​10 Social Media Monitoring Tools You Need in 2025

Wondering what people are saying about your brand online? Social media moves fast, one post can go viral in minutes. That’s why you need the right social media monitoring tools to track mentions, spot trends before your competitors do, and protect your brand’s reputation. I’ve tested and compared 10 of the best tools for 2025 so you don’t have to.

If you’re not monitoring, you’re missing out. These tools pull in tweets, posts, and comments about your brand so you can jump in and tweak your strategy as things happen. Let’s dive into my top picks for 2025.

What Are Social Media Monitoring Tools?

Social media monitoring tools are online platforms that track conversations about your brand, competitors, or any topics you care about. They collect mentions of keywords, hashtags, comments, and tags across networks like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, and more. Many tools also scan blogs, news sites, and forums to provide a comprehensive view.

Social media monitoring tools are like your online radar. Enter the keywords or topics to track, your brand name, CEO, or a competitor’s product, and the tool scans all the social media platforms and the web for mentions, pulling them into a dashboard.

Top Social Media Monitoring Tools for 2025

I’ve tested and compared 10 of the best social media monitoring tools for 2025. For each one, I’ll show you what it can do, what makes it stand out, who it’s best for, and break down the pros, cons, and pricing. No matter your business size, you’ll find useful social management tips here that fits.

1. Brand24

Brand24 has been my go-to tool among the social media monitoring tools for years. It offers the broadest reach I’ve seen. While some tools only track social platforms, Brand24 goes much further, picking up mentions across every major network and news sites, blogs, forums, and videos. It covers way more ground than most competitor activities.

Just set up an alert for your brand or a competitor, and Brand24 pulls in every mention in real time. The dashboard shows you mention volume, estimated reach, and AI-powered sentiment analysis at a glance. You’ll get alerts for spikes in activity, see who the top influencers are, and even get a word cloud of the most common words people use when talking about your brand.

Best for: Small to mid-sized businesses that want a simple but powerful way to monitor their brand reputation across social media and the web.

Pros

• Monitors social, blogs, news, and forums in real time—everything in one feed.
• Shows sentiment at a glance, so you know if the buzz is good or bad.
• Highlights top influencers and discussion leaders for easy advocacy planning.
• Word Cloud and Storm Alerts give quick context and flag sudden mention spikes.

Cons

• The entry plan only lets you track up to 2,000 mentions a month, which can be tight if you’re a bigger brand or want to monitor lots of keywords.

Pricing: Higher-tier plans can get expensive for small businesses if you need to track more mentions or keywords. The basic package starts at $99 per month, billed monthly. Every plan comes with a 14-day free trial, and you can save a bit if you pay annually.

2. Sendible

Sendible is a powerful social media management tool built for agencies. Unlike some platforms, Sendible combines scheduling, analytics, engagement, and social media monitoring in one.

Sendible monitors your brand mentions and industry keywords in real time, pulling them into a Priority Inbox for review and reply. If someone comments on your Facebook post or mentions you on Twitter, you can reply from within the platform. Agencies can manage multiple clients with separate dashboards, and white-label solutions let you present reports under your branding.

What makes Sendible stand out is how it combines team collaboration with strong monitoring. You don’t have to jump between different apps for publishing or monitoring, everything’s in one place. It’s built to streamline your workflow and make teamwork easier.

Best for: Social media agencies, consultants, or in-house teams managing multiple social profiles who want to streamline their workflow.

• Unified dashboard for publishing, analytics, and monitoring, so you can plan content and track mentions side by side.
• Manage multiple brands with separate dashboards, plus white-label reports to wow clients.
• Real-time comment and mention monitoring with in-app replies for quick, helpful engagement.
• Integrations and a mobile app, so you can keep an eye on things on the go.

Cons

• The interface is packed with features, so it can feel overwhelming at first and takes a bit to learn.
• Monitoring only covers the social networks you’ve connected to.
• The base plan is budget-friendly, but costs go up as you add more team members or profiles.

Pricing: Sendible offers a free 14-day trial. Higher plans, such as Traction and White Label agency plans, are available for more users and profiles. Annual billing can reduce the monthly cost.

3. ContentStudio

ContentStudio is an all-in-one social media management tool. What I really like is how it helps you find trending topics for content in your industry. Instead of tracking every brand mention across the web, ContentStudio focuses on your own social performance and the topics you care about.

