Social listening tools and social media monitoring that read AI answers
Social listening tools collect public mentions of your brand from news sites, blogs, forums, Reddit, Hacker News, review sites, YouTube and X, score their sentiment and alert you. MentionRadar does all of that and also tracks what ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews say about you.
- New mentions collected every 15 minutes
- Sentiment and reach on every mention
- Email and Slack alerts with your rules
- AI answers tracked on the same dashboard
Anyone switched from Acme Analytics to something cheaper?
Thread in r/analytics with 46 replies, two users mention slow exports since the last update.
Acme Analytics adds warehouse sync for mid-market teams
The update connects reporting directly to the customer data warehouse.
Show HN: open dashboard template built on Acme Analytics
Comment thread compares query speed with two rivals.
Solid product, onboarding took longer than promised
Four star review from an operations lead at a logistics company.
What social listening tools do, and what most of them miss
Every social listening tool is built around the same loop. You enter your brand name, product names and a few competitors. The tool searches public sources for those terms, pulls every match into a feed, scores each mention as positive, neutral or negative, estimates how many people could have seen it, and sends you an alert when something crosses a line you care about. Done well, that loop replaces hours of manual searching and catches the thread or article you would otherwise read about a week too late.
The loop was designed when the open web and social networks were where buyers formed opinions. That is still true for a large share of research, but a growing share now starts in an AI engine. A buyer types a question like "what is the best analytics tool for a mid-market retailer" into ChatGPT or Perplexity, reads a short answer that names three products, and builds a shortlist from it. None of that conversation is public, so a classic social media monitoring tool never sees it.
MentionRadar keeps the classic loop and adds the missing half. Web mentions arrive every 15 minutes from news sites, blogs, forums, Reddit, Hacker News, review sites, YouTube and X. Next to them, a set of tracked prompts is asked on a schedule in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews, and the dashboard records whether your brand was named, in which position, whether it was recommended, which competitors appeared and which pages the engine cited. If you want only the AI side, read about our AI visibility tracker.
How to judge social listening software before you buy
Most comparisons list features. These are the five questions that decide whether a tool is still open in your browser three months later.
Does it find the mentions you actually care about?
Coverage is not the number of sources on a pricing page. It is whether the one Reddit thread that scared a prospect shows up in your feed. Ask which communities and review sites are searched, how often, and whether you can see the raw link. MentionRadar shows every mention with its source, time and original URL, so you can check coverage yourself in the first scan.
Can you keep the noise out?
A brand called Atlas or Mercury collects thousands of irrelevant matches a day. Good social listening software lets you add exclusion words, restrict languages and sources, and set rules that only alert on negative sentiment or high reach. Without those controls the feed becomes a chore and the team stops opening it.
Is sentiment good enough to act on?
Sentiment scores are useful in aggregate and for routing alerts, not as a verdict on a single comment. Look for a tool that shows sentiment per mention, lets you correct it, and charts the trend week by week, so a jump in negative mentions is visible before it turns into a story.
Does it tell you what AI engines say?
This is the new test. If the tool cannot answer "does ChatGPT recommend us or a competitor for our main category question", you will need a second product for that, with a second bill. MentionRadar includes three engines on Starter and five from Growth, with the same prompts on every engine.
Can you report from it without a spreadsheet?
Leadership wants one number and one page. Agencies need that page with the client logo on it. Check for share of voice, scheduled PDF reports and CSV export. Growth includes scheduled PDF reports, and the Agency plan adds white-label reports for client brands.
Is the price public and the contract short?
Several social listening platforms hide prices behind a demo call and sell annual contracts. Every MentionRadar plan, Enterprise included, has a public price, starts from the pricing page and can be cancelled from the billing page.
MentionRadar compared with typical social listening platforms
A comparison by category, not by named product. It reflects what is usually included at the entry price of each kind of tool.
| Capability | MentionRadar | Typical listening tool | Typical AI tracker |
|---|---|---|---|
| News, blogs, forums, reviews | |||
| Reddit and Hacker News | Often | ||
| ChatGPT and Perplexity answers | Paid add-on | ||
| Gemini and Claude answers | Growth and up | Paid add-on | Often extra |
| Share of voice across web and AI | Web only | AI only | |
| Slack alerts with custom rules | Growth and up | Rare | |
| White-label client reports | Agency plan | Higher tiers | Rare |
| Public price on every plan | Sometimes | Sometimes | |
| Entry price, billed yearly | $24 a month | $199 a month and up | $29 a month and up, AI only |
A week with a social media monitoring tool that covers AI
Monday morning. The daily digest lists 212 mentions from the weekend. Most are neutral product discussions. Two are flagged: a negative Reddit thread about a billing change with 40 replies, and a positive newsletter review with a large audience. The support lead answers the thread before lunch and links the help article.
