Great list, Dan! You never fail to disappoint! Along the lines of Social Search (I've heard of Serph, not Social Mention or Keotag) is another I was tweeted about yesterday: http://www.samepoint.com
Darren Culbreath
· 11 months ago
Thank you Ari for the mention. As always, we will work to make the engine better.
Dina Santorelli
· 11 months ago
Finally! A Top 10 list that is sorely needed. Thanks!
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@ Ari - I tried that one and it doesn't work well. There is no organization with the results if you input your name. See for yourself. Thanks for the comment.
@ Dina - Happy to help :)
Donovan
· 11 months ago
Dan,
I recognized Samepoint.com. I use it alot because it gives me profile across most social networking platforms and has content on emerging companies in the wireless space that are not tracked by StarPR and some of the other tools here at all.
Can you elaborate on the organization that you see from the others that makes them relevant?
donovan
Darren Culbreath
· 11 months ago
Dan,
Samepoint was just reviewed by Mashable. It was a big surprise for us. Since that review, we have made some positive changes. We gladly took the criticism then and will continue. It makes us better. If you have time, we would enjoy candid feedback via learn@samepoint.com .
Happy Holidays.
Brandon J. Mendelson
· 11 months ago
Hi Dan,
I've attempted to phase out Mashable from my life (too many "Me too!" posts), but this list was very helpful and I recommend it to anyone, particularly for students looking for jobs and those looking to sell advertisements for their blog.
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@Brandon - great to hear that. I wouldn't phase out Mashable (although I'm now bias) because they cover all of web 2.0, whereas many sites have drifted to cover general technology news, such as TechCrunch. Mashable owns this niche and their writers insanely experienced/knowledgeable.
Brandon J. Mendelson
· 11 months ago
I'll keep an eye on them in '09. Keep up the great work here.
Craig
· 11 months ago
I find Google Alerts to be rather slow, do you have that problem as well?
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@Craig - that's why you should diversify your toolset, to include other services, so you find out what you need when you need it.
@Kari, thanks for notifying me of that tool. I will check it out.
Matthew Hunt
· 11 months ago
Dan,
Great list of resources! I use all the tools listed above. My top 3 are: Twitter, Google Alerts, & BackType
As the general public becomes more and more comfortable with these social tools/web properties it will become even more essential to be able to monitor conversations about your brand, products, & services because we have already witness many examples how quickly something negative can spread about one's company with use of social media tools like twitter, facebook, etc.
The list Dan offers above should give any company a leg up on any issues that are arising about their business and will allow them to address those challenges immediately.
These tools should not only be thought of as only "brand management", but tools to tune into the conversation(s). Listen. These are really "listening" tools.
Any company that chooses to listen and follow through with what their niche community is requesting is bound to win.
Kwasi Fraser
· 11 months ago
Matthew; Well said and a great contribution to this comment string. I'll like to get your fank opinion and critism of www.samepoint.com, it's currently in beta and it's being built to deliver that listening post for the voice of humanity online. Please take a look at it and provide feedback.
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@ Matthew, here are my thoughts about your last paragraph:
I think they are good listening tools at first, if you want to discover a niche topic or follow some keywords pertaining to your industry.
It isn't a good use of your time to monitor an online brand that doesn't exist when you first start out. I would rather see people work hard to develop content and then monitor their reputation.
Mike Montano
· 11 months ago
Hi Dan,
Thanks so much for including BackType. We use many of the tools and strategies you listed on a daily basis. I wanted to add, that as well as managing your own comments and following influencers, you can use BackType Alerts to keep updated by email or RSS on mentions of keywords in comments.
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@ Mike - good services should be praised by the media! It's our job.
@Davide - I'll check it out, thanks.
Craig
· 11 months ago
@Dan you're right, I should sign up for other services because there are probably flaws in all and combined could help me out a lot more. Thanks
Grace Kutney
· 11 months ago
Thanks, this is a great list! I was familiar with only about half of the sites/steps you had suggested, so I am really finding this post very useful. Thanks again!
Rebecca
· 11 months ago
Great list!! Another tool for monitoring brand reputation and buzz is the Webbed-o-Meter at http://www.webbedmarketing.com/webbedometer.html. It is our social media and word of mouth measurement tool and it is free!
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@Rebecca, honestly, I don't think it's working properly right now.
It tells me nothing. I can't endorse and recommend a service that doesn't work.
Sliver
· 3 months ago
I agree, this site (samepoint.com) is CRAP. Aggregating readily available information from easily obtainable sources and just smashing them together is something any poorly written script can do.
Plus a service that is running solely on a GODADDY bargain basement server just shouts of stupidity and smells like a service run out of someone's basement. The results speak for themselves.
TJ Sondermann
· 11 months ago
I've found that once I've set up the rss alerts for terms that I'm monitoring, it is easier to check them at a glance by setting up a page in something like Netvibes.
This way you have an aggregated dashboard of all of your listening tools which you can quickly access without having them scattered or listed separately in your preferred reader.
