Social media management tools can be a make or break for brands wanting to thrive on X. They make marketing campaigns easier, help businesses boost engagement, and ultimately help you reach your target audience.

These monitoring tools can also provide valuable insights into what your target audience wants to see, and help focus the noise of X into something magical. So, here's our list of the best X (Twitter) monitoring tools to help you transform your X feed.

What are X monitoring tools?

Social media monitoring tools allow you to automatically track topics, brand mentions, and trends you're most interested in. For companies marketing on X, this can specifically mean competitive analysis, industry trends, and audience engagement. 

Social media marketing requires plenty of creativity and personalization – and it's not so difficult when you're just a single person starting out with a few followers. However, when you are a large company with thousands and thousands of followers, it's a different story.

On a platform like X, where topics move quickly and everyone posts multiple times a day, knowing what's going on can become a full-time job. Manually tracking certain topics or KPIs eats into the time you spend creating content and interacting with followers.

So, setting up an automatic X (Twitter) monitoring tool means you'll see the progression of insights on your dashboard using real-time data, and you can continuously adjust your social media strategy to optimize your results.

The benefits of using X monitoring tools

X monitoring tools have several distinct advantages.

Real-time tracking

Historical data is valuable if you have a big, specific question. But real-time analytics provide insights into what's happening right now. It can show you trending topics before they're played out, alert you to any negative brand mentions so you can address them right away, or notice when your competitors are making moves you should also be following. 

Additionally, tracking real-time conversations through social listening gives you a deeper understanding of how your brand is perceived right at this moment on the platform. Since engagement metrics are a critical part of your strategy, this is an irreplaceable feature.

Brand reputation management

And speaking of tracking conversations, brand image can change rapidly on X. Immediate insights provides you opportunities to manage your brand's online presence and quickly make any negative press right.

A quick, clear response is often the best way to address negative customer feedback. Monitoring ensures you see a crisis building before it gets away from you.

Competitor analysis

Your competitors have their own follower lists and social media campaign strategies. Getting noticed requires understanding what you can offer users that your competitors don't. Watching others in your industry closely using automated tools provides a lot of instruction for how you can slip into those gaps.

Additionally, sometimes working with your competitors can help improve everyone's results. Monitoring here may provide opportunities to put together discussions, online events, or other engagement opportunities.

Crisis management

No one means to anger customers, but sometimes things happen. Understanding consumer opinions early by using sentiment analysis can provide an opportunity to mitigate any negativity, and also ensure that shifts happen to prevent future incidents.

Sometimes, it's not about something your brand has done. If your supplier fails to send what you need in a timely manner, customers may still be angry at you. Monitoring tools help you see where your communication is working and where it might need some boosting.

Automated alerts & reports

Ultimately, manually pulling reports and waiting to assess your circumstances won't give you enough notice to make the right decisions. Instead, automating alerts and reports for things that are most important to you ensures you always have the information you need on hand.

Additionally, taking this mundane task off your team's plate gives them more time to focus on tasks that do require more human intervention: problem-solving, relationship building, and creativity.

Top X (Twitter) monitoring tools

Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a comprehensive social media management and monitoring tool with multiple analytics capabilities. You can set up brand mentions for X, customize your notifications, and perform sentiment analysis. You can observe and measure social media campaigns to gain valuable insights into your performance and audience engagement.

Brandwatch offers real-time data capture, monitoring conversations as they happen so you have more time to react. Competitive analysis and crisis management solutions give you more control over your decision-making and subsequent actions. Plus, as an official X partner, you'll have access to the X firehose – a vast collection of public data directly from the platform.

X Pro (formerly TweetDeck, X's native tool)

X Pro is a native tool designed to streamline your social media efforts specifically for X. You can view multiple timelines, track keywords and hashtags, and create custom lists of accounts to follow. 

You can toggle between different accounts, schedule posts, and make informed decisions based on detailed analytics from online conversations. The real draw is the unique column view, which puts your topics side-by-side for direct comparison.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social offers a unified inbox with keyword tracking, detailed analysis, and social listening capabilities. It allows you to make decisions using comprehensive analytics viewed from a single dashboard. It works even if you're managing multiple social media accounts and campaigns and provides one central location for all your mentions.

The dashboard also allows you to identify and respond to important posts. It simplifies notifications, and you'll also have access to trend analysis and keyword tracking, as well as advanced filtering options for monitoring mentions.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite allows you to create specific streams to monitor brand mentions, keywords, hashtags, or even entire accounts on X. It provides detailed analytics and enables analyzing online conversations within those streams. You can set up real-time alerts for important mentions so you can respond in a timely manner.

For broader social media management, you can also organize streams into specific categories like platform or sentiment. In-depth analytics gives you more informed decisions and streamlines your marketing efforts. 

Brand24

Brand24 collects mentions of your brand across social media platforms like X so that you can understand your online reputation, tracking mentions and monitoring activity on your account. You can set up keyword tracking and engage in social listening. Alerts are customizable and will let you know early if sentiment is turning so you can respond accordingly.

The tool generates reports, and you can set up keyword tracking for a variety of things, including competitor names and hashtags. 

