Top 10 Social Media Listening Platforms in 2025

Social media listening platforms are no longer optional—they’re essential for any effective 2025 marketing strategy.

After all, not tracking what people say about your clients’ brands online means you’re flying blind, and you either miss opportunities to connect or fail to catch one bad review that spirals into a crisis. 

The solution? 

Using the right social listening tools to catch every mention, sentiment, and trending topic so you can develop strategies to help your clients stay ahead of competitors. 

To help you find the best platform for your needs, we’ve rounded up the top ten social media listening platforms, including their key features, pricing, and unique benefits. 

Let’s dive right in. 

What you will learn

• What are social media listening platforms? 
• Why do you need social media listening platforms?
• What important features should you look for in social media listening platforms?
• 10 leading social media listening platforms to consider
• FAQs on social media listening platforms
• Ready to pick the ideal social media listening platforms for you?

What are social media listening platforms? 

Social media listening platforms are software that monitor, collect, and analyze conversations about specific brands, topics, keywords, or competitors. 

Think of listening tools as your digital ears that help you hear what people really say about your clients’ brands (or anything related to them and your strategy), even when they don’t mention them directly. 

While social media listening tools can vary, most generally offer the following features. 

• Tracking brand mentions (tagged and untagged)
• Spotting trending topics before they explode
• Monitoring competitor activity and public sentiment 
• Flagging potential PR issues early
• Analyzing customer feedback in real time
• Identifying brand advocates and influencers

Essentially, social listening tools offer features to help you proactively manage your clients’ social media presence by giving you the necessary insights to make smarter and more strategic decisions. 

Why do you need social media listening platforms?

Social listening tools are important because they can help with the following. 

Understanding what your audience thinks

Your clients’ customers don’t always give feedback directly, with some people providing feedback without really meaning to. 

Most people just talk about your clients’ brands online. 

But these conversations can be goldmines, with the right social listening platforms. 

Listening tools help you uncover untagged mentions of your clients’ brands, which can give you honest, real-time opinions that even surveys can’t always provide.  

Catching issues before they blow up

A single bad review or small complaint through a social media comment or post can go viral in hours. 

Social media listening tools help you spot potential PR crises early and address the issues before they spiral out of control. 

With this, you can keep people happy and your clients’ reputations intact while preserving lasting customer relationships.

Monitoring trends and staying relevant

Listening tools can pick up on industry chatter, emerging topics, and competitor moves, helping you jump on trends before they peak. 

Staying on top of these trends before they peak equips you with the information you need to tailor your clients’ social media posts to what their audiences care about NOW and will likely engage with.  

Making smart social media marketing decisions

Social listening tools can extract key information, such as product feedback and campaign performance insights, to help you make strategic decisions. 

The insights also help shape and inform your content strategy, improve your client’s customer service, enhance or update their products, and more. 

Building stronger audience connections

Responding to social media followers and users who talk about your client’s brands, even if they didn’t tag your client, can show care. 

That kind of engagement can help your clients build loyalty, turning casual followers into their raving fans. 

What important features should you look for in social media listening platforms?

Social listening platforms can have various tools, but choosing a tool with the following essential features is crucial. 

Real time tracking

Social media trends and best practices can change in the blink of an eye. 

With real-time monitoring, you can ensure your social media marketing strategies don’t miss a beat. 

Must read: Social Media Monitoring vs. Social Media Listening

Whether a trending hashtag, customer shoutout, or a potentially brewing crisis, the feature notifies you as soon as your clients’ brands or keywords are mentioned. 

The feature ensures you respond promptly and maintain timely engagement while staying ahead of the conversation. 

Sentiment analysis

Not all mentions are equal. 

Some social listening platforms can detect surface-level sentiment, while others can dig deeper to understand how people feel about your clients’ brands. 

Must read: Social Media Sentiment Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide

For instance, more advanced platforms use AI-powered Natural Language Processing (NLP) to sort mentions as positive, neutral, or negative sentiment. 

This way, you can easily spot positive mentions or comments, handle criticism accordingly, and gauge public perception of your clients’ brands. 

Multi platform monitoring

Your clients’ audiences are not just on one platform, so your listening and social media monitoring tool shouldn’t be either. 

Ensure your chosen social media listening software can track conversations across various social networks, such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X (Twitter), YouTube, and LinkedIn. 

Other tools can even listen in on Reddit posts, blog pages, and news sites, giving you a 360-degree view of your clients’ digital footprints. 

Customizable dashboard and reports

Data is most useful when it’s easy to understand. 

The best ways to make sense of your clients’ social listening data are through dashboards and reports. 

Dashboards give you a quick overview of your clients’ social listening and marketing efforts, and reports show actionable insights into key metrics. 

