With the increased use of various social media channels by different brands, companies, media houses and influencers, Social Media Listening (SML) has proven to be an invaluable technique for organizations seeking actionable insights into online conversations and consumer engagements. This innovative strategy, which involves tracking and analyzing conversations and specific keywords across many digital platforms, is far more beneficial than conventional market research techniques. SML has become a crucial part of the online reputation management (ORM) market, from enhancing brand presence and social media interactions to preventing crises and managing product development.
The expert team at Reputation House conducted a thorough study of carefully selected monitoring systems spanning the years 2022 to 2023. They employed a rigorous approach to analyze the efficiency and popularity of these systems, with a specific focus on evaluating the online reputation market, particularly within various social media listening platforms.
Methodology
The study approach used involved several key steps, including the creation of a pool of monitoring systems, analysis of social media mentions, website traffic analysis. Reputation House’s research provided intriguing insights into the performance of the various SML tools across various subjects, such as guidance, studies, trends, and users’ opinion. The study also highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of each tool based on user opinions and functionality.
Methodology of the Reputation House Study
The study includes 71.686 mentions, 635.675 engagement messages and 110.633.158 reach messages across social media. All messages are divided into four large groups covering the most discussed topics such as guidance, trends, studies and users’ opinion.
Here are the 12 monitoring systems analyzed in the study.
Overview of all SLM tools
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a widely used tool for organizing social media postings and advertisements across multiple platforms, allowing users create, schedule, and publish content and get insights on the best times to post. The app facilitates team collaboration, discovery of material, and curation, providing real-time insights into millions of online conversations, aiding users in understanding how the market views their business.
The study conducted revealed that Hootsuite emerged as the most popular system, demonstrating high engagement (~33,719) and reach (~3,402,511). However, its loyalty index was relatively low (~0.4), particularly when compared to Brandwatch (~1.0). The research also highlighted Hootsuite’s dominance in guidance, stressing its marketing prowess and potential client reach.
Talkwalker
Talkwalker is a next-generation social listening and consumer intelligence application that provides insights into consumer opinions. Talkwalker analyzes conversations on millions of websites, social media pages, and customer feedback sources to help businesses detect customer behavior and market trends.
Talkwalker excels in tracking trending hashtags and individuals, as highlighted by Reputation House, providing it with a competitive advantage. Furthermore, the platform ranks among the top three for the best mention (~0.5) and reach (0.2) rates, underscoring its effectiveness in monitoring online conversations and expanding brand visibility.
SproutSocial
SproutSocial aids social media management and optimization by offering engagement, publishing, analytics, and collaboration tools to businesses and agencies. It provides detailed analytics and listening features that ensure brands learn more about their audiences and improve their social media campaigns. SproutSocial has a user-friendly UI and excellent customer service.
The study revealed that SproutSocial users were actively engaged, with 3,271 positive mentions, although its reach was relatively limited. It’s safe to conclude that the tool is particularly popular in specific regions like the U.S., Australia, the U.K., and India. Users praised SproutSocial’s scheduling features but also expressed criticism regarding some of its functionalities.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a strong social listening and analytics app that delivers insights into consumer opinions on issues. It comprises features like trend analysis, image recognition, and crisis management. Brandwatch analyzes conversations on various social media networks to help companies understand customer behavior and market trends.
During the research, Brandwatch encountered criticism regarding its scheduling features and customer service-related issues. Despite these concerns, the platform boasts the highest ratings among reach (~1.0) and engagement (~0.8) rates, securing its position as the second-best brand in the loyalty index (~0.3).
Meltwater
Meltwater is a media intelligence company that provides media monitoring and social media monitoring tools. The company offers solutions for PR and communications professionals to help them understand how their brand is perceived in the media and on social media. Meltwater provides insights into brand reputation, competitive intelligence, and industry trends.
According to Reputation House research, Meltwater’s customers were found to be less committed, yet the company exhibited a high reach (~1,069,961). A substantial number of users, approximately 78%, expressed satisfaction with Meltwater’s functionality and interface, finding them appealing.
Brand 24
Brand 24 is an online tool for tracking social media conversations around companies and goods. It provides real-time insights into these conversations, offers competitive benchmarking, influencer identification, and sentiment analysis features. Brand24 monitors blogs, forums, news sites, social media, and other online sources to help enterprises understand consumer sentiments and industry trends.
