Top 10 Fastest Growing Social Media Management Software Platforms – Q4 2014

Unique page views for Social Media Management Software products on TrustRadius – a measure for how many people are running product purchase evaluations – grew at a healthy 13 percent from Q3 to Q4. This growth rate was down from the Q2-Q3 growth rate of 30 percent. While page views are not an absolute representation of category growth, they are a good proxy.

Social Media Management is a fragmented category with close to 140 vendors listed on TrustRadius. However, a few vendors are starting to break from the pack. In Q4, Hootsuite Enterprise retained its position as the most evaluated SMMS product on TrustRadius. Sprinklr moved up from to the number two slot. Radian6, now part of the new Social Studio suite from Salesforce retained a top 5 position.

While all of these products are in the social media management category, some do different things. For example, Woobox focuses on social media contests, Meltwater Buzz and Social Bakers focus on listening, and Buffer is a publishing tool. These products also sell to different market segments. Using reviewer mix on TrustRadius as proxy for customer mix, and assuming prospective customers follow a similar distribution to existing customers, you can make an educated guess as to evaluation frequency by segment.

Using this estimation approach, the Social Media Management Software product most evaluated by enterprises with >500 employees is Sprinklr, followed by Hootsuite Enterprise, and Radian6.  While this imperfect methodology does not account for rapidly shifting customer mixes it does give a directional indication of today’s picture.

We will shortly be releasing our 2015 Buyer’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media Management Software where we discuss insights about which products are best suited to different use cases. In the interim, you can access our last guide here.