It’s easy to get caught up in the content and forget to listen to your fans and clients, but this is a vital step in any good social media campaign. Social monitoring tools go a long way to assist with identifying new topics, curating expert content and keeping you updated on what’s happening in your niche.
Courtesy of blogs.position2.com
Monitoring your niche is the fastest way to learn what works when trying to connect with your audiences. Here are 5 tools you’ll want to use, and how to use them effectively.
#1: Google Alerts
Google has given social marketers an excellent tool for staying in-the-know on all things news related. Google Alerts use tracked keywords to provide you with updated alerts on the latest news stories in your chosen niche. To use it properly, target between 5 or 10 keywords, set how often you’d like to be notified, how much content you’d like to receive and where it should be delivered (email or RSS).
Tip: The trick with Google Alerts is to use advanced search terms. Find them here.
#2: Social Mention
Social Mention is a great listening tool if you want a quick run-down of your brand’s strength, reach, passion and sentiment. While it’s not always 100% accurate, it gives you a nice overall idea of how your brand is performing on a variety of different social media. To use this tool, simply go to the Social Mention website, and type in your brand name. You can also type in personal names, blog names, product names, competitor names or anything else you’d like to monitor.
#3: TweetReach
TweetReach is excellent for tracking just how far a tweet went after you published it. This tool will help you keep your Twitter strategy on target. This tool has a free version that presents tweet types, exposures and impressions in graph form, but it’s advisable to use their paid plans if you can. This will give you in-depth reports on how your tweets behave once they are published. Just sign up and add your keywords.
#4: Addict-o-matic
Another easy to use tool for finding out what’s being said about your brand, or about any brand for that matter. Addict-o-matic pulls in data from a number of other tracking sites and displays them in a convenient way. Its real-time monitoring at its best, but it’s only effective for general impressions. No sign up necessary, simply punch in the keywords, brands and names you want to monitor.
#5: Co.mments
Co.mments is useful if you find yourself needing to track your comments as opposed to your blog posts. When a blog takes off, negative comments can be a killer. To use this monitoring tool sign up for a free account, add your book marklet and you’re away. Now whenever someone posts something negative about you on a blog – you’ll be there in a flash.
Use these 5 social monitoring tools to track natural conversations that are happening about your brand all over the internet.
Do you have a favorite monitoring tool? Tell us about it below and we’ll check it out!
