Online reputation tracking, or monitoring, is about keeping a vigilant eye on what is being said about your brand across various online channels.
This feedback helps brands identify customer sentiment, trends and even competitor insights, which can all improve your online brand reputation management (ORM) efforts.
Sounds easy enough? Well, not quite.
For big brands with millions of mentions and interactions happening daily, managing and making sense of this vast amount of data is a lot of work.
After all, you’re not simply catching a few negative online reviews – you also have to analyze feedback, spot trends before they escalate and brainstorm how they apply in the grand scheme of your brand reputation management.
This is where online brand reputation management and tracking tools come in handy. These tools automate data collection, provide real-time alerts and offer in-depth analytics, making reputation management and brand protection a breeze for ORM teams.
Below, we compiled the best brand reputation management tools and platforms for monitoring your online presence, depending on what you’re tracking.
This includes:
• Top 3 Social Media Monitoring Tools
• Top 2 Review Management Platforms
• Top 2 Tools for Search Engine Alerts
• Top 2 Brand Reputation Management Services
• Top 2 Analytics and Reporting Features
Top 3 Social Media Monitoring Tools
Social media is a hotbed for conversations about businesses, with the average consumer mentioning brands at least 90 times weekly. Of these people, 71% who’ve had positive encounters will share their experience with friends and family.
Clearly, social media conversations have a tight grip on consumer purchasing decisions. These brand and reputation management tools will help you stay on top of social media chatter, analyze sentiment and effectively engage with your audience.
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an all-in-one social media management tool that covers everything a social media manager needs – from content creation and scheduling to analytics and social listening.
Even in the free trial, the platform’s sophisticated social listening features allow brands to track brand mentions, analyze sentiment and better understand their audience.
What We Love About It
Hootsuite Listening is included with every subscription, including the free and paid versions. You can use Quick Search to find trending brands, hashtags, and events worldwide.
It enables you to monitor what people say about your brand and competitors, offering advanced sentiment analysis to uncover how people truly feel.
Source: Hootsuite
The tool also identifies key metrics and top themes in conversations, making it easy to stay informed and respond effectively to online feedback.
For more advanced features, Hootsuite’s upgraded listening can show sentiment over time, top influencers in your space, audience demographics and more.
Best of all, you can try Hootsuite Listening free for 30 days.
2. Brandwatch
Next on the list is Brandwatch, a robust tool designed to help brands monitor and analyze mentions across various channels. It can track over 100 million sources and uses AI to identify trends and insights about your brand’s reputation.
What We Love About It
Brandwatch has the most extensive database, storing online conversations dating back to 2010. This vast database ensures you can find most of your brand’s online mentions.
Source: Brandwatch
The tool also allows you to categorize brand mentions into custom groups, making prioritizing responses or assigning team members specific categories easier.
Brands can choose from several tailored plans, including:
• Consumer Intelligence: Suitable for researchers and analysts who need to analyze consumer opinions and gather market insights.
• Social Media Management: Perfect for marketers who manage all their social media channels from one platform.
• Influencer Marketing: Ideal for influencer marketing agencies looking to discover new influencers and manage relationships from a central dashboard.
Plan pricing is not listed publicly, so you’ll need to contact Brandwatch directly to get a quote.
3. Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a versatile tool that assists social media managers in tracking social mentions and streamlining monitoring and listening to relevant conversations. Brands can easily organize conversations, track competitor activities and manage negative mentions about competitors.
What We Love About It
Agorapulse’s customizable monitoring feeds allow you to filter specific phrases and platforms, making it easier to manage social media activities. You can label customer conversations and competitor actions for better organization.
Source: Agorapulse
However, it’s worth noting that the tool has some limitations, such as the inability to filter by country or language and the lack of access to historical data in team chats.
Agorapulse offers a 30-day free trial. Plans start at $49 to $119 monthly per user (billed annually), with additional costs per extra user.
Top 2 Review Management Platforms
Google Reviews, TrustPilot, Facebook Reviews, Yelp, Glassdoor – there are numerous channels where consumers provide feedback. When opinions stream in from multiple sources, manual monitoring can overwhelm reputation management and brand protection teams.
Fortunately, review management software helps consolidate reviews from various channels, enabling brands to analyze the data and streamline their response protocols. Here are some top review management tools to consider:
1. Sprout Social
Sprout Social integrates with leading review platforms, including Google, Facebook Pages, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Glassdoor and major app stores like Google Play and Apple App Store. This comprehensive integration allows brands to manage and respond to reviews from a unified, user-friendly dashboard.
