Mention

Mention is a comprehensive social media monitoring and brand listening platform that tracks mentions of your business, competitors, and industry keywords across social media networks, news sites, blogs, forums, and review platforms, providing tour operators with real-time visibility into online conversations about their brand and the broader tour and travel industry. Unlike traditional reputation management tools focused primarily on review generation, Mention emphasizes listening and engagement, helping tour operators understand what customers, influencers, and media outlets are saying about their tours across the entire digital landscape, not just on formal review platforms. The platform uses advanced monitoring algorithms to scan millions of online sources in real-time, alerting tour operators immediately when their business is mentioned so they can respond quickly to both opportunities (positive mentions that can be amplified, potential customers asking questions) and threats (negative feedback, crisis situations requiring immediate attention). For tour operators, Mention provides valuable competitive intelligence by tracking competitor mentions and industry trends, helping you understand market positioning, identify gaps in competitor offerings, and discover emerging customer preferences that could inform new tour development. The platform also includes sentiment analysis, influencer identification, and analytics dashboards that transform raw mention data into actionable insights about brand health, marketing campaign effectiveness, and customer perception trends over time.

Mention operates on a tiered subscription model with plans starting around $49 per month for the basic Solo plan suitable for individual tour operators or very small businesses monitoring limited keywords, scaling up to $179 per month for the Pro plan that most established tour operators would need, and custom enterprise pricing for large organizations requiring advanced features, higher monitoring limits, and dedicated support. The pricing structure is based primarily on the number of mentions tracked per month, number of monitored keywords or brand terms, number of team members who need access, and data retention periods, with lower-tier plans offering 30-day data history while higher tiers provide longer historical analysis capabilities important for tracking reputation trends across seasons. Tour operators should carefully evaluate how many brand variations, tour names, competitor names, and industry keywords they need to monitor, as exceeding plan limits can result in missed mentions or require expensive mid-month upgrades during high-visibility periods when marketing campaigns or peak tourist seasons generate increased online conversation. Mention occasionally offers discounts for annual prepayment that can reduce costs by 15-25% compared to monthly billing, making long-term commitments more economical for tour operators confident in the platform's ongoing value to their business. Unlike review-focused platforms that charge primarily based on number of locations, Mention's pricing reflects its broader monitoring scope, which can make it more expensive than specialized review tools if you only need basic reputation management, but potentially more valuable if you want comprehensive social listening and competitive intelligence capabilities that inform broader marketing and operational strategy.

Mention is best suited for small to medium-sized tour operators with established online presence and active social media engagement who want to move beyond basic review monitoring to understand broader market conversations, competitive positioning, and emerging industry trends that can inform strategic decisions. The platform is particularly valuable for tour operators with 5-20 employees who have dedicated marketing resources or social media managers who can act on the insights Mention provides, as the platform generates significant data that requires analysis and response rather than simple automated workflows. Tour operators running specialized or unique tours (culinary experiences, adventure activities, cultural immersions) in competitive markets benefit most from Mention's competitive intelligence capabilities, which reveal how competitors are positioning themselves, what customers appreciate about rival tours, and where gaps exist that your business could fill with new offerings or improved marketing messages. Mention works well for tour operators who actively engage with travel influencers, bloggers, and media, as the platform's influencer identification features help track which content creators are mentioning your brand or competing tours, enabling targeted relationship-building that can generate positive coverage and authentic recommendations. Very small operators (1-3 employees) or those just starting to build online presence might find Mention's capabilities and costs exceed their immediate needs, as basic Google Alerts and manual social media monitoring may suffice until they develop sufficient online visibility to generate meaningful mention volume. Large enterprise tour companies or destination management organizations might eventually outgrow Mention's mid-market positioning and require more sophisticated enterprise platforms with advanced analytics, unlimited monitoring, and custom reporting capabilities.

