The List
From time to time, every digital marketer needs a quick and easy social monitoring tool to use for various projects, and if it is free that is all the better. While not an exhaustive list, it is a strong collection of the most popular free tools available. I hope you find what you need here.
Click to Tweet: ★ Top 20 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools ★
This list is based on over 400 votes collected at The Steveology Blog from June 2012 to the end of the year. Depending on your needs, you will likely require to use more than just one tool to monitor your brand on the social web since no one tool will be perfect.
Section Criteria
I selected the tools for the poll this list is based if they were completely free, or having a permanent free option that I felt actually provided value, (At the time of the list creation), and each service had been recommended by two or more 3rd parties I respected.
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You can see the original poll here. Entries that received less than 1% of the vote included Addict-O-Matic, Backtweets, BoardTracker, Hoosaid, Kurrently, Monitter, Twazzup, and Twilert.
This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.
About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology
Steve was named by Forbes one of the Top 50 Social Media Influencer in the world. He’s a communications and content marketing strategist with 20 years of hands on experience. He works with high-growth tech companies to generate targeted leads, grow brand engagement, and increase customer retention by effectively using owned and earned media.
Contact 650-331-0594 to discuss how you can use digital marketing to dominate your competition.
Steve Farnsworth's Old Blog 
FR33Q
January 4, 2013
Reblogged this on .:: FreeQ's Blog ::..
Unordinary Customer
January 5, 2013
Hi Steve,
I would also add social mention as an analytics tool.
Regards,
Anna
Steve Farnsworth A.K.A. @Steveology
January 5, 2013
It’s on the list at #6 already. ;-)
TISEL Milan Vukovic
January 5, 2013
Reblogged this on My Blog Tisel Milan Vukovic.
Cate Crandell (@wherescate)
January 7, 2013
Crowdbooster is no longer free :(
ioanna aggelidaki
January 8, 2013
Thank you for the list, very helpful! :)
Internet Dude
January 8, 2013
Odd, this article outdated already… some tools no longer exist. lol
Muralidharan Dhanapalan
January 19, 2013
Reblogged this on Public Relations Equity. and commented:
Useful post on #socialmedia monitoring tools by Steve.
jogebau
February 22, 2013
I think SocialBro since changed what you get with the free version – now very limited if you are not a premium user…
Justin Germino
March 7, 2013
Hootsuite is my #1 tool I use to communicate on Social Media, one that isn’t on the list that may be worth mentioning is TweetChat which is incredible in it’s ability to keep conversations on point and track Hashtags and stay part of hashtag conversations and Twitter chats too.
Bobbi Greenberg
March 11, 2013
I also retweeted. Thanks for posting.
Steve Farnsworth A.K.A. @Steveology
March 15, 2013
Thank you!
Alex Roe
April 11, 2013
Good to see Google Alerts in second place – I use it. It’s simple to set up and efficient too.
For mobile people for whom Twitter is important, Ubersocial is probably worth looking at too. It’s inner circle function is very handy for watching a select few twitter accounts.