Why use media monitoring tools? Last month, Duolingo found itself in trouble on X. A debate about JK Rowling and LGBTQ+ content in the app sparked thousands of comments. Many people said they would stop using the platform. In just one day, Duolingo was mentioned over 6000 times, and more than half of those mentions were negative.
Problems can blow up online in hours. If you see them early, you can react, explain your side, and protect your brand reputation.
So, let’s explore the best media monitoring tools!
Quick summary:
1. Media monitoring tools are software that track and analyze your and your rivals’ online mentions across social media platforms and beyond.
2. Depending on the tools’ advancement, they can either just monitor specific keywords or provide ready-to-use analysis, alerts, and AI insights.
3. The top tools use AI to paint a big picture of your brand reputation, audience sentiment, and competitive landscape.
But why would you care about my opinion on this topic?
I have been using media monitoring for marketing purposes for 4+ years and have worked for a media monitoring software company for almost 2 years.
I want to show you how accessible and easy the media monitoring technology is and present you with a handy, impartial list of tools worth attention.
My goal is to give you first-hand knowledge.
I curated this list based on my own experience, Reddit users’ opinions, and big review platforms such as G2 and Capterra.
I also included a detailed comparison of these tools’ performance online for a quick overview.
Now, without further ado, let’s explore the 12 best media monitoring tools!
01 Brand24
Brand24 is a media monitoring tool that tracks & analyzes mentions and delivers tailored insights thanks to its AI-powered features.
The tool monitors conversations in real-time across various online sources – both social and non-social.
It includes powerful sentiment analysis that uncovers emotions hidden within online mentions, allowing brands to understand public perception more deeply.
Moreover, the tool allows you to identify industry trends, top brand influencers & haters, most important brand awareness sources, analyze hashtags, benchmark competitors, and much more.
Media monitoring tools: Analysis tab
The tool offers a wide range of AI solutions.
Additionally, Brand24 allows you to create comprehensive reports that provide a clear snapshot of your brand performance.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, Bluesky, Telegram, Twitch, websites, blogs, podcasts, video platforms, news sites, review platforms, and newsletters.
Social media monitoring tools: Brand24 dashboard
⭐️ Overall verdict
Brand24 is a powerful media monitoring tool perfect for medium and large-sized businesses.
Its comprehensive monitoring and analytics features enable brands to manage their online presence and protect their brand reputation effectively.
Strengths:
- A range of very useful AI-powered features
- The broad coverage of sources of data
- Friendly & intuitive user interface
- Accurate & AI-boosted sentiment analysis
- Numerous filters, including Boolean search
What could be better:
- Limited access to historical data
- No social media management features
Ratings:
- 4.6/5 on G2 (298 reviews)
- 4.7/5 on Capterra (236 reviews)
Try an AI-powered media monitoring tool!
02 Awario
Awario is a relatively cheap and basic social media monitoring tool that tracks and analyzes social media conversations and the ones in non-social sources (like websites).
It provides a range of simple media monitoring features, such as sentiment analysis, Boolean searching, competitor analysis, and influencer marketing.
Due to its simplicity, you’ll not find advanced analytics features.
However, there are two unique things that make Awario an interesting choice for small businesses and social media managers:
- Direct engagement with mentions – you can reply, like, and share mentions from the feed.
- Leads module that supports social selling – it helps you identify prospects who use your tracked keywords with a buying intent or complain about your competitors.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, news, blogs, forums, and websites.
Social media monitoring tools: Awario dashboard
Check: Awario Alternatives
⭐️ Overall verdict
Awario is a good fit for smaller businesses and freelancers with basic needs that prioritize social selling and have lower budgets.
The higher plans are needed for more features. It’s not ideal for large enterprises or those requiring image recognition.
Strengths:
- Simple design and UX
- Lead generation module, great for social selling
- Social interactions directly from the feed
What could be better:
- Lack of advanced analytics and AI-supported features that would show the big picture
- Limited coverage – Awario users often complain about the lack of comprehensive monitoring of Instagram, LinkedIn, or Reddit
- No CRM integrations and mobile app.
Ratings:
- 3.9/5 on G2 (42 reviews)
- 4.3/5 on Capterra (47 reviews)
03 Mention by Agorapulse
Mention is a powerful media monitoring tool that covers a broad range of social and non-social sources.