Source: Sprout Social
What We Love About It
Sprout Social’s Reviews Overview report delivers a detailed summary of feedback, featuring essential metrics like reply rate and review volume.
Source: Sprout Social
This functionality streamlines your review management process and provides actionable insights to refine your brand and reputation management strategies and boost overall business performance.
Sprout Social’s monthly pricing starts at $199, but you can start today with a free 30-day trial.
2. Podium
Podium helps brands manage customer relationships and build their online reputation using text messaging. This tool centralizes online reviews and interactions into a single, user-friendly dashboard, so it’s easier to track and respond to feedback across platforms.
What We Love About It
Podium streamlines the review process by connecting directly with review sites. All feedback lands in one easy-to-navigate dashboard, where you can sort reviews by location, date, rating and more.
Source: B2B SaaS Reviews
The platform also features real-time response capabilities and tools like sentiment analysis and competitive benchmarking, which help you stay on top of your brand’s online presence and compare your performance against competitors.
Top 2 Tools for Search Engine Alerts
Search engine alerts notify you whenever your brand or important keywords pop up in search results. They help you stay on top of new mentions and trends without constantly checking search engines manually.
For brand reputation management, these alerts are your early warning system, making it easier to catch and address any potential issues before they escalate. Below are some of the best search engine alert tools available:
1. Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a handy tool for setting up custom notifications for specific keywords or phrases. It can help you monitor the web for mentions of your brand, product or even competitor.
It’s simple to use. You enter a word or phrase, and you’ll be emailed whenever Google finds new content on the web matching your criteria. Kinda like this:
Source: Ahrefs
What We Love About It
Google Alerts is easy to set up and use. With a Google account, users can create alerts for everything from corporate stock updates to the latest product announcements and press releases.
You can customize the frequency of these notifications – daily, weekly or even in real-time – so you’re always in the loop. Plus, it’s a cost-effective way to stay updated with chatter around your brand, as it’s completely free.
2. Talkwalker Alerts
If you’re looking for a Google Alerts alternative with features just as good, Talkwalker Alerts is your best bet. With this tool, you can keep track of new online content that mentions your brand, competitors or relevant business topics.
It scans websites, forums, blogs and X (formerly Twitter) to deliver all relevant mentions in one easy-to-read email to your inbox.
What We Love About It
Talkwalker Alerts offers a high level of customization with intuitive filters and Boolean operators, allowing you to fine-tune your search results to fit your needs. The integration with Slack offers the convenience of monitoring alerts without the need to switch between applications.
Source: Deuce Creative
While it’s a free service with extensive brand monitoring capabilities, Talkwalker also provides paid options for more in-depth social listening and analytics.
Top 2 All-In-One Brand Reputation Management Services
If you require a complete solution for managing your brand’s reputation, these all-in-one brand reputation management tools have got you covered – from social listening and review monitoring to analytics tracking and competitive benchmarking.
1. Reputation.com
Reputation provides a robust suite of tools to monitor and respond to customer reviews across the web. It tracks feedback from hundreds of review sites and consolidates all customer interactions into a centralized inbox.
Source: Semrush
From this central hub, you can effortlessly direct conversations to the right team members or share positive reviews on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) with just one click.
What We Love About It
With a paid plan, you’ll get access to a wide range of features, including:
• Review Monitoring: Track customer feedback across multiple third-party sites with scalable response options.
• Review Sequencer: Aggregate feedback from diverse customer interactions and digital touchpoints.
• Feedback Publisher: Quickly showcase positive reviews on your website and social media.
• Review Analysis: Gain insights into user sentiment through detailed review analysis.
• Review Booster: Turn survey responses into ratings on major review platforms.
• Managed Services: Benefit from a dedicated team to enhance your online presence on Google.
• Reputation Score: Assess the health of your online reputation in a single metric with recommendations for improvement.
2. Determ
Determ offers advanced tools for tracking brand mentions across over 100 million sources online. Using AI-driven data analysis, you can measure brand sentiment and monitor how public perception evolves over time.
Source: Determ
The platform centralizes all conversations about your brand, allowing you to review and manage them from one place.
What We Love About It
Determ provides several key features to enhance brand management:
• Source Tracking: Monitor specific sources and filter results by language, location, influencer score and sentiment type.
• AI Assistant: Quickly analyze media, uncover trends and identify patterns with AI assistance.
• Competitor Analysis: Summarize and compare brand sentiment against competitors.
• Custom Reports: Schedule daily, weekly or monthly performance reports delivered straight to your inbox.
