- Standalone tracker or a module inside a PR platform?
- Eight listening tools in one table
- Light mention trackers for small teams
- When the conversation happens in communities
- Audience research and visual listening
- Enterprise suites for PR departments
- The eight tools, alphabetically
- My advice on choosing a listening tool
- Run one brand keyword through two trials
- Frequently asked questions
The right Keyhole alternative depends on how much listening you need and who'll read the reports. A one-person business can get by with a light mention tracker, a team chasing conversations in Reddit or Slack groups needs a community monitor, and a PR department reporting to a board is better served by an enterprise suite.
Keyhole's own homepage now says its Social Listening is available on Muck Rack. That one line changes the question. If you're comparing Keyhole with other tools, you may be comparing a standalone product with a module that sits inside a wider PR platform, and those are different purchases, often owned by different people.
Below are eight alternatives for marketers and small PR teams who want to track brand mentions and social conversations, in no particular order. I've grouped them by weight, from light trackers to suites built for whole departments, and Keyhole itself isn't one of the rows.
Standalone tracker or a module inside a PR platform?
Start by asking where the listening should live. If your PR team already works in a media database and press release tool, a module inside that platform may be the tidiest home. If you're a marketer who just wants to know when people talk about your brand, a standalone tracker is simpler to buy, simpler to cancel and simpler to hand to a colleague.
The other thing to settle is scope. Some tools here watch social networks only. Others take in news, blogs, podcasts, review sites and forums. More sources aren't automatically better: they're more to read every morning. Pick the sources your customers use, not the longest list on a features page.
Eight listening tools in one table
| Tool | Kind of tool | Good at |
|---|---|---|
| Brand24 | AI social listening | Mentions from social, news, forums, podcasts and reviews |
| BrandMentions | Brand monitoring with AI | Client-ready reports on context and sentiment |
| Onclusive | PR media monitoring | Showing the value of press coverage |
| Pulsar | Audience intelligence and listening | Audience research for strategy work |
| Social Searcher | Free social search engine | Quick checks on who's mentioning you |
| Syften | Community keyword alerts | Reddit, Hacker News and Slack group mentions |
| Talkwalker (now Lumen) | Enterprise listening | Competitive intelligence for big teams |
| YouScan | AI social listening | Reading images as well as text |
Light mention trackers for small teams
Social Searcher is the lightest option here: the vendor calls it a free social media search engine for profiles, mentions and posts across major networks. Brand24 takes in the widest spread of sources of these three, from news and podcasts to review sites. BrandMentions sits between the two and is pitched at agencies, adding what it describes as context, sentiment and client-ready reports. Any of these makes sense for a one-person business or a small marketing team that wants alerts without a long setup.
When the conversation happens in communities
Some brands are discussed far more in forums than on public social feeds. Syften is built for exactly that: it watches online communities such as Reddit, Hacker News, forums and Slack groups and sends an alert when your keywords appear. If you sell software, a developer tool or anything with an enthusiast audience, a community monitor is aimed squarely at the threads that general social trackers aren't built around, and it's quick to set up with a handful of keywords.
Audience research and visual listening
YouScan's angle is that its AI analyses images and audience data as well as text, which matters if your brand turns up in photos more than in captions. Pulsar describes itself as an audience intelligence platform as much as a listening tool, so it's aimed at strategy work: understanding who's talking and why, rather than just counting mentions. Both suit an in-house insights person or an agency planning team more than a solo marketer.
Enterprise suites for PR departments
Onclusive is a media monitoring and analysis service for PR and comms teams, covering news channels as well as social media, and it pitches itself around showing the value of coverage. Talkwalker's listening product now goes by the name Lumen, according to the vendor, and it covers social listening, media monitoring and competitive intelligence for marketing, PR and insights teams. Be plain with yourself here: these two suit a PR department with reporting duties, not a one-person business that wants a weekly mention alert.
If you're still mapping the wider field, my roundup of social listening tools covers more options, and there's a separate list of Mention alternatives for anyone leaving another mention tracker. For the method rather than the tools, see my guide on how to track brand mentions with social listening.
The eight tools, alphabetically
Brand24
Best for: Small marketing teams who want mentions and insights gathered from social media, news, blogs, videos, forums, podcasts and reviews in one feed, per the vendor.
BrandMentions
Best for: Agencies and consultants who need AI-driven monitoring across social, news, blogs and forums, with context, sentiment and client-ready reports, as the vendor puts it.
Onclusive
Best for: PR and comms departments monitoring news and social coverage, with analysis the vendor says helps demonstrate the value of that coverage.
Pulsar
Best for: Brands and agencies that want audience intelligence alongside social listening to shape marketing and comms strategy, according to the vendor.
Social Searcher
Best for: Solo marketers who want a quick, free search of profiles, mentions and posts across major networks, which the vendor describes as easy social search.
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Syften
Best for: Founders and community managers who want keyword alerts from Reddit, Hacker News, forums and Slack groups, delivered by Slack, email, RSS or API, per the vendor.
Talkwalker (now Lumen)
Best for: Marketing, PR and insights departments needing listening, media monitoring and competitive intelligence; the vendor says the product is now called Lumen by Talkwalker.
YouScan
Best for: Insight teams who want AI to analyse images and audience data as well as text from social media, as the vendor describes it.
My advice on choosing a listening tool
Buy for the report you'll send, not the dashboard you'll admire. If your boss or client wants a monthly summary of coverage and sentiment, choose a tool whose reports you'd happily forward without rewriting. If you only need to know when someone mentions you so you can reply, a light tracker or a community monitor will do the job with far less noise.
Be careful with sentiment labels in any of these tools. They're useful for spotting a shift, but sarcasm, slang and industry jargon trip them up, so read a sample of mentions yourself before you put a sentiment chart in front of anyone. And if your listening is going to live inside a PR platform, check who owns that account, because it may not be the marketing team.
Run one brand keyword through two trials
- Pick one brand keyword and one competitor name, spelled the way people write them, including common misspellings.
- Set up the same keywords in two tools from different groups above, on the same day.
- Leave both running for a week without tweaking the filters.
- Compare what each found: which mentions turned up in only one tool, and which of those you'd have acted on.
- Export a report from each and ask the person who'll read it which one they'd rather receive.
- Keep the tool that found the mentions you'd otherwise have missed, not the one with the most results.
Do you make social listening or brand monitoring software? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place on this list.
Want your tool on this list? Featured spots and reviews here are paid partnerships. Here's how to partner with me.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Keyhole's social listening?
Keyhole's homepage says its Social Listening is available on Muck Rack, a PR platform. Check whether you'd be buying a standalone product or a module before you compare it with the tools here.
Which Keyhole alternative suits a one-person business?
Look at the light mention trackers first. They're quicker to set up than an enterprise suite and put the focus on simple mention alerts rather than department-level reporting.
Can these tools watch Reddit and Slack communities?
One tool in the list is built specifically for keyword alerts from online communities such as Reddit, Hacker News, forums and Slack groups. Broader trackers also include forums among their sources.
Do I need an enterprise listening suite?
Only if you have a PR or comms department that reports on coverage and competitors regularly. For a small marketing team, the extra depth tends to mean more setup and more to read.
How accurate is automated sentiment?
It's a helpful signal, not a final answer. Read a sample of mentions yourself, because sarcasm and slang often get the wrong label.
Is this list ranked?
No. The tools are in no particular order and grouped by weight, from light trackers to enterprise suites.