You can connect ContentStudio to all your main social accounts. It pulls in loads of data about your posts and how your audience is engaging. The analytics dashboards let you track everything that matters: follower growth, engagement, reach, clicks, comments, and more in one place. There’s also a competitor analysis feature that lets you see how often your rivals post, what their engagement rates look like, and which of their posts are getting the most traction.

ContentStudio also offers a unified inbox for your social messages and an AI assistant for writing captions. Rather than just tracking mentions, it helps you spot industry trends and join relevant social media  conversations.

Best for: Social media managers and content marketers who want both analytics and fresh content ideas.

Pros

• Track performance across all major social networks in one place.
• See competitor posting frequency, engagement rates, and top-performing content at a glance.
• Use the “Discover” feature to surface trending content by topic for easy shares and inspiration.
• Manage and reply to all your social media comments and messages from a single inbox.

Cons

• Doesn’t track brand mentions beyond your own pages and profiles.
• Not suited for deep monitoring or web-wide sentiment analysis.

Pricing: ContentStudio has a 14-day free trial. The Pro plan starts at $25 per month. You get about 20% off if you pay annually.

4. Iconosquare

Iconosquare is an all-in-one social media management platform built for Instagram and Facebook. It started out as one of the best Instagram analytics tools and now offers scheduling and social monitoring features across both networks. If you’re mainly focused on these platforms, Iconosquare is made for you.

Iconosquare is known for its detailed Instagram analytics and simple UGC workflow. While many tools offer monitoring features, Iconosquare focuses especially on Instagram and Facebook. Being able to quickly repost content you are tagged in is a big advantage if you use a lot of user content. The reports are accurate and visually appealing, making it easy to share results with your team or clients.

Best for: Brands, influencers, and agencies that focus mainly on Instagram and Facebook. If you want to monitor mentions, hashtags, and competitors on these two networks and get excellent analytics, Iconosquare is a strong choice.

Pros

• Get deep metrics on follower growth, engagement, best posting times, story reach, and more for Facebook and Instagram.
• Stay on top of where and when people mention your brand on those key networks.
• Track branded hashtags and competitors for quick benchmarking.
• Repost tagged content in a click—great for sharing UGC and testimonials fast.
• Manage all comments and mentions in one place for speedy community replies.
• Build custom reports by mixing data points and export them in seconds.

Cons

• Covers only Instagram and Facebook, no monitoring for X (Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok, or others.

Pricing: Iconosquare starts at $59 per month for one user and up to three profiles. Higher plans let you add more profiles and team members, as well as access advanced reporting. You can try it free for 14 days.

5. Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a popular platform for monitoring features. It works with all the major social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Unlike Brand24, Agorapulse monitors inside social networks but doesn’t scan the whole web. It’s best if you want strong in-platform among all the social media monitoring tools avaible online.

Agorapulse makes it easy to handle a high volume of mentions and comments. If your social accounts get a lot of notifications, you can filter, categorise, and prioritise conversations so nothing gets missed. The ability to manage comments on social ads is a major plus for brands running many paid marketing campaigns. You also get unlimited reports and a competitor analysis module as nice extras.

Best for: Social media teams, i.e., sma, especially small to mid-sized facebook groups that need a tool for both publishing and monitoring.

Pros

• Fine-tune monitoring with filters and Boolean search to zero in on what matters.
• Inbox shows every mention and comment with options to review, assign, or reply fast.
• Track competitors’ profiles for engagement comparisons or set up monitoring for their brand.
• Label users (e.g., “Influencer,” “Prospect”) and view their full interaction history.

Cons

• Monitoring is limited to connected social channels and your own profiles. There’s no web-wide coverage.
• It starts out affordable, but costs go up as your team or number of profiles grows.

Pricing: Agorapulse offers a free 30-day trial; no credit card is required. Paid plans start at $49 per month per user for the Standard plan.

6. Mention

Mention tracks your keywords all over the web, from social media to news sites and forums. It’s designed for anyone who wants to keep an eye on their brand, competitors, or industry topics without missing a thing.

Set alerts for any keywords you want. Mention scans almost everywhere and brings new mentions into your dashboard in real-time. You can filter by source, language, or sentiment, and even reply right from the dashboard. You can look back at two years of history, so you’re always in control of your brand’s reputation.

Best for: Companies and agencies that need to track brand or product mentions everywhere, across lots of platforms and websites.