Customizable options let you create dashboards that visualize key metrics in the way you want, whether tracking share of voice, brand mentions, campaign performance, or sentiment trends. 

Plus, customization tools help you create branded and polished reports highlighting the data and insights from social listening that matter most to your team and clients while keeping everyone in the loop. 

Keyword search capabilities

Some social media listening platforms offer more advanced features that help you dig deeper into your clients’ data. 

For instance, listening tools with Boolean search allow you to combine terms and set rules (such as OR, AND, or NOT) to refine your results. 

The feature is excellent for tracking competitor names, niche topics, specific campaign hashtags, and product features, giving you relevant insights rather than just social media noise.

Competitor analysis

Why guess what your clients’ competitors are up to when you can get solid data (and in real time)? 

Opt for tools with competitor analysis to help you track and analyze the sentiment, mentions, customer feedback, and engagement trends of your clients’ competitors. 

Must read: 10 Social Media Sentiment Analysis Strategies for 2025

Competitor analysis can help you gain insights into your clients’ social media performance, spot gaps in their strategies, and uncover opportunities to help their brands stand out in their industries. 

Influencer and audience insights

Each social media conversation has key voices behind it. 

Tools that provide influencer and audience data insights can help you identify influential social media users, whether industry experts, loyal customers, or up-and-coming micro-influencers. 

Topic and trend detection

Social listening tools that detect specific topics and trends can scan your clients’ social media data to uncover what’s gaining traction. 

You can use social listening insights to develop the right social media strategies, such as joining relevant conversations before they peak. 

The insights can also help you pivot your strategy if your clients’ markets suddenly shift to a new direction. 

Data exporting and integration options. 

Social media data and many types of data don’t live in a vacuum. 

That said, choose tools for social listening that can export your insights in various formats, including integrating them with other business tools like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software or project management apps. 

Easy exporting options can streamline your workflows, whether feeding data into your clients’ larger marketing systems or building social media campaign reports. 

Language and location filters  

Not every mention is relevant to your clients’ brands. 

Choose social listening tools that allow you to easily pick out conversations that matter most to your clients and their campaigns via language and location filters. 

For example, many listening tools let you filter your clients’ social media conversations, mentions, comments, and reviews by city, region, or language. 

The feature can be extremely useful for clients’ with global brands or if they run localized campaigns. 

10 leading social media listening platforms to consider

Check out the quick reviews of the top social listening tools below. 

1. Vista Social

Vista Social is an all-in-one social media management platform that helps you manage multiple social media profiles, campaigns, content, and more. 

The platform has all the essential and sophisticated tools to streamline your workflows, from content scheduling and publishing to analytics and engagement management.  

One of the platform’s core features is its social media listening tool. 

Key social media listening features

Vista Social lets you set up Listeners that can track industry, campaign, or brand-relevant terms and hashtags that you can specify.

The Listener can listen in on conversations, mentions, messages, and reviews within your clients’ social media profiles or other social networks, news sites, and web pages. 

After naming your Listener and adding a description, you can choose a source (social media network) and create your query by adding your keywords.

You can set keywords, such as your clients’ brand names and other relevant words or phrases. 

You can get alerts when your clients are mentioned, even if they’re not tagged. 

Your Listener doesn’t stop at just tracking and pulling conversations containing your keywords. 

It can also automatically tag pulled conversations with a sentiment icon (positive, neutral, mixed, or negative).

The feature helps you understand the tone of online conversations to gauge the public’s perception of your clients’ brands, allowing you to respond accordingly and promptly.  

You can see a results preview (available only for X, formerly Twitter) that tells you if you need a more focused sample or more query filters before saving your Listener.

The feature includes a Listener report showing its overall performance and sentiment.

You can also specify the date range of the Listener data you want to see and export your reports.

Vista Social also offers competitor tracking (Facebook and Instagram) tools to help you uncover the content and hashtags your clients’ competitors publish and use. 

The tools can also track the competitors’ follower growth and engagement rate.  

Must read: Ultimate Guide: How to Track Engagement on Social Media

The competitor analysis reports can help you monitor what people are saying about your brand and other competing brands, which you can use to shape and inform your strategy. 

With Vista Social, managing multiple clients while staying on top of every trend and conversation around your clients’ brands on social media platforms can be as smooth as a fresh jar of Skippy. 

Vista Social’s other handy features include the following. 

• Content scheduling, including post queueing and bulk publishing
• Shared content calendar
• Engagement and community management via a smart Social Inbox
• Hashtag tools
• AI Assistant
• Social media analytics, including custom and scheduled reports
• Review management
• Link in bio tool with a customizable landing page (Vista Page)
• Employee advocacy
• Mobile app

Pricing

Vista Social’s Listening feature starts at $75/month per Listener (or $720

/year per listener. 

