The internet is a vast and ever-expanding place, making it hard for brands to keep tabs on what people say about them. The solution: brand monitoring tools that do most of the work for you.
Brands need monitoring tools as part of their brand strategies. Think of them as your brand’s personal paparazzi, capturing every mention and sentiment to help you understand how the public perceives your products or services. If someone mentions you online — for better or worse — you’ll be among the first to know about it if you’re proactive about brand monitoring.
From tracking customer feedback to finding trends and keeping an eye on competitors, these tools play a crucial role in shaping successful marketing strategies.
Here are our top picks for the best brand monitoring tools that can help you take your branding from good to unstoppable:
Meltwater
Ahrefs
BuzzSumo
YouScan
X Pro
Keyhole
Google Alerts
Google Analytics
Hootsuite
Mentionlytics
Best Brand Monitoring Tools: Next Steps
Meltwater
The quintessential brand monitoring tool, Meltwater helps organizations gain a 360-degree view of their brand’s presence. From social media monitoring to blogs, podcasts, and news channels, you can see everywhere your brand lives and use this intel to grow stronger.
Companies trust Meltwater’s media intelligence for real-time data and actionable insights. Meltwater combines brand monitoring with data science to analyze findings and show you what the data means and why it matters. With access to a 15-month archive of social data, brands can see how perceptions and conversations have evolved.
And if your brand does become a target for negative online chatter, brands can spot shifts in sentiments quickly and react accordingly. Meltwater helps companies get ahead so they can lead the conversation, quash misinformation in its tracks, and protect their public images.
Along with brand tracking, Meltwater also serves as a brand tracking software so you can see how your efforts pay off over time.
Meltwater Brand Monitoring Key Features
- Social listening, including Chinese social media apps (Chinese social media monitoring)
- Unlimited keywords
- Sentiment analysis
- Social analytics tools
- Competitor intelligence
Price: Available upon request; free demo available.
Ahrefs
Primarily an SEO tool, Ahrefs can be very telling about your overall brand health. A small slice of the much larger branding picture is the ability to gain backlinks from other websites. Sometimes, these backlinks are the by-products of conscientious efforts on your part. Other times, they happen organically.
When you receive unsolicited backlinks from third parties, you don’t have control over the anchor text they use or the context in which they link to you. These are important things to know because they can influence how others perceive your brand.
Ahrefs tracks your entire backlink profile, allowing you to see who is driving traffic to you, the anchor text they use, their domain authority rating, and other details.
And since it’s an SEO tool, you can also track keywords and organic rankings and how these change over time. If you notice a decline in rankings, you can pair this with other brand-related data, such as customer sentiment analysis, to see if the decline indicates a brand image issue or something else.
Tip: Learn how to write SEO-optimized content and how to supercharge your SEO with audience insights.
Ahrefs Brand Monitoring Key Features
- Competitor analysis
- Daily keyword tracking
- SERP rank tracking
- Backlink monitoring
Price: Plans start at $99/month; some tools are available for free.
BuzzSumo
People are talking about your brand online, even when they aren’t having those conversations directly with you. With BuzzSumo, you can set up keyword alerts and respond at the right times.
Keyword alerts are helpful not just with brand monitoring but also when tracking competitors, industry news, and products or services related to your own. You can also receive alerts when new content is posted on websites or by authors you’re tracking.
If you find that content is being posted about your brand, you can go to your personalized dashboard to see the content’s popularity. View how many times it’s been shared on various social media channels. If the content might bring negative publicity, gauging its popularity can show you whether there’s a real threat you need to address.
Tip: Learn more about brand monitoring right here.
BuzzSumo Brand Monitoring Key Features
- Content discovery
- Competitor monitoring
- Custom alerts
Price: Plans start at $199 per month; free 30-day trial available.
YouScan
YouScan wears many hats: brand monitoring, competitor analysis, market research, and trend detection, to name a few. In terms of brand monitoring, YouScan aims to understand what people are saying online about a brand and pinpoint what exactly makes them happy or dissatisfied.
Aside from monitoring social media and other text-based content, YouScan’s AI capabilities can analyze logos, images, and other visuals. This helps brands maintain a consistent image across channels (e.g., using the right logo or creative) as well as keep tabs on competitors to see how they’re using visuals to talk about their brands.
Tip: See how Meltwater uses AI, including video and image analysis, and take a look at more image recognition software.
YouScan Brand Monitoring Key Features
- AI-powered analysis
- Image recognition
- Sentiment analysis
Price: Plans start at $299 per month.
