Set up a system for social listening – so you know what people are saying about you and/or your brand online.
You can set up automated “alerts” that are sent to your email account on a regular basis, and you can use tools to actively search for mentions of your brand.
Set Up Automated Alerts:
1. Google Alerts
Create as many alerts as you want for your name and/or your business name. Set your “result type” to everything, and “how many” to all results initially. Then make adjustments based on the results you are getting. Choose how often you want to be notified and create the alert.
2. TalkWalker Alerts
http://www.talkwalker.com/alerts
A competitor to Google Alerts, you set it up the same way. You may want to use both Google and TalkWalker Alerts to find out which one gives you better results. Or leave them both set up indefinitely, since they are free to use.
3. Mention
You can set up one free alert within Mention, where you will be notified in real-time when someone is talking about your brand.
Create Your Own Custom Search:
1. Twitter Search
Twitter is a great platform to use for social listening. You can easily search for you and/or your brand in the search bar in your top navigation menu.
Choose “All” results to view in the new feed. Then just click on Save in the upper right corner of this new feed and your search will be saved for future use. At any time, you can hover over the Search bar and see all of your Saved Searches.
2. Hootsuite (free/paid tool)
Use Hootsuite to save each of your Twitter searches in its own viewing column. You’ll select the Twitter account to use, enter in your saved search and create a column for each one.
Setting up multiple columns in Hootsuite allows you to quickly check on brand mentions. You can make it a regular part of your schedule to check for brand mentions first thing every morning, for example.
3. Topsy (free tool)
Topsy is a free tool that allows you to quickly search Twitter for mentions, trends and more. Go to the site and choose Social Search. Then type in any name or phrase and choose to search everything or photos, links, etc.
You can also use Topsy to look at Social Analytics or Social Trends of keywords or phrases.
In addition to monitoring your brand, you may want to use some of these tools to keep up with the social conversation on keywords that are important to your target market.
Then you can take note of what problems you can solve, and what new questions your target audience may need answers to.
No matter which tool you choose, setting up a system for social listening is a great way to discover how you can better serve your clients and potential customers.
photo credit: Saad Faruque via photopin cc
About Terry League