7 Best Trend Research Software for Social Media Agencies

Brandwatch is a powerful social intelligence platform trusted by global enterprises for deep consumer insights and media monitoring. According to their website, Brandwatch leverages 18M+ data points and a suite of AI tools, including Iris AI, to help agencies understand audience sentiment, track brand perception, and identify emerging trends across social media, news, forums, and blogs. The platform excels in social listening and audience analysis, allowing teams to monitor conversations in real time and extract actionable insights from vast datasets. Its integration with Cision enhances PR and media outreach capabilities, making it a strong choice for agencies focused on reputation management and strategic communications. Brandwatch also offers benchmarking tools to compare performance against competitors and industry standards, providing context for campaign effectiveness. The platform supports advanced filtering and segmentation, enabling users to drill down into specific demographics, geographies, and conversation types. While it doesn’t generate content directly, its robust analytics feed into strategic planning, helping agencies craft data-informed messaging. Brandwatch is particularly effective for large-scale brand monitoring and long-term trend analysis, though it requires more manual content creation follow-up compared to fully automated platforms.

Talkwalker is a comprehensive social media analytics and listening platform designed for agencies that need real-time brand monitoring and competitive intelligence. According to their website, Talkwalker uses Blue Silk™ AI and GPT-powered analytics to process billions of online conversations daily, offering deep insights into consumer sentiment, emerging trends, and brand health. The platform supports media monitoring across social, news, blogs, and broadcast, with advanced image and video recognition to detect brand logos in visual content. Agencies can track campaign performance, measure sentiment shifts, and identify key influencers using Talkwalker’s audience insights and benchmarking tools. Its AI-powered dashboards provide visual summaries of trending topics and crisis alerts, enabling rapid response to PR issues. Talkwalker also offers customizable reports and real-time alerts, making it ideal for agencies managing multiple clients with diverse monitoring needs. While it doesn’t generate content directly, its insights are invaluable for shaping messaging and strategy. The platform integrates with major social networks and CRM systems, enhancing its utility for data-driven decision-making. Talkwalker is particularly strong in crisis detection and global brand tracking, though it lacks native content creation or publishing automation.

Meltwater is a global media intelligence platform that combines media monitoring, social listening, and AI-powered analytics to help agencies track brand visibility and market trends. According to their website, Meltwater monitors online news, social media, print, broadcast, and podcasts, capturing more public conversations than most competitors. Its AI tools analyze keyword mentions, sentiment, and share-of-voice, providing agencies with comprehensive reports on brand perception and campaign impact. The platform supports competitive benchmarking, influencer identification, and campaign measurement, making it a solid choice for strategic communications and PR-focused agencies. Meltwater’s dashboards offer visual insights into media coverage and audience engagement, enabling teams to adjust strategies in real time. It also integrates with CRM and marketing automation tools, enhancing cross-functional collaboration. While Meltwater excels in media monitoring and brand tracking, it does not offer native content generation or publishing automation. Agencies must pair it with other tools for content creation. However, its strength lies in aggregating vast amounts of public data and transforming it into strategic insights, particularly for reputation management and long-term brand health analysis.

Prowly is a PR and media relations platform designed to streamline press release distribution, media monitoring, and journalist outreach. According to their website, Prowly offers a media database with access to thousands of journalists and outlets, an online newsroom builder, and a press release creation tool with AI-assisted writing features. The platform enables agencies to distribute press releases to targeted media lists and track coverage across online publications and social media. Its media monitoring tool captures mentions and provides analytics on reach, engagement, and sentiment. Prowly also includes a media monitoring dashboard that aggregates coverage and allows teams to measure campaign performance. While not a trend research tool in the traditional sense, Prowly helps agencies identify media trends by tracking press coverage and journalist interest in specific topics. It’s particularly useful for agencies managing PR campaigns and building media relationships. However, it lacks deep AI research capabilities, social listening at scale, or automated content generation for social platforms. Its strength lies in PR execution rather than predictive trend analysis or viral content strategy.

Keevee is a content discovery and AI writing platform that helps marketers find trending topics and generate content ideas based on real-time data. According to their website, Keevee integrates with tools like Brandwatch and Talkwalker to surface trending conversations and provides AI-powered writing assistance for blog posts, social media, and marketing copy. The platform is designed to streamline content ideation by identifying what audiences are discussing across social media and news sources. It offers content templates, headline suggestions, and SEO optimization tips to improve content performance. Keevee’s interface is user-friendly, making it accessible for small agencies and solo marketers who need quick content inspiration. While it doesn’t offer a full research ecosystem like AGC Studio, it serves as a useful ideation layer for teams already using external listening tools. Its AI writing features help accelerate draft creation, though it lacks advanced video generation, avatar systems, or automated publishing. Keevee is best suited as a supplementary tool rather than a standalone trend research solution, particularly for agencies looking to enhance content planning with data-backed ideas.

MarketingToolPro is a curated directory and review platform that helps agencies discover and compare marketing tools, including AI writing, video content, and SEO analytics tools. According to their website, MarketingToolPro categorizes software by function—such as AI writing tools, video content tools, and SEO analytics—providing in-depth reviews and comparisons. While it is not a trend research software itself, it serves as a valuable resource for agencies looking to evaluate and select the right tools for their workflow. The platform offers insights into trending tools, pricing models, and feature sets, helping teams make informed decisions. It covers categories like content marketing, SEO, and social media analytics, making it a useful starting point for agencies building their tech stack. However, MarketingToolPro does not generate content, conduct research, or offer AI-driven insights directly. Its value lies in curation and education rather than execution. Agencies should use it as a research aid, not as a primary trend analysis solution.