X Pro
Formerly known as TweetDeck, X has reinvented this brand monitoring tool to fit alongside Twitter’s new brand and image. If your brand is active on X, this tool is a must for growth and brand management.
One of its most notable features is the ability to track and monitor hashtags. This is especially helpful during live events as you contribute to a growing conversation. You can also track other non-branded hashtags to see how they’re gaining or losing share of voice.
X Pro Brand Monitoring Key Features
- Dashboard dedicated solely to X (formerly known as Twitter)
- Hashtag tracking
- Social media management features
Price: $8 per month.
Keyhole
Keyhole tracks brand media mentions (both direct and indirect) from hashtags, influencers, social media posts, and keywords in real time and organizes your data into a single source of truth. You’ll receive alerts when a post about your brand is about to go viral so you can prepare the next best action.
Monitoring hashtags gives brands a deeper understanding of what people are talking about online and how they’re discussing those topics. These hashtags might also provide unique opportunities to grow your brand’s presence online and get in front of a wider yet targeted audience.
Keyhole Brand Monitoring Key Features
- All-in-one social media analytics
- Brand tracking
- Direct and indirect mention monitoring
Price: Plans start at $79 per month; free trial available.
Google Alerts
Ever wonder if your brand or product has been a topic of conversation beyond social media? Google Alerts can answer — for free.
This simple yet essential tool is a great way to step into the world of brand monitoring tools. Simply set up an alert for a keyword of your choice, then receive emails showing where that keyword was mentioned in online publications.
Your keywords can be brand-related (e.g., your brand name, the name of a product, a brand nickname), competitor-related, or industry-related. You’ll receive an email of where content about your keywords is being published so you can see who is talking about your brand and how they’re positioning it.
Use these opportunities to make new media contacts and keep positive conversations going. Or find out if someone is pushing a negative agenda so you can respond accordingly.
Google Alerts Brand Monitoring Key Features
- Simple user interface
- Daily email digest
- Unlimited keyword tracking
Price: Free
Google Analytics
Another brand monitoring tool home-run, Google Analytics can offer valuable insights about your brand. First and foremost, as a website analytics platform, you can track how traffic patterns change over time. This can help you understand how consumer interest in your brand evolves and whether you’re reaching the right audiences.
Beyond the basics, Google can show you where your traffic is coming from (especially referral sources). Traffic sources can give you valuable insights into which websites or platforms are driving the most brand awareness for your business. From there, you can tailor your marketing efforts to capitalize on high-performing channels.
There’s also the number of referrals to consider. If you lose a large number of backlinks or you’re losing them faster than you’re gaining them, it might be worthwhile to find the root cause. Maybe it’s a change in consumer sentiment, or it could be the start of a much larger crisis that needs quick action.
Google Analytics Brand Monitoring Key Features
- Website analytics
- Customer journey mapping
- Integrations with Google advertising and publisher tools
Price: Free
Hootsuite
For brand monitoring on social media, Hootsuite comes with a few handy features beyond social media post scheduling. You can set up custom streams on topics that matter to you and see what others are posting about those topics. This also gives you an “in” to conversations to help you grow your brand awareness.
When customers on social media reach out directly, you can be ready to respond via a centralized inbox. This inbox brings all of your DMs to one place so you never miss an opportunity to impress.
Tip: Check out more Hootsuite alternatives.
Hootsuite Brand Monitoring Key Features
- Social listening
- Social media analytics
- Centralized inbox and messaging
Price: Plans start at $99 per month; free trial available.
Mentionlytics
Known widely as a social listening tool, Mentionlytics also offers review monitoring and media monitoring to close knowledge gaps. This brand monitoring tool tracks all the major review sites and can alert you to potentially harmful reviews that might impact brand image and consumer trust.
You can also track media mentions across the web to learn what other publications, authors, and social media users are saying about your company. This capability gives you real-time feedback about how people think, feel, and talk about your brand, allowing you to tailor a response if needed or capitalize on good publicity.
Mentionlytics Brand Monitoring Key Features
- Media monitoring
- Social media listening
- Review monitoring
Price: Plans start at $49 per month; free 14-day trial available.
Best Brand Monitoring Tools: Next Steps
Now that you know about the best brand monitoring tools, it’s time to add one (or more!) to your brand strategy.
Our best advice: Take Meltwater for a free test drive and go behind the scenes of how our media intelligence helps you build a stronger brand.
Meltwater goes wherever your brand is, online and offline. From blogs and podcasts to social media networks and online publications, Meltwater pairs data with insights and action steps so you can track your brand’s health.
Monitor unlimited keywords, get real-time alerts, and compile your findings into visual reports to see what's being said about your brand and how you can take control of the narrative.
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