Monitoring Social Media: Tools, Characteristics and Implications

The main finding is that the tools offer a wide coverage of social media, but vary significantly in other characteristics with notable room for improvements.

Abstract

The proliferation of social media is opening up new possibilities for companies to increase their awareness of openly expressed consumer sentiment about themselves and their competitors. In this paper a wide variety of software tools designed for monitoring social media are reviewed. Definitions for relevant concepts are given. Several tool characteristics are evaluated including analyzable social media types and language support. The main finding is that the tools offer a wide coverage of social media, but vary significantly in other characteristics with notable room for improvements. Therefore, careful judgment should be exercised when selecting the right tool for a particular use.