Pros

• Monitors over a billion sources well beyond the big social networks.
• Email or push alerts flag new mentions and spikes so you can jump in fast.
• Higher plans let you pull older mentions to analyze past trends from day one.
• Easy team workflows: share mentions, assign follow-ups, and mark items resolved.

Cons

• You’ll get tons of data if you use broad keywords, so smart filters are a must.
• Cheaper plans cap mentions and alerts, which can be a problem as you grow.
• Analytics look a bit plain compared to some of the slicker tools out there.

Pricing: Mention offers a free plan with 1 alert and a limited number of mentions per month, which is good for basic personal use or testing. Paid plans start at around $49 per month for the Solo plan. You also get a 14-day free trial for paid plans.

7. Atribus

Atribus social media monitoring tools helps you dig into online conversations and pull out actionable insights for your brand. You can use it to spot trends, track sentiment, and even catch early warning signs of problems in your market.

You can set up projects or searches for your brand, your competitors, or any topic you want to track. What sets Atribus apart is its multilingual sentiment analysis and industry insights. It listens to social networks, blogs, forums, and digital media in multiple languages. So, you can get a full picture of what people are saying about your brand, whether the mentions are positive, neutral, or negative.

Best for: Medium to large brands or public institutions that want to really understand what people think and spot trends early, not just collect mentions. It’s a great fit if you work in multiple languages or countries.

Pros

• Monitors major social channels and web sources for a full picture of online chatter.
• AI labels mentions (complaints, questions), tracks sentiment shifts, and catches sarcasm across languages.
• Surfaces what people complain about, what features they want, and who’s driving the conversation.
• Sends alerts on negative trends or spikes so you can jump in fast and protect your reputation.

Cons

• Not cheap, quote-based pricing often starts in the high hundreds of euros per month.
• It’s powerful but a bit tricky to learn, so expect some training to set up searches and dashboards properly.

Pricing: Atribus uses custom pricing. Basic monitoring plans start at about $49 per month, while full plans with all features can cost $325 per month or more. Most enterprises will receive a custom quote based on their needs. You can request a free demo to see how it works before you decide.

8. Awario

Awario is one of the strong social media monitoring tools that helps you track what people are saying about your brand, competitors, or any topic across social media and the web in real time.

You get analytics like mention volume over time, top sources, where your mentions are coming from, and a sentiment breakdown (positive, negative, or neutral). Awario also highlights the most influential accounts discussing your keywords, which is really handy for outreach or for figuring out who’s driving the conversation.

Best for: Startups, small to mid-sized companies, and even larger businesses that want a feature-rich monitoring tool without breaking the bank.

Pros

• Real-time, multi-platform tracking across major socials and millions of sites for a full keyword picture.
• Awario Leads flags recommendations and pain points so sales can jump in quickly.
• Generous mention quotas at lower tiers—great for busy brands or multiple topics.
• Built-in sentiment and influencer insights to gauge brand health and spot key voices.
• White-label reporting on higher plans for clean, client-ready decks.

Cons

• The interface works but isn’t as slick or intuitive as pricier tools, so expect a bit of a learning curve.
• Analytics cover the basics, but you get fewer custom reports and fancy visuals than with enterprise suites.
• Platform API limits apply (e.g., no monitoring personal Facebook profiles, limited Instagram coverage).

Pricing: Awario has a free 7-day trial, and paid plans start at $39 a month. If you pay annually, you can save up to 40% basically 2 months free.

9. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a big name in social monitoring and analytics. It’s best known for its powerful data handling and analytics. It can pull data from over 100 million online sources, including social networks, blogs, forums, and news sites.

Some standout features include historical data, strong sentiment analysis and category classification, image analysis for tasks such as logo recognition, and customizable dashboards. Brandwatch also has an AI assistant called Iris that automatically finds deeper insights in your data, such as unusual spikes or interesting correlations.

Brandwatch is great for spotting trends. It shows you which topics are on the rise and what phrases people mention alongside your brand.

Best for: Brandwatch is best for companies and researchers who need in-depth analytics and are ready to invest both time and money.

Pros

• Powerful AI and analytics highlight critical insights to save time.
• Access a year’s worth of historical data right from the start for benchmarking and comparisons.
• Flexible Boolean queries ensure you never miss an important mention.
• Customizable dashboards to visualize the data that matters most to you.
• Great for large teams with user permissions, data export, and enterprise system integrations.