It provides far-reaching capabilities for monitoring brand reputation, analyzing trends, and gaining audience insights.
Obviously, all the mentions are tracked in real-time.
Like most tools on that list, it offers sentiment analysis, which allows you to understand people’s feelings about your brand, and competitor benchmarking.
Moreover, Mention provides an anomaly detector named Spike Alerts. It resembles Brand24’s AI Events Detector.
The two unique things that make Mention stand out are:
- Team collaboration features – with just a few clicks, you can tag mentions, assign tasks, and share reports.
- Historical data access – you can collect mentions with up to two years in the past.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, websites, forums, blogs, podcasts, and news sites.
Social media monitoring tools: Mention by Agorapulse
⭐️ Overall verdict
Mention.com is a great choice for businesses that require real-time monitoring combined with comprehensive data access and collaborative features. It’s well-suited for mid-sized companies.
However, it may not be the best fit for enterprises needing AI-powered insights or highly advanced analytics.
Strengths:
- Team collaboration features
- Historical analysis access (on higher plans)
- Multilingual support across +40 languages
What could be better:
- Limited advanced AI analytics compared to competitors
- Social platform coverage, data access, and advanced filters are reserved for higher-priced plans
- Basic sentiment analysis – there’s no deeper sentiment segmentation.
Ratings:
- 4.3/5 on G2 (440 reviews)
- 4.7/5 on Capterra (290 reviews)
04 Brandwatch
Brandwatch is an enterprise-level social media monitoring and analytics tool.
It offers deep & big picture insights into online conversations by leveraging AI-powered analysis and advanced data visualization.
The tool is especially powerful when it comes to consumer intelligence.
It allows you to perform a real-time and historical market analysis and do a detailed data segmentation by sentiment, demographics, and more.
The two unique things that make Brandwatch an interesting choice for enterprise customers are:
- Image recognition technology – enables users to track visual mentions of their brand or products,
- Extensive data coverage – Brandwatch connects with CRM systems, Google Analytics, and marketing tools like Salesforce.
Moreover, it helps identify and track influencers who can significantly impact brand perception and audience engagement.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, Twitch, WhatsApp, news sites, blogs, review sites, and forums.
Media monitoring: Brandwatch dashboard
Check: Brandwatch Alternatives
⭐️ Overall verdict
Brandwatch is a good choice for high-budget enterprises, large agencies, and organizations that need deep analytics and powerful data visualization.
The high pricing makes it inapplicable for smaller businesses with basic needs.
Strengths:
- Advanced consumer intelligence
- Custom dashboards
- Image recognition
What could be better:
- Expensive plans
- Difficult and time-consuming onboarding process
- Low coverage of TikTok and LinkedIn
Ratings:
- 4.2/5 on G2 (1,542 reviews)
- 4.2/5 on Capterra (237 reviews)
Try the best media monitoring tool!
05 Google Alerts
It might surprise you but Google Alerts is definitely among the best free media monitoring tools you can use! How is that possible?
Well, Google Alerts has a lot in common with commercial media monitoring tools.
It allows you to track specific keywords and mentions across websites, news articles, and blogs.
Once a new mention appears, you receive an email notification, making it a simple yet effective way to stay updated.
However, unlike advanced media monitoring tools, Google Alerts does not provide social media monitoring.
So, it won’t track social media mentions, analyze sentiment, or offer competitive benchmarking.
It’s a lightweight tool best suited for basic monitoring needs rather than deep analytics.
🔍 Monitored sources
Websites, news, blogs, and forums.
Google Alerts – one of the free media monitoring softwares
⭐️ Overall verdict
Google Alerts is a great choice for individuals, freelancers, and small businesses looking for a free and easy way to monitor brand mentions.
Remember, though, that it lacks basically any type of analytics and real-time tracking.
Strengths:
- Free media monitoring tool
- Ease of use
- Email notifications
What could be better:
- Limited monitoring – Google Alerts doesn’t track social media mentions
- Lack of advanced analytics: – the tool provides no analytics or insights beyond notifying users of new mentions.
- No sentiment analysis – Google Alerts does not analyze the sentiment of the mentions.
