An overview of tools for 2017
| Tool | OS | Get it | Platforms* |
| Audiense | Web-based | https://buy.audiense.com/trial/new (offers 14 day trial) | |
| Boston University Twitter Collection and Analysis Toolkit (BU-TCAT) | Web-based | http://www.bu.edu/com/research/bu-tcat | |
| Chorus | Windows (Desktop advisable) | http://chorusanalytics.co.uk/chorus/request_download.php (free) | |
| COSMOS Project | Windows; MAC OS X | http://socialdatalab.net/software (free) | |
| DiscoverText | Web-based | http://discovertext.com (3 day trial) | Twitter; Facebook; Blogs; Forums; Online news platforms |
| Echosec | Web-based | https://www.echosec.net | Instagram; Twitter; Foursquare; Panoramio; AIS Shipping; Sina Weibo; Flickr; YouTube; VK |
| Followthehashtag | Web-based | http://www.followthehashtag.com | |
| IBM Bluemix | Web-based | https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/bluemix | |
| Mozdeh | Windows (Desktop advisable) | http://mozdeh.wlv.ac.uk/installation.html | |
| Netlytic | Web-based | https://netlytic.org | Twitter; Facebook; YouTube; Instagram; RSS Feed |
| NodeXL | Windows | http://nodexl.codeplex.com | Twitter; YouTube; Flicker |
| NVivo | Windows; Mac | http://www.qsrinternational.com/product | |
| Pulsar Social | Web-based | http://www.pulsarplatform.com | Twitter; Facebook topic data; Online blogs |
| SocioViz | Web-based | http://socioviz.net | |
| Social Elephants | Web-based | https://socialelephants.com/en/ | Twitter; Facebook; Instagram; YouTube |
| Trendsmap | Web-based | https://www.trendsmap.com | |
| Twitonomy | Web-based | http://www.twitonomy.com | |
| Twitter Arching Google Spreadsheet (TAGS) | Web-based | https://tags.hawksey.info | |
| Visibrain | Web-based | http://www.visibrain.com | |
| Webometric Analyst | Windows | http://lexiurl.wlv.ac.uk | Twitter (with image extraction capabilities); YouTube; Flickr; Mendeley; Other web resources |
*It is always best to check with the developers of tools as there may be additional platforms that they can access. Moreover, some tools provide users with the ability of importing data into the applications from external sources.
A number of the tools provided in the table above have been tested and used by me over a number of years, and the vast majority of these chiefly handle data from Twitter. It would be nice to have academic and social listening tools to retrieve data from other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon, and also dark social media platforms such as WhatsApp. However, this may not be possible because these applications are not likely to provide all of their data to developers as Twitter does. Moreover, there may be ethical implications of accessing data from dark social media platforms.
Other applications are available but these require programming knowledge and have not being rigorously tested as part of this post. These include:
- DMI-TCAT (free)
- Crimson Hexagon (commercial)
- Brandwatch (commercial)
- Leximancer
Moreover, there are a number of advanced data analysis and statistical applications which can be used to analyse social media data, such as:
Дополнительно: Ryerson University’s list of tools from its Social Media Lab.