Regularly monitoring your brand, tracking your online reputation, and interacting with your audience is paramount if you want to run a successful business. Not only are you more likely to have repeat visits but, your visitors are also more likely to tell others about your website. Besides the popular, well-known Google Alerts and Twitter Search, there are many other different methods and tools that can be used to monitor your brand and reputation online. Though it can sometimes be discouraging to see negative reactions, it helps you to improve and grow not only as a business but as an individual. Hopefully, one of these tools will come in handy for; feel free to suggest others in the comments.
Yahoo Alerts is just like Google alerts except the results are from Yahoo’s search engine. Dare I say that Yahoo Alerts are even easier to setup and manage than Google? They have a large selection of alert types to choose from and you can receive notifications via email, Yahoo messenger or SMS. You can even add a button to your blog or website that will let visitors add your site to their Yahoo Alerts.
Tweet Scan allows you to receive RSS or email updates when the keyword(s) you’re monitoring appears on Twitter or Identi.ca. RSS alerts are free but you will need to sign up for email alerts. There is a 14-day free trial after which you will need to pay in order to keep receiving email alerts; luckily, the cost is only $20/year.
TweetBeep provides free Twitter email alerts with the option to upgrade, since with a free account you are limited to only 10 alerts. You can upgrade to 30 alerts for $3/month, 75 alerts for $6/month or 200 alerts for $20/month. Besides keyword tracking you can even track tweets that include a URL to your blog or website even if it’s a shortened URL. You can choose to be alerted either hourly or daily among other customization options.
BackTweets is very easy to use and is brought to you by BackType (mentioned below).With BackTweets you can track links that are shared on Twitter and receive email updates daily, as they arrive or weekly. So instead of tracking your brand’s name or a keyword, BackTweet tracks the URL.
Commentful tracks comments on your content around the web such as on blog posts, Digg submissions, etc. The items you track are checked every 10 minutes and you can track up to 200 items. Notifications are instant via the Firefox addon, which is also compatible with Flock browser. Unfortunately, if you have the latest version of Firefox then the addon will not be compatible.
coComment is very similar to Commentful by Blog Flux (above) in that it lets you track comments across the Web. You can also receive notifications via their Firefox addon (which is compatible with the latest version of Firefox) as well. coComment goes a step further by letting you integrate it with your blog via their plugin and widgets. These allow even more precise tracking and sharing of your content.
Social Mention is a real-time social media search engine that also lets you receive social media email alerts. If you want to show off your brand you can also get a real-time buzz tracking widget for your blog or website. Social Mention tracks 80+ social media sites, so you’ll never miss out on a thing. If you want to do a quick search from Firefox, you can even add Social Mention to your search bar.
BackType will send you email updates whenever a keyword you’re tracking is mentioned in a comment across the Web. You can receive updates as they happen, daily or on a weekly basis. This is great for keeping up with what people are saying about your brand on other sites. BackType also offers some other great services such as Subscriptions (keeps you updated on blog post comments) and Connections (shows off social reactions related to your content).
WhosTalkin provides a vast amount of results and information about any search term. As of now you cannot receive alerts but in the future you will be able to save a search or receive alerts via RSS. There are also various tools in the works: a WordPress plugin, a Firefox plugin, and an iGoogle Gadget. For now you can perform searches and track your brand on blogs, news sources, social networks, videos, images, forums and in tags.
HowSociable lets you measure your brand visibility and monitor your score via email. It uses 22 “metrics” like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo to develop your visibility score. You can then view results from each metric to get a closer look at what is being said or posted about your brand. If you want to track your score you can enter your email to receive monthly updates.
With FiltrBox you create folders and filters that are used to monitor your brand, among other things, on the web. You can then customize the type of notifications you’d like to receive for each one. You will also have access to charts, graphs, reports and other analytical data relating to the brand(s) you’re monitoring. There are numerous features that offered such as the ability to import your current Google alerts you may already be tracking. FiltrBox comes with a free trial and for pricing you’ll need to call for a quote.
ViralHeat offers a 7-day free trial and then from there you can pick from three different packages starting at $9.99/month. Although there is a free trial, you will still need to pick a plan and enter your credit card info. You will, however, be able to view social trends without doing so. When tracking your brand via the free social trends feature, you’ll get an in-depth report showing such things as your influence on Twitter, mentions in blogs and websites, and videos and statistics for each.
ChatterBox lets you monitor conversations and keywords on Twitter individually or in teams. It’s described as a “centralized dashboard that lets you assign workflows, prioritize, tag and assign those interactions to team members”. Unfortunately, ChatterBox is currently in private beta. You can try contacting them to get in sooner; it definitely looks worth it.
Trackur is a reputation tracking tool that comes with a 14-day trial and takes less than 60 seconds to setup, guaranteed. If it takes you less than 60 seconds to set up your first saved search, you can email them and once you upgrade to a paid account they’ll double the capacity of your keywords! Your results are displayed in an organized list and you can even mark items as read as you go through it. Other features include adding items to your favorites, sharing items and viewing influence for each item. Their plans start at $18/month and go up from there.
BlogPulse tracks and automatically discovers new blog trends. You can use the various buzz tracking tools to help track trends, conversations and profiles on the Web. You can search by keyword or URL and then subscribe by RSS for updates. For each result you can track the conversation and view the blog profile of where it’s posted.
What is your method of choice for monitoring your brand online? Is it working for you? Would you recommend any tools other than the ones listed above?
Please Tweet, Bookmark, or Share This Free Content Using These Services:
Add New Comment
Subscribe to comments
Email
Reader
Listen or subscribe via podcast
Great article, i have been looking for a list like this for some time.
Reply
Twitter/Share/Bookmark