- Basic interface – the tool has a very basic and limited interface, offering minimal customization or filtering options.
Ratings:
Not available on review platforms.
Reddit users often complain that it misses important mentions, but at the same time, they value that it is free.
@r/startups from Reddit said:
“While it generally serves its purpose, I’ve found a few points of friction:
– Search Term Selection: Picking the right search terms to get the desired results can be a bit tricky.
– User Experience: I sometimes find the UX not as intuitive as I’d like.
– Quality of Results: The relevancy and accuracy of the alerts can be hit or miss.”
source of the quote: Reddit thread
06 BrandMentions
BrandMentions is known for its comprehensive coverage and real-time media monitoring capabilities.
The tool offers, let’s say, a traditional set of features most tools in that niche has. These are real-time alerts, sentiment analysis, competitor analysis, and AI-driven insights.
Besides, BrandMentions will help you identify influencers and key opinion leaders in specific industries or topics. Also, you’ll be able to monitor competitors’ online presence and compare their media coverage.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, websites, blogs, forums, and review sites.
Media monitoring: BrandMentions dashboard
⭐️ Overall verdict
BrandMentions is a nice choice for medium-sized businesses that expect quite a basic analytics.
However, if you need more detailed insights, such as in-depth data visualization, predictive analytics, or extensive integrations, BrandMentions may fall short.
Strengths:
- Quite a comprehensive sources coverage
- Customizable reporting
- Ease of use
What could be better:
- Limited advanced analytics
- Frequently reported problems with missed mentions
Ratings:
- 4.7/5 on G2 (99 reviews)
- 5/5 on Capterra (7 reviews)
07 Talkwalker by Hootsuite
Talkwalker is another robust media monitoring tool that focuses on delivering results to corporate and enterprise-level accounts.
The tool helps brands and agencies track and analyze social media conversations, web mentions, and media coverage.
It includes sentiment analysis to gauge public perception and sentiment toward a brand or topic.
Talkwalker covers owned and earned media in 187 languages. Using advanced AI, the tool can deliver the most important and impactful information.
The two unique things Talkwalker offers are:
- Predictive analysis – the tool can forecast topic volumes and trends using machine learning;
- Visial recognition – Talkwalker detects brand mentions in images, videos, and audio.
The tool analyses the data in real time. You also get access to 2 years of historical data.
Besides, Talkwalker works great for tracking press releases. Your PR professionals will surely appreciate it!
The tool’s pricing is undisclosed but according to SaaS review sites, Basic plan starts at around $10,000.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Bluesky, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, Line, news sites, blogs, forums, podcasts, video platforms, and newsletters.
Media monitoring: Talkwalker dashboard
Check: Talkwalker Alternatives
⭐️ Overall verdict
Talkwalker is a powerful media monitoring tool, ideal for enterprises.
While its pricing is on the higher side, the extensive features it offers gives a real value for businesses that require in-depth media monitoring and consumer intelligence.
Strengths:
- Very broad sources coverage
- Predictive analysis
- Multiple types of data visualizations
What could be better:
- UX is far from being user-friendly
- Troubles with data mining and sentiment tagging
- Steep learning curve
- No free trial
Ratings:
- 4.3/5 on G2 (136 reviews)
- 4.4/5 on Capterra (24 reviews)
08 Keyhole
Keyhole is a social media monitoring and analytics tool designed to track online conversations, measure campaign performance, and understand audience engagement.
It offers a suite of features including real-time tracking, hashtag analytics, and influencer monitoring.
While Keyhole provides standard media monitoring capabilities such as sentiment analysis and competitor tracking, it is especially powerful with two unique features:
- Predictive analytics – Keyhole forecasts campaign performance over the next 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days;
- Influencer tracking – the tool identifies key influencers discussing specific hashtags or keywords. That allows brands in better targeting and engaging with relevant opinion leaders.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instgram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LikedIn, TikTok, news sites, blogs, and forums.
Media monitoring: Keyhole dashboard
Check: Keyhole Alternatives
⭐️ Overall verdict
Keyhole is one of these online monitoring tools that are best suited to small and medium-sized businesses.
Especially those actively running social media campaigns and with little reporting needs.
Strengths:
- User-friendly interface
- Predictive analytics that works well for campaign management.
