Free social listening workflow: 30 minutes a week
Three or four free tools, one inbox folder, one tracking sheet and a fixed slot every week.
- Checked
- Free tracking sheet to copy
- Tool facts dated and sourced
Free social listening workflows work best when they combine three or four free tools, each covering the sources it is good at, and route everything into one inbox folder and one tracking sheet. Set it up once in about an hour, then spend 30 minutes a week reviewing, logging and acting on what came in.
Free social listening coverage map
Pick the sources your audience uses first. The map shows which free option covers each one, and where nothing free does.
| Tool | Web | News | YouTube | X | Bluesky | Reviews | Podcasts | Website pages | Prices | SEO | Ads | Social accounts | Hiring | Checked | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Google Alerts | Yes | Yes | No | Partial | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Checked source |
 Talkwalker Alerts | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Checked source |
| F5Bot | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Checked source |
| Social Searcher | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Checked source |
 Visualping | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Checked source |
 changedetection.io | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Checked source |
 Distill.io | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Checked source |
 MentionPilot | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Checked source |
Reviews
No free mention tool is built for review sites. Open your review pages on a schedule.
X
TweetDeck went paid in 2023 (see ended free plans). Treat X as a manual check.
Podcasts
Free tools barely touch audio. Search a podcast directory by name once a month.
Prices, hiring, ads, SEO
Competitor jobs, not listening. A page-change tool covers a few price or job pages.
Set it up in one sitting
- Write five to ten keywords: brand, misspellings, one or two products, the founder, one competitor. Our sister site shows how to choose brand monitoring keywords.
- Make a "Listening" mail folder and a filter that moves every tool's alerts into it.
- Turn on the free tools: Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts for the same terms, F5Bot for Reddit (see free Reddit alerts), a page-change tool for one or two pages.
- Optional: MentionPilot's free plan for your top keyword across Google results, Reddit, YouTube and Bluesky: 100 mentions in total (they don't reset).
- Copy the tracking sheet below. One row per mention worth acting on, nothing else.
Download the tracking sheet (CSV)
Download the one-sitting setup checklist (CSV)
The weekly 30-minute free listening routine
Pick a fixed slot, such as Monday morning, and set a timer. Once a month, count the sheet's rows by type and source: that is your report.
10 min
Clear the folder
Open each digest. Ignore or log, in a few seconds per result.
5 min
Do the manual checks
Review pages, a saved Reddit search sorted by New, and X if it matters.
10 min
Act
Reply to questions, pass complaints on, note where your product fits.
5 min
Tune
Add an exclude term to noisy keywords. Add the term that would have caught a missed mention.
When the free workflow stops being enough
Review runs over an hour
Free tools cap what they send, but they don't sort it for you.
A team needs the same mentions
Forwarded alert emails mean duplicate work and no shared status.
You need history
Free alerts start from today. The sheet only holds what you logged.
Someone wants a report
Building a monthly summary by hand is fine once, a chore every month.
If two of these are true most weeks, compare paid tools. If none are, keep the free setup. New to listening? Try the first listening exercise on our sister site.
FAQ
How many keywords should a free listening setup track?
Start with five to ten. Every extra keyword multiplies alerts across every tool, and most free tools cap keywords or results.
Can I do social listening in a spreadsheet?
Yes, at low volumes. The tools find mentions; the sheet records what each one is and what you did. Past a few dozen rows a week, a dedicated tool saves time.
Should I log every alert?
No. Log only mentions you might act on or count later, or the sheet becomes a second inbox.
What does the free workflow miss most often?
Review sites, X, podcasts and older discussion. Plan manual checks for those.