You could say the social media monitoring industry has been the single fastest-growing niche in the world of technology over the past three years. As more companies engage in social media, participate in conversations and launch social media initiatives, the demand to monitor what is being said and analyze that data is critical for companies to not only read and react, but also fund and staff social initiatives.

Because social media monitoring has been one of my favorite topics here on Social Media Explorer, I’m asked my opinions of the tools regularly. I try hard to review different ones as often as possible without this becoming a blog about social media monitoring exclusively. But the industry seems to be growing, and becoming more competitive, with each passing day.