Tuesday. A Slack alert fires within minutes of a regional news story that quotes a former customer. Because the rule routes negative mentions with reach above 50,000 to the comms channel, the right people see it while it is still one article.
Thursday. The weekly AI run finishes. Perplexity now names your product second for "best inventory software for small retailers", up from not named. The cited page is a comparison article on a trade blog that mentions you, which tells the SEO lead exactly which kind of page moves AI answers. Gemini still recommends a competitor, so that prompt goes on the watch list. The share of voice tool view shows the same shift as a percentage against three rivals.
Friday. The scheduled PDF goes to leadership: mentions this week, sentiment trend, top negative items with status, AI visibility score and share of voice. Nobody built a slide.
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Slack#comms, negative and reach over 50k6 min after publish
Former customer quoted on billing dispute
Regional news site, reach 210k
Negative -
EmailDaily digestMon 08:00
212 mentions, 2 need attention
Reddit, newsletters, review sites
Neutral -
Slack#seo, AI answer changedThu 14:20
Perplexity now names you second
Prompt: best inventory software for small retailers
Positive
Who uses social listening, and what they watch
PR and communications
Crisis detection comes first. PR teams set instant alerts for negative mentions with high reach and a daily digest for everything else. They watch news, Reddit and X closely because that is where a story grows. For a deeper look at press coverage, see media monitoring software.
Marketing and SEO
Marketing teams track campaign mentions, review sites and share of voice. SEO leads care most about the AI half: which prompts mention the brand, which recommend a competitor, and which pages the engines cite, because those citations show where content and outreach pay off.
Agencies
Agencies run listening for several client brands at once. The Agency plan includes 15 client workspaces, a per-client AI visibility score, white-label PDF reports and read-only client access. Read more on the page for agencies.
Setting up your first listening project in ten minutes
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1
Add keywords
Your brand, main product and founder or CEO name. Starter tracks 3 keywords, Growth 10.
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2
Add exclusions
Words that signal an unrelated meaning, plus language and source filters if your name is common.
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3
Add competitors
Three on Starter, ten on Growth. They power share of voice on the web and in AI answers.
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4
Set alert rules
Instant email for negative or high reach mentions, Slack routing on Growth, a daily digest for the rest.
The first scan backfills the last 30 days, so the feed and the sentiment chart are populated on day one. AI prompts start with suggestions built from your category and competitors, which you can edit before the first weekly run. Moving from another listening tool? Our Brand24 pricing and alternatives comparison shows what each plan includes, and the Awario pricing and alternatives and Talkwalker pricing and alternatives pages cover the budget and enterprise ends of the market. If AI answer tracking is the add-on you are being quoted for, see Mentionlytics pricing and alternatives or Mention pricing and alternatives.
Questions about social listening tools
What is a social listening tool?
A social listening tool watches public conversations for your brand name, products and competitors, collects every mention in one feed, classifies the sentiment and tells you when something needs attention. MentionRadar adds a second layer: the answers AI engines give when people ask them about your category.
Which sources does MentionRadar monitor?
News sites, blogs, forums, Reddit, Hacker News, review sites, YouTube and X for web mentions, plus ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews for AI answers. Starter tracks three AI engines, Growth and higher plans track all five.
How fast do new mentions show up?
New web mentions are collected every 15 minutes. Mentions that match an instant alert rule, for example negative sentiment or high reach, are sent to email or Slack as soon as they are collected. Everything else lands in a daily digest.
How do I stop irrelevant mentions from flooding the feed?
Each keyword has exclusion words, a language filter and source filters. Alert rules add thresholds for sentiment, reach and source, so a brand name that is also a common word stays usable.
How much does a social listening tool cost with MentionRadar?
Starter is $24 a month billed yearly ($288 a year) or $49 month to month. Growth is $74 a month yearly, Agency $249 and Enterprise $499. Every plan includes web listening and AI visibility, with no per-engine add-ons.
Can I try it before paying?
Yes. Run a scan of your brand from the homepage and you see real mentions and an AI engine check before creating an account. After signup you keep one saved snapshot with a PDF. Ongoing monitoring and alerts start with a paid plan.
See what the web and AI say about your brand
Scan your brand across news, Reddit, Hacker News and an AI engine. The first results appear in about a minute, before you create an account.