The service secures top positions among platforms with the highest loyalty index (~1.0), driven by a relatively low mention number (~762). Additionally, Brand 24 ranks among the top 5 most popular Social Media Listening (SML) tools in the United States, Australia, India, and the United Kingdom.
Locobuzz
An all-in-one app that manages customer experience, Locobuzz offers performance analytics throughout all digital channels and real-time insights about competitors and customer behavior.
The platform’s online reputation is relatively modest, as Locobuzz doesn’t feature prominently in discussions or gain popularity in specific regions. With a final score of 21.89, it falls within the average range among all the analyzed tools.
Digimund
Digimind is a comprehensive social listening and market intelligence platform that uses artificial intelligence to provide real-time analytics and insights. The software collects, processes, and enriches billions of pieces of content, resulting in easy-to-read, up-to-date market research. It automates curation and recommends activities, enabling the delivery of compelling reports on any topic instantly.
The platform secures the 7th position in studies with a noteworthy total of 170 mentions. What stands out is the strong overall loyalty index (~0.6) attributed to a favorable ratio between positive and negative mentions. Of particular interest is the prominence of Digimind’s studies, making up 47% of the discussions about the company on social media.
Awario
Awario, an advanced social listening technology that offers brands vital data about their customers, market, and competitors. It allows corporations to track mentions in real-time across several online channels, such as social media, news sites, blogs, and forums. The tool is handy for SEO and customer service purposes. Awario enhances SEO operations by identifying the most accessible places on the web to obtain excellent backlinks, while customer service allows firms to communicate with disgruntled customers who express their challenges.
Awario holds the 10th position among all tools analyzed by Reputation House, with a final score of 15.40, indicating a relatively low performance. Notably, the company’s communication regarding its algorithms and onboarding guidance emerges as the most talked-about topic, constituting 64% of total mentions on social media.
YouScan
YouScan is an AI-powered social media listening technology that provides industry-leading image identification features. The software helps firms analyze consumer feedback, identify actionable insights, and manage brand reputation. YouScan’s AI-powered Visual Insights feature detects logos, items, scenes, activities, and demographic information in photographs, giving brands and agencies immediate access to essential consumer insights. The application is easy to use and functional, with visual analytics and integrations that allow it to be used even more broadly. This tool offers significant data that can be utilized to stay current on client perceptions and enhance products or services.
Upon analyzing all mentions about the platform’s studies, Reputation House concluded that YouScan boasts the best loyalty index. However, it’s noteworthy that the number of mentions is relatively low, standing at just 58, with 20 positive commentaries, 38 neutral mentions, and zero negative mentions.
Smelter
Smelter is also an AI-powered tool that focuses on social media listening and media intelligence. It has the ability to collect and analyze news, social media, and web articles about a brand, allowing for quick access to insights from numerous internet sources. Smelter analyzes emotion, filters out bad remarks, and creates audience segmentation with smart filters. It also allows customers to keep track of their competition, stay updated on industry trends, and generate automated project reports.
Smetler holds the second lowest online reputation across the analyzed social media platforms. Consequently, the platform lacks sufficient mentions to effectively compete with the rest of the list.
Mention
Mention is a social listening web application that provides a comprehensive platform for online monitoring, analytics, and social media management. The application monitors a variety of online sources, including blogs, forums, news websites, videos, photos, and social media. Mention offers a reporting function that enables businesses to track the distribution of mentions by tone, word cloud, most discussed remarks, and author.
The platform is regarded as the least popular tool in the study, with only a single mention on social media in 2023.
Conclusion and Final Ranking
In summary, the study underscored the importance of Word-of-Mouth (WOM) marketing and Social Media Marketing (SMM), emphasizing the crucial role of a user-friendly interface in the success of a monitoring system. Despite the dominance of larger systems, the study suggested exploring smaller monitoring systems due to their high user satisfaction and fewer functionality issues.
The top 5 monitoring systems based on the reputation house study are:
- Hootsuite — 35.55
- Talkwalker — 33.68
- SproutSocial — 29.92
- Brandwatch — 22.25
- Meltwater — 22.21
Final ranking
The Reputation House’s report delivers valuable insights for businesses and organizations looking to navigate the landscape of social media listening tools. It empowers them to enhance their online presence through informed decisions in crafting effective online reputation management strategies.
