Best free Social listening tools 2026
Free Social listening tools with a free plan or trial, ranked by visitor rating and reliability. · updated July 2026
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Sprout Social Social listening
Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management platform combining publishing, scheduling, engagement, and listening tools in a single dashboard. Its listening module tracks brand keywords and competitor mentions, while built-in analytics report on engagement and audience growth, making it a common choice for teams that want management and monitoring in one subscription.
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Brand24 Social listening
Brand24 is a social listening tool that tracks brand mentions, hashtags, and keywords across social media, news, blogs, and forums in real time. It scores each mention's sentiment and reach, sends alerts for sudden spikes in conversation, and offers a simpler, budget-friendly dashboard aimed at small businesses and individual marketers rather than large enterprises.
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BuzzSumo Social listening
BuzzSumo is a content research and monitoring tool that shows which articles, topics, and social posts get the most engagement, alongside brand and keyword mention tracking. Marketers use it to find popular content angles, identify influencers and journalists, and track competitor content performance across social channels and the web.
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Keyhole Social listening
Keyhole is a real-time hashtag and social media analytics tool that tracks campaign hashtags, brand keywords, and influencer performance across networks. It reports reach, engagement, and sentiment for tracked terms, making it a common pick for agencies reporting on campaign and event hashtag performance to clients.
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Google Alerts Social listening
Google Alerts is a free monitoring tool that emails notifications whenever new web content matches chosen keywords, brand names, or topics. It scans Google's search index rather than social platforms directly, making it a lightweight way for marketers to catch news mentions, competitor coverage, and industry keyword trends without a dedicated listening subscription.
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Social Mention Social listening
Social Mention is a free real-time search and analysis tool that aggregates user-generated content mentioning a keyword or brand across blogs, social networks, bookmarking sites, and other channels. It reports basic metrics like strength, sentiment, passion, and reach, offering a quick, no-cost snapshot of online conversation volume around a search term.
More rankings
Rankings are generated automatically from visitor ratings and refreshed continuously. A promoted spot is clearly labelled and does not affect the other rankings.