Mention

Mention aggregates brand mentions across multiple platforms and provides real-time alerts for the parameters you set up. It uses sentiment analysis to show you whether mentions are positive or negative so you can respond quickly and effectively. Competitive analysis lets you benchmark your brand and understand how you measure up.

Mention will track your brand mentions on news sites and other websites as well, giving you a holistic view of what others think of your organization and what they're talking about in real time.

SocialBee

SocialBee enables you to monitor X by tracking keywords, post-performance, follower growth, and other important metrics. It will suggest ideal posting times and give you access to historical data to understand more about what content performs best. A unified inbox puts all your communication and notifications in one place.

You can customize your reports for X or a few other social media platforms where you have a brand presence. It provides access to real-time analytics and a more comprehensive view of your socials.

Keyhole

Keyhole lets you keep tabs on certain keywords, brand mentions, and online conversations in real time across several social platforms. You can conduct competitor analysis and identify potential influencers to collaborate with. Later, you'll be able to assess their impact to determine if you want to work with them again. Sentiment analysis lets you gauge a general consensus of how people feel about your brand, and visual reporting makes all these insights easier to understand. 

You can also set up real-time alerts based on your specific instructions so that you have time to react or adjust as you need to.

Agorapulse

Agorapulse's social media monitoring tracks keywords, brand mentions, and other specified metrics based on what's most important to your campaigns. It offers customizable search queries and uses real-time alerts to let you know when something needs a response. Reputation management across socials gives you a bird's-eye view of your influence, and competitive analysis allows you to benchmark against others in your industry.

Social listening also enables you to monitor brand mentions even when users don't tag you specifically. This is possible on multiple social accounts.

How to choose the right X monitoring tool

Brand monitoring tools offer you so much valuable data and centralized communication, but here are a few things you should consider before making your final choice.

Features and analytics

In a perfect world, you'd have unlimited budgets to try out all the features and have all the analytics possible. However, there are two issues with that. First, budgets are rarely unlimited (if you have one, congratulations!), so it's important to decide on which non-negotiable features will make the most difference for your social media marketing strategies. 

Second, too much analytics can overshadow the insights you actually need. Determine what control you have over your dashboard and parameters, instead. This puts the most important analytics front and center without distraction. Additionally, if you can automate much of the reporting, you'll have an easier time pushing updates to stakeholders.

Budget and pricing models

Some tools offer a free version, but paid tools may hold more functionality for you. As we lamented above, the perfect scenario is an unlimited budget to try all the features and analytics you could ever want, but the reality will be a balance.

Start by making a list of features you already have. Then, compare pricing tiers with those features. If you already have a creation tool you love but not much access to analytics, a pricing tier should include more analytics.

Also, consider what you actually need to engage users, track trends, and gain insights. These tasks move the needle, but the individual features may vary depending on the maturity of your digital marketing and your overall goals. 

In terms of specifically monitoring tools, determining exactly what you'll monitor is the most important part. Think of why you're monitoring, whether it's specific keywords or something more complex like consumer sentiment, and ensure your chosen tool covers that capability within your budget.

Ease of use and automation

There are some great tools out there, but some require more intervention from humans than others. You want a tool that provides insights without you having to perform circus tricks. Even better, automating either notifications or responses (or both) helps streamline the entire workflow.

The right tool will have automations that you can customize to ensure you always have access to the insights you need. It should be intuitive to use so you minimize how much training you and your team need. 

Integrations with other social media platforms

X isn't the only platform where monitoring is important. Check to see if your chosen tool will also allow you to monitor other social platforms so you can see how your brand is perceived across the ecosystem and how certain things are performing, from keywords to campaigns.

Conclusion

Don't manually pull reports every time a stakeholder has a question. Monitoring tools give you the chance to follow the slippery path of audience sentiments and brand reputation a little easier with automations and improved reporting. Because things shift overnight, notifications and a single place to view communications should give you the resources you need to make a difference in your brand's online presence.

FAQs

Can X monitoring tools track brand mentions?

Yes. X (Twitter) monitoring tools can track brand mentions using social listening. You'll be able to set up parameters to analyze sentiment and get notifications even if users don't specifically tag you.

Is a social media monitoring tool safe to use?

Yes, but it's on you to make sure you understand the platform's rules about integrating third-party tools. Check the social platform's terms and conditions regularly to stay on top of any changes and check the tool's terms to ensure they're using compliant APIs.

Can monitoring tools help in responding to negative feedback?

Yes. First, listening tools offer sentiment analysis and might be able to alert you to problems earlier than waiting until customers actually reach out to you. Responding early can help you maintain your positive brand image even when issues arise. 

Additionally, some tools will enable you to respond directly from the tool's dashboard, so you'll see all relevant communication from the same place. This improves the context of interactions and helps customers feel seen.

How do X monitoring tools measure engagement and reach?

Monitoring tools automate measuring engagement metrics so you don't spend all your time manually pulling reports. They can monitor certain keywords or measure how effective an entire campaign has been. They'll include common engagement metrics like clicks, mentions, shares, and impressions.