Social Media Monitoring Tools
Listening to all the conversations occurring on-line is an important part of any Social Media Program. Not only to gather information and overall sentiment, but also to assist your company to determine the performance of your Social Media Marketing.
Tools
There is no shortage of tools to assist you to follow what's happening on the Social Internet, and some of the best are free and easy to use. Depending on what tools you are using, generally you are trying to identify the who, what, when and where of conversations on topics important to your business products and services.
Google Alerts deliver up to the minute email reports when keywords you select are triggered by Search.
These can be the name of a competitor's CEO, or phrase like "Social Media Marketing" or phrases from some of your more important Blog posts or Discussions. The more targeted the term the better, to minimize the risk of being inundated with Google Alerts and information. As an information gathering tool Google Alerts offers a quick and easy solution delivered right to your in box.
Google Analytics is an effective tool to monitor and answer the Who, What, When and Where of your web site traffic.
Most of your Social Media engagement will occur on external web sites. As Social Media programs expand the external Social Networking activities eventually lead towards your business's web site.
Monitoring referring sites, geographic locations and most visited web pages are a few of the elements which you should monitor via Google Analytics to evaluate what Social Media activities are referring traffic to your web site. For monitoring your web site traffic Google Analytic offers a powerful tool that is free and can be as simple or as complex as your needs require.
Blog Search
Blogging is one of the primary Social Media activities. Blogs give to your business and your audience through the exchange of information and opinions. In addition to the Social aspects of Blogging, a Blog offers excellent Search Engine Optimization opportunities through the use of fresh keyword rich content.
Interaction is encourage to build community and working with fellow Bloggers as a Guest Blogger or hosting another Blogger on your site provides increased visibility online. But first you must discover relevant Blogs and Bloggers in your industry.
Google Blog Search provides Blog specific Search Results. Monitor your Blog's visibility in Search Results and find the latest posts on topics important to you and your business. When using Google Blog Search make use of advance search and freshness to filter your results accordingly.
Technorati monitors the "Blogosphere". Like Google you can search for topics of interests. One of the best things about Technorati is it facilitates the discovery of authoritative Bloggers. Technorati also has an authority scale which can be used for your benefit, but be reminded if you are new to the Blogosphere gaining authority on Technorati will take time and commitment.
Finding who is talking about what, is easy with a Twitter tool such a Twithority which lets you use keyword search to find those who are talking about topics of interest. Similar results can be had using the # sign before a keyword using Twitter Search. Which ever method you select you will be finding and following those who are talking about what interests you and discovering and meeting members of your on-line community.
Monitoring the growth of your Twitter account is simple, with a tool such as Twitter Counter and an overall score of your account is available from TwitterGrader. The thing to remember about web statistics is often they are not as accurate as we would like. However, comparing performance between accounts does reflect how well you are doing in competing with others, as long as the statistics have similar sources.
Consider these tools
A couple of sites that have some tools to review the Social Media presence of both you and your competitors are:
- SocialMention is a handy tool for researching the people and news important for your business
- HowSociable lets you monitor assess visibility and identify Social Networks which you could be more proactive.
Not a free tool but...
Sometimes you only get so far using free tools online to complete your tasks, the perfect tool to use often requires some type of subscription costs. I found Ubervu a while ago and find it a simple and effective tool for discovering others with similar interests and Ubervu provides me with the ability to complete numerous Social Media Monitoring activities from one place and contact and engage them through the same tool. Social Media is time consuming, paid tools are worth considering to simplify your Social Monitoring Program.
The Last Word
This is by no means a definitive list of tools to assist you to monitor your Social Media Programs but it does provide the basic information you need to keep current with the conversations and identify thought leaders within your community.
It is important to record the information you receive to enable you to discover trends which may not be evident through many of these monitoring tools.
I'm sure you have some favorite tool which I have not mentioned. If you have a tool which you feel is particularly beneficial and easy to use please post your recommendation in the discussions below.
