Feedback is critical in understanding your company’s 
reputation within your market. Perhaps the best way
to get started is by taking advantage
of many free monitoring tools already available.
This article reviews a number of ways to listen in on
the conversation about your personal brand.
Tools covered include Google Alerts, Hootsuite,
Technorati, Social Mention and others.
How to Track your Reputation on Social Media Channels
Who said that about me? When did they say that? Where did they say it? If you’re tired of giving
everyone around you the third degree and need to get a grip on your online reputation,
there are plenty of free tools to help you do that.
You will be the first to know who’s talking about you online and what they’re saying—giving
you the opportunity to reply before anyone else does. And affording you the chance to
monitor one of your most valuable assets—your internet image—quickly and easily.
Answer your questions yourself, and stop sounding like a “broken record.”
Image courtesy of: superterrific via photopin cc
While you can always engage the services of a professional reputation management firm,
here are some helpful tools for the do-it-yourself type of person.
1.Google Alerts
Are you tired of Googling your business’s name, your own name, or perhaps,
your many aliases and having to sift through the results in search of something new?
Well, first—why so many different names? And, second, why don’t you
just set yourself up to receive Google Alerts?
Google Alerts is the epitome of “user-friendly,” meaning that even a knuckle-dragging,
mouth-breather—which, surely, you are not—can figure it out. Simply input the name or
names that you want to be monitored, how often you wish to be alerted to updates,
whether you wish to be alerted via e-mail or your RSS feed, and answer a couple
of other simple questions and you are done.
You will be notified of new blog entries, social media content, or news stories pertaining
to the names you have set up. The only caveat is that Google Alerts, of course, will only
alert you to posts that can be found on Google’s search engine.
2.Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a popular choice, largely because of the many functions that it offers.
Just as Google Alerts allows you to keep tabs on your many names on Google,
Hootsuite allows you to track keywords on Twitter.
If someone tweets about your latest AKA, you’ll be the first to know.
This handy tool also enables you to manage several social media accounts in one place.
Yup, you can keep tabs on your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Myspace activity,
and more using a single tool. It also enables you to schedule tweets and messages in advance,
which allows you to maintain a steady online presence and time your posts to appear
during peak hours. And you can do all of this from Hootsuite’s comprehensive, but easy-to-use dashboard.
3.Social Mention
Social Mention is a comprehensive service that does not require the user to set
up an account—you need only download a free search bar for your browser.
Like Google Alerts and Hootsuite, it allows you to monitor search words,
but Social Mention does this for over 100 social media platforms.
Social Mention also enables its users to access statistics including the types of
sentiments being posted about them, the top users, and top keywords.
Because it pulls data from a plethora of sources, it can provide you with
invaluable insight into the success—or lack thereof—of any social media
campaigns that you or your business embark on.
4.Technorati
This is the perfect tool for bloggers. By simply registering your blog,
you can ask Technorati to monitor any blogs that mention you or one of your posts.
A cool feature of Technorati is that it can also provide you with information on the
rank and authority that your blog has within the blogging world.
One flaw with using Technorati is that it remains unaware
of the existence of many lesser-known, but high quality blogs.
5.Who.Unfollowed.Me
If you have thick skin and aren’t the “grudge-holding” type,
Who.Unfollowed.Me may be the tool for you. Designed specifically for your Twitter account,
it enables you to see who has “unfollowed”—yes, it has coined a new word too—you and when.
If you are someone who has seen a mass exodus from your merry band of followers,
you will be happy to know that this service can keep you up-to-date
in fifteen minute intervals, if need be.
Thanks to an influx of social media monitoring tools, you no longer have to pull the old drill
sergeant routine of hammering those around you with a barrage of questions.
You will have the answers at your fingertips. Your office staff will no longer
have to double as your online reputation management service and they
can finally get down to the jobs you hired them to do.
What are your favorite social media monitoring tools? Why?
Kimberley Laws is a freelance writer and avid blogger. She claims that she doesn’t have
a narcissistic bone in her body, but she has signed up for almost every social media
alert system out there. I wonder if she knows I’m taking about her right now.