Social media listening tools provide functionality for listening, tracking, and gathering relevant content across social media. Social media listening products are used by social media, marketing, and communications teams to identify trends, track competitors, and understand customer sentiment. Researchers can also use the products to gain information on social trends or by media outlets to identify breaking news. Social media listening software allows marketers to personalize content to specific users or demographics, identify thought leaders or influencers, and respond to positive or negative mentions. Many social media listening products monitor posts in a variety of different languages and countries, allowing businesses to localize advertisements. These products are intended to provide demographic data, understand social media presence, identify negative mentions, engage users, and improve a brand’s reputation. Social media listening products often provide information that benefits social media analytics software. Monitoring functionality can also be found within social media management software as a feature or social media suites as either a feature or standalone product. Many media monitoring software products also monitor social media as well.
To qualify for inclusion in the Social Media Listening category, a product must:
Listen for specific mentions across social media
Identify trending topics or phrases
Detail customer sentiment
Organize customer information
Identify thought leaders and influencers
