Social Media Monitoring Tools

Selecting social media marketing tools can take some time, depending on the user’s mission. Fortunately, there are dozens of social media monitoring tools on the market each with slightly different basic capabilities, and the top tier tools have considerable functionality but will cost money. Many social media sites have some sort of tool that allows users to conduct a search of the site by subject and they offer those limited services for free. More sophisticated tools are available but they have fees attached to them, and the more sophisticated the tool the higher the fees. There are several sources of information and comparison websites for social media monitoring tools:

• ? The Top 25 Social Media Monitoring Tools: http://keyhole.co/blog/ the-top-25-social-media-monitoring-tools/
• ? Social Media Monitoring Reviews 2016 Best: http://www.toptenreviews. com/services/internet/best-social-media-monitoring/
• ? Six Social Media Monitoring Tools to Track Your Brand: http://www.social- mediaexaminer.com/6-social-media-monitoring-tools/
• ? 46 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools to Improve Your Results: http:// www.dreamgrow.com/69-free-social-media-monitoring-tools/
• ? Never Miss a Thing: 11 Powerful Social Media Monitoring Tools: https:// blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-monitoring-tools/
• ? Marketing: Top 15 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools: https://www. brandwatch.com/2013/08/top-10-free-social-media-monitoring-tools/
• ? Ten Free Social Media Monitoring Tools: http://www.procommunicator. com/free-monitoring-tools/
• ? Best Social Media Monitoring Software: https://www.g2crowd.com/ categories/social-media-monitoring

Review websites each have a slightly different approach so reading several of the reviews can provide more insight into the product. Reviews can be found using

Table 15.2 Social Media Monitoring Tools Not in Top Tier

most search engines. The list presented earlier was generated using Yahoo search. Many of these tools will evolve over time, so it is wise to read the latest reviews before making a purchasing decision. The tools that charge a fee, have consistently good reviews, and are rather popular include Brand24, Brandwatch Analytics, Crimson Hexagon, Digimind Social, Hootsuite, NetBase, NUVI, Social Studio, Synthesio, Sysomos, Talkwalker, and Zoho Social.

There are many popular social media monitoring tools, some are free, some have a basic service that is free and an advanced service for which there is a fee, and some charge a fee but do not offer any free service. Tools that are not in the top tier of reviews are shown in Table 15.2.