We are often asked what the best social media monitoring tool on the market is and thought we’d make a quick blog post outlining how there isn’t one particular solution that reigns king, but instead a variety of solutions with different functionality and being “the best” comes down to what you’re looking to get out of the tool.

As with most things in life, labeling something the best is often subjective, though there are times when definitive metrics like the fastest supercar to lap the Nürburgring or Apple being the most valuable company in the world (at the moment) speak for themselves, though it’s usually not as cut and dry, especially in the social media monitoring world.

Here are some of the questions we ask companies to gauge their needs and ultimately help determine the best solution for them:

• What pushed you to search for a social media monitoring tool and what are you looking to monitor?
• Which social networks are most popular among your consumers?
• Are you looking for more passive monitoring with reports sent at various intervals or real-time insights?
• What’s your budget for social media monitoring solutions?

Ultimately these questions have to be addressed before choosing a particular social media intelligence tool because they play an integral role in what makes something the best for a particular use case. A smaller company with a limited budget might find an inexpensive, passive monitoring tool ideal whereas a large corporation needs an enterprise solution with real-time alerting.

If your company is on the hunt for a new social media monitoring tool be sure to ask yourself these questions to figure out your core needs, which will help you figure out the best solution in the end.