The SITech
Landscape Map

So finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for and probably the only reason you downloaded this report…

We’re sure there’ll be tools that we’ve missed, and we know that this map will need to change over time as the industry evolves, but we believe that this is the most complete overview of social intelligence technology out there at the moment!

If you know of something we’ve missed though, let us know.

To view the map in it's full glory…

Methodology

To begin compiling this hefty list of 500+ (yep, you read that right) social intelligence technology providers our tool guru, Ben Ellis, started with our own database: the SI Lab Tech vendor’s directory where we already had more than 170 registered on our platform. However, based on conversations we’ve been having with the SI Lab community over the last few years, we knew the potential market was so much bigger. And so, we also reached out to our followers on LinkedIn to hear exactly what tools they were using for their different use cases. On top of this, Ben drew upon his existing knowledge of social intelligence solutions providers. Finally, to make sure we really covered all our bases, he also did A LOT of desk research, scouring MANY software review platforms, including G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra, as well as social media channels (LinkedIn, Reddit…you know the ones)

Once we had a first draft of the list, we reviewed the descriptions and feature sets of each technology to work out which category it should sit under. To do this, we really needed to dig deep into the solutions' marketing materials, user reviews and case studies to understand their main functionality and key use cases, with a focus on how users actually use these solutions (not how the vendors think people should use it). Where a tool straddled multiple categories, we chose their final location based on self-described positioning, user feedback and our industry expertise. During the categorisation process, we continually cross-referenced the technologies against the standardised definitions for each category to make sure we were as consistent and accurate as possible.

How we categorised the tools…

As we’ve already highlighted, one thing that’s become very clear since before we even started this project is that there is currently no common language used to describe different aspects of the practice, or different features and functionalities of the tools. This is a big reason why people find it so hard to buy social listening technology. They can’t compare between different tools, because different vendors often use different words to describe the same thing.

So we’re going to lead by example and give you a clear explanation of how we categorised the tools.

When we sorted each tool into a category, we considered three things:

Focus

Firstly, we look at the focus of each tool - what they offer - so users can quickly find the ones that are most relevant for their use cases. Tools with the focus areas listed below will offer tracking, analysis or some way of better understanding these areas:

Audience

Customer

Consumer

Customer Feedback & Review

Employee

Influencer

Location

Social

Media

Text

Image

Audio

Video

Sponsorship

Reputation

Hashtag

Data

Content

Narrative & Threat

Trends

What’s the difference between listening and monitoring?

Monitoring is more basic as it simply enables you to track what people are saying about a topic. Listening, however, looks at the broader context to understand why people are saying those things.

Purpose

Next we look at the potential outcomes of using a specific tools - the reasons for using it in the first place. These will be closely aligned to your social intelligence use cases and your overall business objectives. The key purpose areas we found were:

Analytics

Operations

Automation

Intelligence

Data Visualisation

Optimisation

Enablement

Advocacy

Strategy

Monitoring

Listening

Management

Marketing

Advertising

What’s the difference between listening and monitoring?

Monitoring is more basic as it simply enables you to track what people are saying about a topic. Listening, however, looks at the broader context to understand why people are saying those things.

These two factors were enough to determine which category most of the tools should fall under.

However, for those that still needed some extra clarification, we considered one final factor…

Format

Different social intelligence technologies will offer different combinations of features and functionalities. How you access these will depend on the format.

And there are a few different types:

Standalone software or apps that serve a specific purpose.

Centralised hubs that integrate various tools, features and data sources.

A combination of platforms that create an end-to-end social intelligence ecosystem.

Solutions that provide pre-build reports and insights on different topics.

An interface that allows you to integrate data and functionality into your own app or platform.