The Standard Plan includes social media management features for $39/month (or $374/year with annual billing).

The platform offers a free version with access to essential features and a 14-day free trial with the paid plans. 

Vista Social is ideal for:

• Digital and social media marketing agencies managing multiple brands across industries
• In-house marketing teams that need real-time audience insights and feedback
• Brands looking to improve customer service, reputation management, social media engagement, and social media ROI 
• Influencer marketing managers who want to track campaign hashtags and brand mentions

Must read: Social Media ROI Guide: How to Track & Grow Your ROI

2. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a consumer intelligence, social media suite, and listening tool that analyzes online conversations and provides valuable insights to help you stay ahead. 

It can scour millions of online sources, giving you a comprehensive view of what people say about your clients’ brands.  

Key social media listening features

• AI-powered insights based on consumer conversation analysis at scale
• Custom dashboards that include personalized views to help you focus on metrics that matter most to your team and clients
• A topic clustering option that groups related mentions and discussions into clusters, making it easier to identify trends and patterns
• Competitor benchmarking tools that help you compare your clients’ brand performance against competitors, giving you a clear edge in strategy planning

Pricing

Brandwatch offers custom pricing based on your business needs and the scale of data you want to analyze.

Brandwatch is ideal for:

• Large enterprises
• Agencies
• Data-driven marketers

3. Brand24

Imagine having a digital watchdog that’s always alert. That’s Brand24! 

The AI-powered social listening and monitoring tool tracks mentions of your clients’ brands and crucial keywords across the internet, so you’re always in the loop.

Must read: Social Media Mentions: How to Track And Manage Them Easily

Key social media listening features:

• Real-time monitoring that allows you to track mentions of your clients’ brands or specific keywords across social platforms, blogs, forums, and news sites. The tool includes immediate notifications to help you respond promptly
• Sentiment analysis that uses AI to determine if people are cheering for your clients’ brands or booing them. The feature helps you prioritize which issues to address to ensure a prompt response 
• An influencer identification tool that detects influential users talking about your clients, making it easier to collaborate or manage your PR strategy

Pricing

Brand24’s Individual Plan starts at $149/month (annual billing) with a 14-day free trial. 

Brand24 is ideal for:

Small to medium-sized businesses that want to keep tabs on brand reputation without being overwhelmed by data.

4. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is like the Swiss Army knife of social media tools. It combines listening, publishing, and analytics into one sleek platform.

Key social media listening features:

• Templates and easy-to-build listening queries for tracking millions of conversations seamlessly 
• AI and automation tools that help you dive into insights and tweak filters instantly without changing your query
• A word cloud that helps you visualize hashtags, mentions, keywords, and emoticons around a specific topic
• Trend identification based on consumer behavior around topics
• Crisis management tools
• Customer feedback tracking 
• Sentiment research

Pricing

Sprout Social’s Standard Plan starts at $199/set per month when billed annually with a 30-day free trial. 

Sprout Social is ideal for:

Agencies or brands that need an all-in-one tool to manage and analyze social media strategy.

5. Hootsuite Insights

Think of Hootsuite Insights (powered by Brandwatch) as the superhero sibling of Hootsuite’s scheduling tool. 

The tool can help you dig deep into online conversations to understand what people say about your clients’ brands and industries. 

Key social media listening features:

• Real-time monitoring across 100M+ sources, including social networks, blogs, forums, review platforms, and news websites  
• Advanced keyword and Boolean search that you can easily set up search queries for to track mentions of your clients’ products, brands, competitors, campaigns, and other relevant phrases
• Demographics and geographic data that break down audiences by location, gender, and language to help you better understand who’s talking about your clients’ brand and where conversations are happening
• Real-time alerts and spike detection to ensure you get instant notifications when there’s a sudden increase in mentions or a shift in sentiment

Pricing

When billed yearly, the Hootsuite Insights paid plans start at $99/month (Professional plan).

The platform’s Professional and Team plans include a 30-day free trial. 

Hootsuite Insights is ideal for:

Businesses of any size looking to combine simplicity with powerful listening and social media insights.

6. YouScan

YouScan is a social media listening tool that “sees” beyond words. 

The tool analyzes images, text, and social media audience data using visual recognition and AI-powered analysis.

Key social media listening features:

• Image recognition that detects your brand’s logo in images across social platforms. Have you ever seen your client’s product featured in a pic but not tagged? YouScan finds those
• A trend spotting feature that identifies patterns in how your clients’ brands or industries are being portrayed visually
• Crisis management tools with real-time notifications
• Sentiment analysis that goes deeper than text, analyzing how people feel based on the social media and online images they share

Must read: 20+ Sentiment Analysis Tools for Agencies & Brands for 2025

Pricing

The platform’s STARTER 3 Plan costs $299/month (billed annually). 