- Powerful influencer marketing features
What could be better:
- Limited data access compared to its market rivals
- Low coverage of non-social sources
- Advanced analytics features are less appealing than those offered by Keyhole’s competitors
Ratings:
- 4.3/5 on G2 (69 reviews)
- 5/5 on Capterra (2 reviews)
09 Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a comprehensive social media monitoring, management, and analytics software designed to help brands effectively manage their social media presence across multiple channels.
It offers a suite of features, including content scheduling, publishing, engagement, and in-depth analytics.
All that to strengthen your social media performance on many different levels.
One of the key Sprout Social’s components is social listening. It allows you to monitor brand mentions, track industry trends, get detailed insights into audience sentiment, and more.
What’s interesting, the platform provides tools for real-time engagement. So, in other words, you can respond to incoming messages or schedule posts on major social media channels.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit, news sites, blogs, and review sites.
Social media monitoring tools: Sprout Social dashboard
⭐️ Overall verdict
As an all-in-one tool, Sprout Social is a great solution for medium to large businesses and agencies that require comprehensive social media management and analytics capabilities.
Strengths:
- Intuitive and user-friendly interface
- Comprehensive set of social media management & analytics features
- AI-powered automation for efficiency
What could be better:
- High pricing
- Reported issues with social listening accuracy
- Limited features in the basic plan
Ratings:
- 4.4/5 on G2 (4,743 reviews)
- 4.4/5 on Capterra (604 reviews)
10 Meltwater
Meltwater is a powerful media intelligence platform that monitors and analyzes enterprise-size brands’ media presence across both online and offline channels.
Precisely speaking, Meltwater offers features for tracking online news, social media, print, broadcast, and podcasts, providing a holistic view of brand mentions and industry trends.
The tool offers analytics tracking the volume of mentions, the share of voice, reach, sentiment, emerging trends, top publications, locations, and influencers.
While these capabilities are pretty standard for most of the media monitoring tools on that list, Meltwater distinguishes itself with two unique features:
- Custom scoring – it allows to assign different weights to mentions based on their importance. Very useful thing for more detailed analysis!
- Rules-based automation – you can automate repetitive tasks within the platform.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitch, Snapchat, Bluesky, news sites, blogs, forums, podcasts, review sites, radio, and TV.
Media monitoring: Meltwater dashboard
Check: Meltwater Alternatives
⭐️ Overall verdict
Meltwater is an ideal solution for large enterprises and organizations that require extensive media monitoring and advanced analytics.
This scope justifies its higher pricing, which is unreachable for smaller companies.
Strengths:
- Extensive data coverage across multiple online and offline media channels
- Advanced features like AI-powered tagging and rules-based automation
- User-friendly interface with powerful analytics tools
What could be better:
- Despite its user-friendly interface, the platform’s extensive features require time for new users to fully utilize
- Some users express concerns regarding contract transparency and customer service
- Users managing a large number of accounts simultaneously have reported occasional performance lags.
Ratings:
- 4/5 on G2 (2,321 reviews)
- 4/5 on Capterra (96 reviews)
11 Determ
Determ, formerly known as Mediatoolkit, is a dynamic media monitoring solution for PR and marketing professionals.
It excels in delivering real-time insights into brand mentions, industry trends, and competitor benchmarking across multiple online sources.
While Determ offers standard features like real-time tracking and sentiment analysis, it stands out with two features:
- AI Assistant “Synthia” – AI-generated summaries and strategic insights into the most influential media coverage and online conversations.
- Advanced Boolean search operators – they allow a much more detailed and tailored results filtering.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, news sites, forums, blogs, and review sites.
Media monitoring: Determ dashboard
⭐️ Overall verdict
Determ is a nice choice for small to medium-sized businesses seeking a user-friendly media monitoring tool with AI capabilities and customizable reporting.
However, brands looking for more advanced analytics or extensive historical data may find it less useful.
Strengths:
- Customizable mentions filtering and reporting
- AI Assistant
What could be better:
- Limited advanced analytics
- Low coverage of social media platforms
- Limited access to historical data
Ratings:
- 4.7/5 on G2 (43 reviews)
- 4.4/5 on Capterra (39 reviews)
12 Prowly
Prowly is a platform that offers tools for Public Relations (PR) and media relations.
