Want to up the social media marketing game for your business? Make use of social media listening tools.

For those who do not know what they are, what they do, how they can help and what are some of the best tools that marketers use, here’s all you need to know about them.

What are social media listening tools?

Businesses use social media listening tools to learn what the consumers are saying about their business, product or industry. This information can then be used to make better marketing and product decisions.

The dictionary defines ‘listening’ as: to give attention to a sound, to take notice of and act on what someone says, make an effort to hear something, be alter. Social media listening is exactly that.

Social listening typically involves two steps:

1) The first step is to listen to social media platforms to know what your consumers or potential consumers are talking about. Social listening gathers keywords related to a brand, a product or the industry.

2) The second step is to analyze the info gathered and to use it to engage consumers with your brand.

social media listening tools image1

How do these tools help in marketing?

With the help of social media listening tools, brands can make real-time changes to their marketing strategies. Know what consumers are talking about, what they want, what are their sentiments related to your product or brand, reach out to them, find opportunities to get new customers, increase targeted marketing and improve sales.

In short, social media listening tools help brands make intelligent decisions. It provides:

  • Industry intelligence: helps gather audience and trends with the help of which brands can get a sense of the demographics to cater to. Moreover, what products and content to share on platforms.
  • Intelligence about the competition: consumers are always comparing brands. What do they like about a certain brand that you lack?
  • Brand related intelligence: are customers talking about brand experiences? Are they criticizing your brand? Are consumers talking about campaign experiences of your competitors or your brands?

Social media listening in the Indian market

Although at a nascent stage, social media listening has a huge potential as an increasing number of Indian brands and consumers move online. With the fast-evolving, IT sector in India, the level of intelligence and effectiveness is going to go higher, too.

Brand managers and social media marketers, as well as those involved in market research and development, are increasingly utilizing social media listening tools. And why not? After all, consumers are discussing things online and engaging with trusted online communities.


Here are 8 amazingly effective social media listening tools: 

1. Reddit Keyword Monitor Pro

Reddit has about 114.5 million views per month. With so much traffic, the Reddit Keyword Monitor Pro effectively listens to who’s talking about what. The tool has the following features:

  • Real-time tracking
  • SMS, email alerts when a certain keyword is mentioned
  • A variety of stats and charts related to specific tracking
  • Easy sharing and exporting stats and reports

2. Brandwatch

Brandwatch allows viewing key insights from millions of sources across the web. The tool also enables users to engage and respond to different target communities, help teams handle mentions and assign a workflow to team members.




3. Hootsuite

social media listening tools - Hootsuite

One of the most used and effective tools, Hootsuite uses tabs and streams within the dashboard for different kinds of listening that a brand wants to engage in. It allows listening to Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Instagram. It includes features such as:

  • Setting up unlimited custom streams
  • Search by keyword, hashtag, location in different languages
  • Team sharing
  • Adding of monitoring apps

4. Agorapulse

Another social listening tool that allows brands to monitor social media conversation and gain deeper insights into customers’ speak. Agorapulse believes in using social listening to engage with customers and build relationships through listening.

social media listening tools - Agorapulse

5. Mention

Mention allows brands to listen to millions of sources such as social media, news websites, blogs, forums, and websites. The tool can apply 42 languages. This tool can also be used to assign tasks and share alerts within teams.

social media listening tools - mention

6. Sprout Social

A social media listening tool that supports Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram and LinkedIn, Sprout Social can be used for engagement and social monitoring. It has the ability to monitor and make changes in real-time and identify key customers of the brand.

social media listening tools - Sprout Social

7. Talkwalker

This tool has the ability to listen and monitor in 187 languages and can monitor 150 million websites. With the ability to track more than 30 thousand brand logos, it is one of the few platforms with integrated visual listening features.


8. Synthesio

Another efficient social media listening tool is Synthesio that helps brands strategize their social media marketing plans for optimum results. Its features consist: a worldwide reach of 195 countries, multilingual listening abilities, and enhanced privacy and security features.

To sum it up, here are some more insights into social media marketing and monitoring from the myHQ Digest that can help enhance your business performance.

How Building A Strong Community Can Help Your Brand Gain Trust & Growth

8 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing For Internet Startups & SMEs

13 Best Marketing Books For Every Indian Marketer & StartUp Founder


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