Social listening
On this pageWhat it is
What it is
Social listening searches the wider conversation for the words you choose, such as your brand name, a product, a competitor or an industry term, even when nobody tags you. The results arrive as a feed or report. Some tools also assess whether the tone is positive or negative. Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Metricool and Later are among the tools that list it.
Why it matters
Many mentions of your business happen outside your own profile. Listening helps you reply to customers quickly, catch a complaint before it spreads, and see what people say about your market. It matters for consumer brands, larger companies and anyone working on reputation. A small business with a few comments a week may do fine just checking its own notifications.
What to check
- Which networks and sources are covered, and does it include blogs, news or forums.
- How far back can you search, and how fresh are the results.
- Can you exclude irrelevant results, for example another business with the same name.
- Can it alert you when mentions suddenly rise.
Tools with Social listening
From €16/mo yearlySchedule social posts, analyse engagement, and manage paid campaigns across multiple platforms in one place.Organic socialFree plan
From $99/mo yearlySchedules posts, monitors conversations and reports on performance across multiple social media networks.Organic social
From $79/mo yearlyManage publishing, engagement, analytics, and social listening across brands from one dashboard.Organic social
From $18.75/mo yearlySchedules and publishes visual content across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and more.Organic socialAffiliate link