Mention offers selective integrations focused primarily on enhancing social media management and communication workflows, with connections to platforms like Slack for real-time mention alerts, Buffer and Hootsuite for social media publishing, email platforms for notification delivery, and limited CRM integrations that help consolidate customer conversation data with other business systems. The platform provides webhook support and a REST API that enables technically capable tour operators or their developers to build custom integrations with booking systems, customer service platforms, or internal dashboards that display reputation metrics alongside operational data, though this requires development resources and ongoing maintenance. Mention integrates with major social media platforms including Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, allowing tour operators to monitor mentions across their most important social channels from a unified dashboard while enabling direct response to comments, messages, and mentions without switching between multiple platform interfaces. The platform's integration with team communication tools like Slack is particularly valuable for tour operators with distributed teams or multiple departments, as it enables automatic notification routing that alerts social media managers to customer inquiries, sends customer service representatives negative sentiment mentions requiring immediate attention, and keeps leadership informed of significant brand mentions or crisis situations. While Mention's integration ecosystem is less extensive than all-in-one marketing platforms, it covers the most critical use cases for social listening and brand monitoring, and the API documentation provides sufficient flexibility for tour operators with technical resources to extend functionality as needed. Tour operators considering Mention should evaluate whether its integration capabilities align with their existing technology stack, particularly regarding how mention data will flow into CRM systems, customer service tools, or marketing analytics dashboards.

Mention provides tiered customer support based on subscription level, with all plans including email support and access to an online help center featuring articles, video tutorials, and setup guides, while higher-tier plans (Pro and Enterprise) receive priority email support with faster response times and, for enterprise customers, dedicated account management with strategic guidance on social listening best practices. The platform's support team can assist with initial account configuration including setting up effective keyword monitoring parameters, creating alert workflows, and establishing sentiment analysis rules, though the quality of monitoring results depends heavily on how well tour operators define their monitoring parameters, which requires understanding of Boolean search operators and social media listening best practices. Mention offers occasional webinars and training sessions covering advanced features, industry-specific use cases, and strategies for extracting maximum value from social listening data, which can be particularly valuable for tour operators new to brand monitoring who need guidance on interpreting mention trends and translating insights into actionable marketing or operational improvements. Response times for support inquiries typically range from 24-48 hours for standard plans to same-day responses for enterprise customers, with urgent issues potentially receiving faster attention depending on the nature of the problem and its impact on business operations. The platform maintains an active blog and resource library with case studies, industry reports, and best practice guides that help tour operators understand how similar businesses leverage social listening for competitive advantage, though finding travel and tourism-specific examples may require some searching as the platform serves diverse industries. While Mention's support is generally responsive and knowledgeable, tour operators should recognize that maximizing platform value requires internal expertise in social media strategy and data analysis, as the platform provides monitoring and data but doesn't automatically create strategic recommendations.

Mention offers both month-to-month subscriptions and annual contracts, with monthly plans providing flexibility to test the platform and adjust monitoring needs without long-term commitment, though annual contracts typically provide 15-25% discounts compared to monthly billing, making them more economical for tour operators confident in long-term social listening needs. The platform's approach to contracts is relatively flexible compared to enterprise software, allowing tour operators to start with monthly subscriptions to evaluate whether the monitoring data and insights justify the ongoing investment before committing to annual terms that lock in better pricing. Month-to-month plans can typically be canceled with 30 days notice, giving tour operators the ability to discontinue service if their needs change, monitoring volume decreases during off-peak seasons, or budget constraints require reducing software expenses, though cancellation means losing access to historical mention data unless you export it before account closure. Annual contracts require fulfilling the commitment period or paying remaining balance, though Mention is generally reasonable about accommodating legitimate business circumstances that necessitate early termination, particularly if you're willing to negotiate reduced exit fees or transition to lower-tier plans rather than complete cancellation. Tour operators with highly seasonal businesses should consider whether year-round social listening provides value during off-peak periods when tour operations and online conversation volume both decrease, as it may be more cost-effective to maintain monitoring only during active seasons unless you use off-peak periods to analyze historical trends, develop next season's marketing strategies, or conduct competitive research that informs operational planning. Data portability is generally good, with tour operators able to export collected mentions and analytics before canceling service, ensuring you retain access to the market intelligence you've gathered even if you choose to discontinue the platform or transition to alternative monitoring tools.