It its essence, this platform excels in managing media databases, press release creation & distribution, and media outreach.
Moreover, Prowly includes features for media monitoring, which can be helpful for PR agencies in managing their activities.
In practice, the tool does provide some features to track brand mentions and media coverage, helping users monitor the results of their PR campaigns.
However, it is not a dedicated media monitoring software. So, consider more advanced tools if you care about in-depth mentions tracking and comprehensive media analysis.
🔍 Monitored sources
Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, news sites, print media, radio, and TV.
Media monitoring: Prowly dashboard
⭐️ Overall verdict
Contrary to other tools from that list, Prowly is an example of PR media monitoring tools.
And as so, it is an excellent choice for PR professionals and businesses seeking an all-in-one PR solution with a little support for media monitoring.
Strengths:
- Integrated PR tools
- Huge media database
- AI assistant
What could be better:
- Lack of in-depth analytics
- Very limited media monitoring capabilities
Ratings:
- 4.2/5 on G2 (110 reviews)
- 3.8/5 on Capterra (19 reviews)
I guess you realized that the options can feel endless.
The real question is: how do you find the tool that actually fits your needs?
To answer that, it helps to go beyond feature lists and marketing promises and look at what real users say.
By analyzing online conversations, we can clearly understand how people perceive different tools, what they like, and where they see gaps.
Using Brand24, I gathered and compared real discussions about the leading social listening platforms.
Here’s what the data reveals:
- Brand24 – number of mentions: 2196 (251 positive, 11 negative)
- Sprout Social – number of mentions: 10,000 (912 positive, 118 negative)
- Awario – number of mentions: 222 (30 positive, 5 negative)
- Talkwalker – number of mentions: 2057 (132 positive, 85 negative)
- Keyhole.co – number of mentions: 28 (0 positive, 0 negative)
- Determ – number of mentions: 733 (178 positive, 59 negative)
- Brandwatch – number of mentions: 4213 (613 positive, 27 negative)
- Google Alerts – number of mentions: 15,000 (532 positive, 421 negative)
- Meltwater – number of mentions: 2722 (195 positive, 49 negative)
Tools comparison based on online data from the last 3 months
Try the best media monitoring tool!
FAQ
What is a media monitoring tool?
A media monitoring tool is software that tracks online mentions of specific keywords, brands, or topics across websites, social media, news outlets, blogs, and forums.
These tools help businesses monitor their reputation, analyze sentiment, and gather market insights in real time.
What are the top social media monitoring tools?
Which tools offer real-time monitoring and alerts?
Tools like Brand24, Mention, and Determ offer real-time monitoring and instant alerts. These features help teams act quickly to manage brand reputation, respond to feedback, or engage with customers.
How to set up media monitoring tools?
To set up a media monitoring tool, start by selecting keywords related to your brand, products, competitors, and industry topics.
Then, configure alerts, sentiment filters, and preferred sources (social media, news, blogs, etc.).
Who can benefit from using a media monitoring tool?
Media monitoring tools are valuable for businesses across all industries, including:
- Healthcare
- Tech
- Finance
- Retail
- Public relations
PR teams use them to manage reputation, marketers track campaign performance, and product teams gather user feedback.
In regulated sectors like healthcare or finance, they help monitor compliance-related discussions and emerging trends.
Startups, NGOs, agencies, and enterprises benefit from staying ahead of public sentiment and media exposure.
Conclusion
Media monitoring is no longer a nice-to-have. If you’re treating your PR, marketing, brand reputation, and social media strategy seriously, such software matters a lot!
These tools provide multi-channel and real-time tracking of brand mentions, sentiment analysis, and competitor benchmarking across various online sources.
Remember that choosing the right tool depends on your brand’s needs, whether it’s real-time tracking, social media focus, or AI-powered insights.
And also on how deep your pocket is 😉
Final thoughts:
- A strong media monitoring strategy helps brands prevent crises before they escalate.
- AI-powered insights allow brands to make accurate decisions faster.
- Choosing the right tool depends on whether you prioritize affordability, depth of analysis, or specific features.
- Social media monitoring is just one part of a broader brand reputation strategy.
Start Brand24 14-day free trial and test the best tool – just set it, and it’ll do the rest!
