Customer conversations can guide your product team. By listening closely, you’ll find out which features are working and which need fixing. This can lead to better offerings and higher satisfaction.
5. Understand your market
Social listening gives you a big-picture view of your industry. You can compare your brand with others and learn what makes people choose one product over another. This helps you improve your position in the market.
6. Generate new leads
Some people talk about problems online while looking for help. If your brand can offer a solution, you can jump in and start a conversation. This can turn into a new customer or lead.
7. Monitor your competition
These tools don’t just track your brand, they also track your competitors. You can learn what others are doing well (or not so well) and use that information to gain an edge.
Choosing the right social listening platform
Picking the right social listening tool is essential for understanding your audience and protecting your brand reputation. These tools help you monitor social media conversations, collect customer feedback, and track trends across major social networks, news sites, blogs, and forums.
Match the tool to your goals
Before selecting a platform, define what you need to track. Do you want to:
- Monitor brand mentions to protect brand health?
- Track audience preferences and consumer expectations?
- Get real-time insights for crisis management?
- Perform competitive analysis?
- Discover key influencers with authentic reach (not artificially inflated follower counts)?
- Understand brand sentiment with granular sentiment analysis?
- Identify pain points in customer sentiment?
Different tools support different needs. Some offer advanced social listening capabilities like optical character recognition to analyze text in images, or custom alerts when relevant keywords are mentioned.
Look for key features
The best social media listening tools offer:
- Access to historical data to analyze past social media conversations.
- Support for all major social media platforms and forums.
- Strong social media monitoring with filters for relevant data.
- Advanced analytics and easy dashboards showing key metrics.
- The ability to track conversations and identify trends over time.
- Tools to identify influencers and see how they shape consumer attitudes.
If your team already uses a social media management tool, check if it includes a built-in monitoring tool or if you’ll need separate tools.
Prioritize usability and scale
For enterprise users, choose a platform that handles large volumes of social media data and integrates with your other tools. For smaller teams, focus on ease of use and clarity of actionable insights.
Simple dashboards, clear visualizations, and easy filtering make it easier to spot relevant conversations and respond quickly.