• Alerts: Get notified about spikes in brand mentions to leverage positive feedback or address potential issues promptly.
Determ offers three plans: Plus, Premium and Multibrand. For pricing details, contact their sales team for a quote.
Top 2 Analytics and Reporting Features
Analytics is vital for keeping your social media strategies on track and ensuring your efforts deliver results. By diving into the data, you can see what’s working, spot trends and fine-tune your approach to maximize your brand’s marketing efforts.
So far, all brand reputation management solutions mentioned in this list offer solid analytics and reporting but let’s spotlight a few more to include in your toolkit.
1. Sprout Social
Making a second appearance on this list is Sprout Social. This social media management tool offers hard-to-beat analytics and reporting capabilities, giving you deep insights into your social media performance.
Source: Sprout Social
With Sprout Social, you can easily track what resonates with your audience, identify emerging trends and demonstrate the ROI of your social media activities to drive strategic decisions.
What We Love About It
Sprout Social offers notable analytics and reporting features, including:
• Profile Performance Report: Provides a high-level performance overview across all connected profiles, helping you quickly assess social growth.
• Tag Report: Get insights into inbound and outbound tagged messages, allowing you to analyze volume, performance patterns and campaign effectiveness.
• Post Performance Report: Delivers detailed analysis of post-level performance across multiple channels to understand audience engagement.
• Competitor Reports: Tracks competitor performance on social media, helping you benchmark against industry standards and discover new opportunities.
• Case Team Activity Report: Measures how quickly and effectively individual users respond to social messages and complete assigned cases, enhancing team productivity.
• Network Reports: Provides performance metrics for specific networks like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest, enabling you to tailor your strategies for each platform.
2. Mention
Anyone who has used Google Alerts knows the convenience of receiving notifications about your brand’s online mentions. Mention takes this further by offering real-time alerts that cover not just news sites and reviews but also social media accounts, forums, blogs and even television.
To top it all off, Mention provides robust analytics and reporting features that allow you to compare your brand’s performance with competitors on key factors like share of voice, sentiment and reach.
Source: Mention
What We Love About It
Mention allows brands to make smarter business decisions with features that offer insights into:
• Comprehensive Tracking: Monitor your brand’s mentions across news sites, social media, forums and blogs from one place.
• Competitive Analysis: See how your brand measures up against competitors in terms of reach and sentiment, helping you understand your position in the market.
• Trend Analysis: Spot emerging trends and shifts in public perception to adapt your strategy and stay ahead.
• Actionable Insights: Leverage detailed reports to refine your approach and enhance your brand’s online presence with real-time data.
How To Choose the Right ORM Tools for Your Needs
Choosing the right ORM tool can be challenging, as there are so many options available. To make the best choice, aligning the tool with your specific business needs and goals is essential.
Shane Pantoja, Thrive’s support assistant, said:
“Brands need to assess their specific needs, such as scalability, compatibility with current technology, ease of use, community support and performance metrics.
Choose tools that align with their team’s expertise and project requirements. Test multiple leading choices in real-world scenarios to find the best fit, and match their choice with their company’s strategic goals and practical needs to confidently select the tool that will drive success.”
Finding the right ORM tool for your business is essential for protecting and enhancing your brand’s reputation. But you don’t have to make this decision alone. A trusted digital partner can guide you through the selection process, ensuring you choose a solution that aligns with your goals and needs.
Boost Your Online Reputation and Client Retention Rates With Thrive
Your online reputation is an important trust signal for potential customers, partners and investors. ReputationX reports that 74% of consumers are likelier to trust local businesses with positive reviews, while negative reviews deter 60%.
ORM tools are a worthwhile investment because they allow you to proactively manage your brand’s reputation and build trust with your audience. According to Shane:
“The ability to proactively shape and enhance the company/business’s brand’s image by monitoring feedback and sentiment in real-time. Through this, business owners can address issues swiftly, capitalize on positive trends, and engage with their audience effectively.
This proactive approach not only helps in building a stronger, more trustworthy brand but also in fostering lasting customer relationships.”
For expert help managing your online presence and building a strong reputation, turn to Thrive Internet Marketing Agency. We offer a wide range of brand reputation management services, from online reputation repair to franchise reputation management.
“Our team’s diverse experience across various industries means we bring a wealth of knowledge and innovative solutions to the table, enabling us to handle any reputation challenge with confidence and precision.
This personalized approach, combined with our broad expertise, empowers us to consistently deliver exceptional results that help businesses not only recover but thrive,” Shane said.
Consult with our reputation management experts, and take control of your brand’s narrative today.