Mention doesn't actively collect customer reviews in the traditional sense of soliciting feedback or sending review invitations like dedicated reputation management platforms; instead, it monitors and aggregates reviews that customers post organically across the web, including major review platforms, social media, blogs, forums, and travel websites where tour operators are mentioned. The platform's review monitoring capabilities scan sources like TripAdvisor, Google Reviews, Facebook reviews, travel blogs, Reddit tourism forums, and niche travel communities to capture both structured reviews on formal platforms and informal feedback shared in social conversations, providing tour operators with comprehensive visibility into all public feedback rather than just reviews on platforms they actively manage. For tour operators, Mention's approach means you discover reviews and mentions you might otherwise miss, particularly on smaller blogs, regional travel forums, or international platforms where customers from different markets discuss their experiences, enabling more complete understanding of brand perception across diverse customer segments and geographic regions. The platform alerts tour operators in real-time when new reviews or mentions appear, allowing quick response to both positive feedback that can be amplified through social sharing or marketing materials and negative reviews that require prompt attention before they influence potential customers researching tours. While Mention excels at monitoring and discovering reviews across the broad digital landscape, tour operators who want to actively generate more reviews through solicitation campaigns will need complementary tools like BirdEye or Broadly, as Mention's strength lies in listening and analysis rather than proactive review generation, making it most valuable when combined with other reputation management tools that handle the solicitation side of the equation.

Mention does not offer automated review response capabilities like AI-powered platforms that generate contextual replies; instead, it functions as a monitoring and alerting system that notifies tour operators when reviews appear and provides a centralized interface for tracking which mentions have been addressed, but the actual response creation and posting must be done manually by team members who craft appropriate replies. The platform's value in review response workflow comes from its ability to aggregate mentions and reviews from diverse sources into a single dashboard where tour operators can assign specific mentions to team members, add internal notes about response strategies, and track response status to ensure nothing falls through the cracks during busy periods. Mention integrates with some social media management tools that do offer response capabilities, allowing tour operators to create workflows where Mention handles discovery and monitoring while connected platforms manage actual response posting, though this requires additional tools and integration setup rather than being built into Mention itself. For tour operators managing reviews across multiple platforms, Mention's unified view provides valuable context by showing all recent brand mentions alongside specific reviews, helping response teams understand broader conversation patterns and sentiment trends that should inform how they address individual pieces of feedback. The platform's assignment and collaboration features enable effective team workflows where social media managers receive alerts about customer inquiries, customer service representatives are notified of negative reviews requiring immediate attention, and marketing teams are informed of positive mentions that could be leveraged in promotional campaigns, though all these stakeholders must manually craft and post their responses rather than relying on automation. Tour operators seeking automated response capabilities should recognize that Mention is designed for monitoring and analysis rather than response automation, and should consider pairing it with platforms specifically built for review management if automated or templated responses are important to their workflow.

Mention excels at monitoring multiple review platforms along with much broader online sources, tracking mentions across major review sites like TripAdvisor, Google Reviews, Yelp, and Facebook while also monitoring social media conversations, travel blogs, news articles, forums like Reddit, and any other public web content where your tour business might be discussed or reviewed. The platform's monitoring scope extends far beyond traditional review platforms to include informal conversations on Twitter/X, Instagram posts and stories mentioning your business, YouTube video comments, travel forum discussions on sites like Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, and niche travel communities where potential customers share recommendations and experiences. For tour operators, this comprehensive monitoring provides visibility into the entire customer conversation ecosystem, capturing not just formal star-rated reviews but also casual social media mentions, blogger trip reports, influencer recommendations, and travel community discussions that significantly influence booking decisions particularly among millennial and Gen Z travelers who trust peer recommendations over official reviews. Mention's platform monitoring includes customizable boolean search queries that allow sophisticated filtering, enabling tour operators to track specific tour names, guide names, location-based mentions, and competitor references across all monitored sources rather than being limited to platforms with formal API partnerships. The system processes millions of online sources in real-time, typically detecting new mentions within minutes of publication, which is particularly valuable for tour operators during crisis situations (accidents, weather cancellations, negative incidents) when rapid response to emerging conversations can prevent reputation damage. While Mention's broad monitoring scope is a significant strength, tour operators should note that the platform's strength is discovery and alerting rather than deep analytics on specific review platforms, so it works best when paired with platform-specific tools for detailed TripAdvisor analysis or Google Review management if those specific platforms are critically important to your business.

