Just because you’re on a shoe-string budget, shouldn’t exclude you from enacting your social listening strategy. There are a lot of free tools out there, while many paid-for tools also offer functional, watered-down, free versions.

SEMRush A paid tool with the most functionality available for free, SEMRush combines SEO, website, and social tools in one place. It also offers audits and ongoing monitoring for your important social metrics and brand keywords.

Google Alerts The simplest way to get alerted via email if you or your brand is mentioned online is Google Alerts. Whilst this doesn’t cover most social platforms it does encompass blogs, blogging platforms, YouTube and other rich media-sharing sites.

Followerwonk Get insights into your Twitter followers and those of your competitors. From knowing who the most influential are, to insights into where and when they’re online, this tool is invaluable for those maximising their Twitter presence. It’s a low-cost tool with a number of useful features available for free.

Twitonomy Powerful data on your content and followers on Twitter in a free tool with paid upgrades.

Tweetreach A useful tool for measuring campaign activity around a particular account or hashtag. Tweetreach offers total-reach metrics and insight into the users who contribute to that reach.

FanpageKarma A benchmarking and comparison tool with paid upgrades available. FanpageKarma compares your followers, engagement rates and other key metrics with your closest competitors in social media.

Social Platforms Search You can conduct a piece of social listening just using the platforms, and in some instances – particularly on Instagram – this can be the best way to discover content.

Your Task

Conduct a search through the social platforms of a brand or organisation of your choice. Choose three pieces of content, visual or otherwise, which you feel best exemplifies the social media presence of the brand. Explain why you chose the content and why you think it is effective.