Brand conversations no longer happen only on your company’s social profiles. Customers can discuss a product on social networks, forums, news sites, review platforms and other public websites without tagging the brand. Social listening software helps teams discover those conversations, filter the noise and turn important mentions into actions.
Two established options are Mention and Awario. They overlap in the core job—monitoring conversations around keywords, brands and competitors—but their workflows, reporting and pricing structures can make one a better fit for a particular team.
What should a social listening tool actually do?
- Monitor relevant mentions across social and web sources.
- Filter irrelevant conversations.
- Identify sentiment and important conversations.
- Track competitors and industry terms.
- Surface influencers or high-reach discussions.
- Provide alerts and reports that non-specialists can understand.
Mention vs Awario: quick comparison
| Need | Mention | Awario |
|---|---|---|
| Brand monitoring | Strong media and social monitoring | Strong real-time web and social monitoring |
| Social listening | Designed for monitoring and social intelligence | Strong keyword, competitor and conversation monitoring |
| Sentiment | Available in its monitoring workflow | Positive, neutral and negative sentiment analysis |
| Reports | Monitoring and reporting workflows | Reports, reach, influencers and share-of-voice style analysis |
| Advanced search | Depends on current plan | Boolean search and negative keywords |
| Lead discovery | Monitoring-focused | Awario Leads can identify recommendation and competitor-complaint opportunities |
Where Mention stands out
Mention positions its current offering as an enterprise-grade social intelligence solution with social media, web and review monitoring. Its current product information includes monitoring for platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, TikTok, Pinterest and YouTube, plus web sources and review sites.
That breadth can be useful for brands that want a central monitoring layer rather than a tool focused only on social networks. Mention has also changed its subscription structure over time; legacy self-service plans are no longer available to new customers, so agencies should evaluate the current commercial offer rather than relying on old comparison articles.
Where Awario stands out
Awario emphasizes real-time monitoring, analytics and flexible search. Its current feature set includes sentiment analysis, reach, influencer discovery, Boolean search, location-based monitoring, negative keywords, email alerts and white-label reports.
Awario also has a social-selling angle. Its Leads feature looks for conversations where people ask for product recommendations or complain about competitors, turning monitoring into a potential prospecting workflow.
Which tool is better for agencies?
For an agency, the decision should start with the reporting workflow rather than the number of features. Ask how many brands you will monitor, how often clients expect reports, whether you need white-label outputs, and whether account managers need alerts without becoming full-time social-listening analysts.
Awario’s white-label reporting can be particularly useful when social listening is part of a client reporting package. Mention can make sense when broader media, review and social monitoring are central to the service.
How to set up a useful listening project
- Start with the brand name: include common spellings and product names.
- Add competitors: monitor direct alternatives to understand comparative conversations.
- Add high-value topics: track the problem your product solves, not just the company name.
- Exclude noise: use negative keywords or Boolean logic where available.
- Create an escalation rule: define what requires immediate response.
- Review false positives: improve queries rather than accepting a noisy dashboard.
- Report trends, not raw mention counts: explain what changed and what the team should do.
What to measure every month
- Relevant mention volume
- Positive, neutral and negative sentiment
- Share of conversation against selected competitors
- High-reach mentions
- Influencer conversations
- Customer complaints requiring action
- Leads or opportunities discovered from conversations
Pricing: avoid comparing old screenshots
Social-listening pricing changes as data-source access and product capabilities change. Awario currently publishes a Starter plan at $49 per month when billed monthly, with lower annual-equivalent pricing shown on its pricing page, while its higher tiers expand monitoring capacity and team features. Mention’s current pricing is positioned around a company-level solution with a demo-led commercial model.
Final decision framework
| If your priority is… | Start by evaluating… |
|---|---|
| Broad brand, web and review monitoring | Mention |
| Flexible keyword and Boolean monitoring | Awario |
| Social-selling opportunities | Awario |
| Agency white-label reporting | Awario |
| Enterprise monitoring workflow | Mention |
Bottom line
There is no universal winner. Mention is worth evaluating when broad social, web and review monitoring is the priority. Awario is especially attractive when flexible listening, Boolean search, competitor monitoring, lead discovery and white-label reporting matter. Whichever you choose, the real value comes from building precise queries and turning important conversations into action.