YouScan is ideal for:

Visual-heavy brands, such as fashion, retail, or hospitality companies, that want to understand how customers see their products or services.

7. Agorapulse

Agorapulse’s social listening features simplify how you track, monitor, and engage with online conversations about your brand.

Key social media listening features:

• Sentiment, mentions, and engagement tracking over time
• Keyword and hashtag search to spot trending topics and emerging trends
• Sentiment analysis
• Competitor research and analysis 

Pricing

The Agorapulse pricing plans start at $79/month (billed annually) for smaller teams, with higher-tier and custom plans available for agencies.

Agorapulse is ideal for:

Agorapulse is perfect for small—to medium-sized businesses, agencies, and growing startups that need a simple yet powerful way to monitor social media conversations and manage their online presence. 

8. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo shines as a social listening tool by helping you uncover trending topics, popular content, and influential voices in your clients’ niche. 

Key social media listening features:

• Content Analysis that tracks the most shared and trending content across social platforms, giving you insights into audience preferences and engagement patterns
• Competitor Tracking tools that monitor the most shared content and engagement strategies by your clients’ competitors
• Keyword Alerts that send notifications when specific keywords or phrases gain traction, helping you stay ahead of trends

Pricing

BuzzSumo’s paid plans start at $159/month when paid annually. The tool also offers a free trial. 

BuzzSumo is ideal for:

Content marketers and social media managers who want to build strategies driven by what’s hot right now.

It can be a handy tool for uncovering the most shared content, tracking competitors’ top-performing posts, identifying key influencers, and staying ahead of emerging topics and keywords.

9. Talkwalker

Talkwalker is a heavy-hitter in social listening, offering real-time tracking across social platforms, forums, news sites, and TV/radio broadcasts. 

The tool is popular for its depth of data and strong visualizations.

Key social media listening features:

• More than 150 million data sources, including blogs, forums, and traditional media
• AI-powered image and video recognition (track logos in photos and videos)
• Real-time alerting and crisis detection
• Built-in trend prediction and sentiment analysis
• Multilingual monitoring and demographic breakdowns

Pricing 

Talkwalker offers custom plans (typically enterprise-level). 

Talkwalker is ideal for:

Large brands, global PR teams, and data-heavy marketing teams.

10. Awario

Awario is a cost-effective tool that delivers powerful and effective social listening capabilities. It is great for smaller teams and agencies that want real-time monitoring without the enterprise price tag.

Key social media listening features:

• Real-time tracking of brand mentions across social media platforms, blogs, and the web
• Boolean search that lets you set up precise listening queries
• Social selling and influencer identification tools
• Competitive monitoring dashboards
• Sentiment analysis and mention categorization

Must read: Social Media Sentiment Analysis Dashboard: Tips & FAQs

Pricing

Awario’s Starter Plan costs $29/month (yearly billing). The tool’s paid plans include a free trial. 

Awario is ideal for:

Freelancers, startups, and small agencies. 

FAQs on social media listening platforms

How is social media listening different from social media monitoring? 

While both involve tracking online mentions, social media monitoring focuses on collecting data about brand mentions and engagement metrics. 

On the other hand, social media listening dives deeper, analyzing the data to understand sentiment, identify trends, and inform strategic decisions.

How do I choose the right social media listening platform for my business? 

It depends on your unique needs. 

Consider factors such as the following.​

• The specific features you need, such as sentiment analysis and real-time alerts for positive or negative sentiment peaks and dips
  
• The social media platforms you and your clients want to monitor
  
• Your budget and the listening platform’s pricing structure
  
• Ease of use and customer support.
  
• Scalability to grow with your business needs

Can social media listening tools analyze multiple language data? 

Many advanced social media listening tools support multilingual data analysis, allowing you to monitor and analyze conversations across different languages and regions. 

The feature can be handy for your clients who own global brands that want to understand diverse markets.

How do social listening platforms differentiate between genuine engagement and bots or spam? 

Sophisticated platforms leverage algorithms and machine learning techniques to filter out spam, bots, and irrelevant content. 

The listening tools can analyze patterns, engagement quality, and user authenticity to ensure that the insights provided are based on genuine interactions.

Ready to pick the best social media listening platforms for you?

Finding the right social listening tool doesn’t have to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. 

Before deciding, read reviews from reputable sources (including this guide), test the platforms (including free social listening tools), explore their features, and consider your unique needs and budget. 

Start with Vista Social, which gives you the whole package, from content scheduling to analytics and comprehensive social listening.

Start your Vista Social account today.