Mention does not generate review invitations or provide review solicitation capabilities, as the platform is designed for monitoring and analyzing existing online conversations rather than actively soliciting new customer feedback through email or SMS campaigns. Tour operators looking for review invitation functionality need to use dedicated reputation management platforms like BirdEye, Broadly, or specialized review generation tools that focus on systematically requesting reviews from customers after tour completion, while using Mention to track the broader conversation landscape including but not limited to formal reviews. The platform's value proposition is fundamentally different from review generation tools, focusing on comprehensive listening across the entire digital ecosystem to understand brand perception, competitive positioning, and industry trends rather than increasing review volume through systematic solicitation campaigns. For tour operators building comprehensive reputation management strategies, Mention works best as a complementary tool to review generation platforms, providing strategic intelligence about where your brand is being discussed, what customers say in informal settings versus formal reviews, and how your reputation compares to competitors, while separate tools handle the tactical work of soliciting reviews from satisfied customers. The platform can indirectly support review generation efforts by identifying satisfied customers who mention your tours positively on social media or in blogs, allowing tour operators to reach out personally to ask if they'd be willing to share their experience on review platforms, though this requires manual outreach rather than automated invitation campaigns. Tour operators should clearly understand that Mention positions itself as a social listening and brand monitoring solution rather than a review marketing tool, so expectations should center on gaining comprehensive visibility into existing conversations rather than generating new review volume through systematic customer solicitation.

Mention provides sophisticated sentiment analysis capabilities that automatically categorize each mention as positive, negative, or neutral based on language patterns, context, and tone, giving tour operators immediate understanding of whether online conversations about their brand are generally favorable or concerning without requiring manual reading of every individual mention. The platform's sentiment analysis engine processes mentions in multiple languages and understands nuanced expressions including sarcasm, context-dependent meaning, and industry-specific terminology, though like all automated sentiment analysis, it occasionally misclassifies ambiguous mentions that require human review to accurately interpret. For tour operators, sentiment analysis provides valuable high-level metrics about brand health that can be tracked over time to understand whether marketing campaigns, operational changes, or new tour offerings are positively or negatively impacting customer perception, with trend visualizations that clearly show whether sentiment is improving or declining across weekly, monthly, or seasonal timeframes. Mention's sentiment analysis includes breakdowns by source type, allowing tour operators to see whether sentiment differs between formal review platforms (typically more positive as satisfied customers are more likely to complete reviews) and informal social media conversations (often including more candid or critical feedback), providing nuanced understanding of how different customer segments perceive your tours. The platform enables sentiment comparison against competitors, showing whether your tour company generates more positive conversation than rivals in your market, which aspects of your business drive positive versus negative sentiment, and where competitive vulnerabilities exist that could be exploited through marketing or operational improvements. While Mention's automated sentiment analysis provides valuable efficiency for processing high mention volumes, tour operators should manually review sentiment-flagged mentions periodically to validate accuracy, understand context that automated analysis might miss, and identify subtle themes within positive or negative mentions that suggest specific areas for operational improvement or marketing emphasis.

Mention does not provide native website widget functionality for showcasing reviews or customer testimonials on tour operator websites, as the platform is designed for monitoring and analysis rather than public-facing review display, meaning tour operators need separate solutions for embedding social proof on their websites while using Mention for behind-the-scenes listening and competitive intelligence. Tour operators wanting to showcase customer feedback on their websites could potentially use Mention's API to pull positive mentions and reviews into custom-built website features, though this requires development resources and ongoing maintenance rather than being a simple plug-and-play widget solution like dedicated review platforms offer. The platform's primary value for website strategy comes indirectly through helping tour operators identify the most compelling customer testimonials and authentic endorsements from their broader mention stream, which can then be manually selected, permission-requested, and showcased on websites through custom implementation or third-party widget tools. Mention helps tour operators discover positive coverage on travel blogs, influencer posts, social media testimonials, and news articles that can be more compelling than standard review platform feedback, with the platform's monitoring identifying authentic advocacy that carries significant weight when featured as social proof on marketing materials and websites. For tour operators building website content, Mention provides competitive intelligence about how rivals showcase social proof, which types of customer endorsements appear most frequently in competitor marketing, and what language patterns in positive mentions resonate most strongly with potential customers, informing content strategy even without direct website integration. Tour operators should recognize that Mention and review showcase tools serve different purposes in the reputation management technology stack, with Mention providing strategic listening and analysis while dedicated review platforms or custom web development handle the tactical work of displaying social proof to website visitors, and the most sophisticated tour operators use both types of tools in complementary ways.