Cons

• Expensive, enterprise-level pricing with custom quotes based on your needs.
• There’s a steep learning curve, and you’ll need to master the query language and platform.
• It’s overkill for casual users who just want a quick mention overview.
• Contracts often include limits on mentions and topics, depending on your plan.

Pricing: Brandwatch’s pricing is only available on request. There used to be talk of entry-level packages in the $800-$ 1,000 per month range, but most clients are larger and spend more. There’s also a cheaper product, Brandwatch Essentials, for smaller companies, which offers fewer features but is more affordable.

10. Meltwater

Meltwater is one of the oldest names in media monitoring. It pulls together traditional press clippings and modern social mentions into a single dashboard, so you can see your brand’s full media footprint at a glance.

Meltwater can search podcasts and visual content, which you don’t get with most other tools. However, the thing that really stands out is Meltwater’s multimedia search. It can pick up mentions in podcasts using AI transcription, which is pretty rare. You also get visual analytics, so you can spot your logo in images and videos, just like you can with Talkwalker or Brandwatch.

Best for: Meltwater is a great fit for PR and communications teams at medium- or large-sized companies, or for agencies that want to manage both PR and social from a single dashboard.

Pros

• Combines traditional and social media tracking in one platform, eliminating the need for multiple tools.
• Track unlimited keywords, so you’re never limited in what you monitor.
• Global reach with support for many languages and region-specific sources, ideal for local teams.
• Includes news archives and tracks new media like podcasts, using AI to scan audio and video for mentions.
• Enterprise-level features with user management, team dashboards, and automated reports.

Cons

• Expensive with enterprise pricing; additional features, such as social engagement or influencer databases, cost more.
• The interface feels a bit outdated compared to newer tools.
• Social analytics are good, but not as deep for platforms like Instagram Stories or TikTok.
• There are limits on how far back you can pull social data. News archives go way back, but social data starts from when you set up your account.

Pricing: Meltwater offers custom pricing and packages. They’ll usually build a solution tailored to your needs, including the number of users, data volume, and the modules you want.

Each of these 10 tools has its own strengths. The best tool for you depends on what you need, which I’ll break down next.

Benefits of Using Social Media Monitoring Tools

If you’re thinking about using a social media monitoring tool, it’s worth it. Here’s why these tools are so useful for keeping tabs on what people are saying about you online:

• Maximize Campaign ROI: Monitor campaigns in real time and adjust messaging if confusion or questions arise after a launch.
• Gain Industry & Competitor Insights: Track trends and competitor reactions to learn what’s working (or not) in your industry.
• Enhance Reputation Management: Monitor every mention of your brand or products to catch both positive and negative feedback instantly.
• Monitor Brand Mentions & Engage: Collect all mentions of your brand and related terms to enable quick responses to praise and grievances.
• Spot Patterns & Improve: Identify customer favorites, gather unfiltered feedback, and discover opportunities for user-generated content.
• Find Brand Advocates: Spot loyal customers and brand advocates to boost your outreach and engagement.
• Respond & Build Loyalty: Engage with praise and complaints alike to turn happy customers into long-term fans.
• Detect Crises Early: Get alerts for unusual spikes in mentions or negative sentiment to prevent small issues from escalating.

At the end of the day, social media monitoring is about staying connected. Listen closely, act quickly, and keep your brand in tune with your audience. A little attention goes a long way.

Social Media Monitoring Tools FAQs

Q1. What are social media monitoring tools?

A: They are software platforms that track and collect online mentions of specific keywords across social networks (and often wider web sources).

Q2. How do social media monitoring tools work?

A: These tools use a combination of APIs and web crawlers to scan content across various platforms for your specified keywords.

Q3. Why use social media monitoring tools?

A: Using Social Media Monitoring tools, you can get several benefits:

• Understand Audience Sentiment & Needs
• Track Brand Reputation
• Measure Campaign Success
• Find Engagement Opportunities
• Competitive Intelligence

In essence, these tools help ensure you’re not flying blind in the social media landscape.

Q4. What are the top social media monitoring tools?

A: While “top” can depend on your needs, some consistently highly-rated tools in the industry include: Brand24, ContentStudio, Iconosquare, Agorapulse and sendible.

Q5. Are there free social media monitoring tools?

A: Yes – though they often come with limitations: Google Alerts, Mention, Awario, Hootsuite has a basic free plan.