With the reputation and success of your business at stake, it pays to keep an eye on what others are saying about you online. In follow up to our previous post on this topic, here is an introduction to 9 “do it yourself” reputation management tools:
- Alerts: Both Google and Yahoo allow you to set up alerts for specified search terms, delivered to you by email or feed reader. Choose the type of content you want searched (blogs, news, videos, etc.) and the frequency you want the alert sent (weekly, daily or immediate). Both sites provide a preview of your search results before you create the alert.
- BuzzBundle: Tracks social media mentions of your brand, company, products or services according to groups of keywords you choose. By integrating social media management along with brand/reputation management, this tool is a “one-stop shop” for coordinating and scheduling social media posts as well as monitoring social mentions. In the free basic service package, some features expire after 15 days. There are two fee-paid editions available.
- MonitorThis: Allows you to monitor mentions of your brand on 20 different search engines. Type your brand/business name into its search box, and it provides a file that can be imported to your feed reader and provide ongoing updates.
- Social Mention: Monitors more than 100 social media and provides a compilation of data, sorted into positive, negative and neutral. This tool can work for any brand, but it works best for companies with unique brand names that are unlikely to be duplicated. With the enormous quantity of information pulled, there can be some inaccuracies.
- Social Searcher: Provides real-time content search on social networks (Twitter, Google+, Facebook) and analytics data with no log-in needed. This tool also offers the option to save searches and create email alerts.
- SproutSocial: Real-time brand monitoring is just one of the features offered by this full-service social media management tool. Try it at no cost for 30 days then choose from three service-level packages, all of which include online training and support.
- Technorati: Search the blogosphere for keywords, or create an account to track mentions and your ranking in blogs and posts. This tool also allows you to find what sites are linking to yours.
- Trackur: Created by Andy Beal, author of the book Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Managing Reputations Online, as an affordable, easy to use means of social media monitoring. Four service levels are offered, from a basic free plan to the “ultimate” with unlimited saved searches.
- TweetBeep: Operating similarly to Google or Yahoo alerts, this program monitors Twitter and notifies you whenever your name, product, company or keywords is mentioned (according to what you request). The free version sends updates every hour; the premium paid version sends updates every 15 minutes.
What tools are you using for online reputation monitoring and management? Leave a comment below to let us know what is working for you. And, as always, contact the Page Progressive team if you have questions or would like more information on how we help small businesses and organizations monitor their online presence.
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