3 Social Media Monitoring Tools

Having a company in a digital world has its ups and downs. With the Internet and social media, you have the ability to reach a very large audience in a little amount of time. You can push out campaigns and information with the click of a button, and if you accept online orders, you can generate sales from around the world instead of only in your local community.

But the digital world also brings its pitfalls. While social media and the Internet are great for business, they can also be harmful. People use the Internet and social media to talk about things that make them happy as well as things that upset them. We’ve all heard of at least one social media horror story, such as the YouTube video, United Breaks Guitars or the Domino’s pizza scandal.

If a customer has a bad experience with your company, they could let the world know with one simple tweet or post. If you don't monitor what is being said about your company or brand on the Internet, severe damage could be done before you realize it.

You may think that monitoring every website or social network to see what is being said about your brand is impossible, but in reality, it's actually quite simple, especially with the help of the following monitoring tools.

1. Social Mention

Social Mention is used to see what is being said about your company or brand on all social networking channels. You choose the keywords you wish to monitor, perhaps your company and product names, and Social Mention will check all networks, blogs, bookmarks, comments, etc. to see where and why your keywords are being mentioned.

Social Mention also provides code so you can create your own monitoring widgets, and it also provides APIs. You can also receive charts that depict how often your keywords are being mentioned per day or per week, which will show you the kind of outreach your company is receiving.

2. Google Alerts

Google Alerts is one of the most popular platforms for social media monitoring. You tell Google Alerts which keywords you want to monitor and designate how often you want to be notified, choosing from immediately, daily or weekly. When Google Alerts finds a new mention of your keywords, it will send you an email with a link to the source. It's important to know that Google Alerts will only monitor content found on sites that are indexed by Google.

3. TweetDeck

Don't let the name fool you—TweetDeck monitors Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Google Buzz, LinkedIn and even MySpace. TweetDeck allows you to add multiple social media accounts and monitor what is being said about your company via these networks. The dashboard contains multiple columns that highlight what you post to these sites as well as where and when others are mentioning you.

Monitoring your company and brand on the Internet is important for the reputation and image of your company. If you don't monitor and someone posts a nasty video or post that goes viral, the damage can be severe and you may have a hard time making it better. Through monitoring, you are able to respond quickly, helping to alleviate the situation before it becomes out of control.

There are plenty of monitoring tools available. Make sure to test a few out and see which ones you like best.

Jeffrey White is a social media expert and freelance writer who lives in the Dallas area. He often uses a grammar checker to ensure his content is clear, concise, and free of any grammatical mistakes.

Photo Credit: tastytouring