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@TJ - that is a great strategy. I think it depends how much time you have and your personal preference.
tony
· 11 months ago
Twitter is the ultimate tool for monitoring your brand - good add! But still, you have to be sure that you use Twitter effectively. Check up often to see how you are communicating with your audience by using tools like http://twitterlike.com , http://tweetbeep.com , and ofcourse, search.
Shawn Smith
· 11 months ago
Great post Dan. This is a great list of tools for finding mentions. I use a lot of these myself, and I use Yahoo Pipes to aggregate their output - as you mentioned. I put together a couple of videos showing how to do this, here:
I was on the founding team of a company called Scout Labs (http://www.scoutlabs.com/ still in closed beta), which is a paid service for doing this stuff - plus some analytics components. There are some nice free tools out there for doing a bit of the analysis, but nothing really powerful (yet), especially when it comes to sentiment.
John Cow
· 11 months ago
Fantastic post, i had never heard of a few of these and just spent 10 minutes on social search... i could see me actually wasting a lot of time on some of these ;)
Jon
· 11 months ago
Dan, Thanks for the mention. We're thrilled to be number 8 on your list. Excellent post and all great tools for brand monitoring.
Jon
Tauya
· 11 months ago
that filtrbox is so cool
Michael Scepaniak
· 11 months ago
Thank you! Getting up to speed with all of the tools that are available can be daunting. This is such a great list and I really appreciate you addressing this topic, Dan.
scott testa
· 11 months ago
Great article although Filtrbox needs to work on its user interface. .I had trouble figuring out how to add searches. .but still interesting. . especially the graphing
Justin
· 11 months ago
Scott - I am a developer at Filtrbox, and wanted to let you know that we are hard at work rebuilding our Flash dashboard from the ground up. Some of the highlights deal with immense increases in speed, and also our UI and UX. We are making relatively medium changes to the over all look - but are increasing the ease of use with the main UI interactions, such as creating and deleting filtrs, as our top focus. We want to make sure that what we build is intuitive and seemless from the desktop to the web. Please look for these changes by the end of January and i will be watching the web for any and all comments. Thanks for using Filtrbox!
Jacob Share from JobMob
· 11 months ago
I love how the comments to these kinds of articles are filled with people from reputation tracking sites, but I take that as a good sign. That was what I expected and confirmed in my own reputation management bible:
Dan - great list of tools. To fine-tune into the blogosphere, I use Google's blog search feature. It's so important to monitor where and how you [and your competitors] show up online. You might miss out on a great PR opportunity or a chance to deliver outstanding customer service. @wiredprworks on twitter.com
Gerald Weber SEM Group
· 11 months ago
These are some good resources, some of which I didn't know about. I bookmarket and tweeted this post. Thanks.
Dan
· 11 months ago
Hi Dan, thanks for the comment on the Webbed-O-Meter. I'm one of the creators of the tool. We are continually refining it and any and all feedback is appreciated. Can you give me the URL you were searching on? I can probably provide an explanation as to the results you are getting. Thanks!
Jennifly
· 11 months ago
Great list....
My personal favorites are Google Alert, Delicious, Backtype social mention and 123people (great for personal brand monitoring.
Jennifer
Scott Mahler
· 11 months ago
In today's social media world, it has never been easier to keep track of your brand. There's really no excuse to let conversations about your company go on without knowing about it. But you are right, it can be a full time job so you may need to hire a marketing person to handle it all for you.
Mark
· 11 months ago
excellent post, thnx!
Jan Altendorff
· 11 months ago
Thanks for this post Dan. I've recently come across and blogged a rudimentary but free and very useful little tool for monitoring brand/keywords against competitors on the GYM search engines, check out www.exactfactor.com and my original post for additional info
Great summary! One point I would make is that this covers very generalized information. Google blog search (for example) will never tell you about a consumer review of your product found on a commercial site. This is important regardless of what industry you are in.
For example, if you make/sell baby cribs, consumers can (and will) post their opinions of your product on retail sites such as target.com (amongst others). Or, if you are a hotel selling rooms, you can find consumer reviews on TripAdvisor.com (again, 1 of many). You get the idea.
Social Networking sites carry a very broad audience and many different topics, and are certainly important to be involved with. However, don't forget to dedicate some time to the sites that are specific to your particular market. In other words - make sure you're fishing where the fish are.
The only way to stay on top of user generated content (UGC) associated with online retailers is to use a tool designed to monitor these specific sites. Very few of these are commercially available today, however I suspect they are going to become an important part of your social media aresenal very soon.
Cheers
Social Media Monitoring
· 10 months ago
When using any type of alert (such as google alerts), you should also consider setting up alerts that track your competitors to keep up to speed on what they are doing and make sure you stay at least level if not a step ahead.
Garritt
· 10 months ago
Great post. I didn't know about Social Mention or Yacktrack. I will definitely be using these tools in the future.
Great list. Just found out from Social Mention that our blog was recommended. We always welcome suggestions good or bad. THXs again for the post.
Saravanan
· 9 months ago
Dan, Useful stuff! I have been using Google alerts for a long time. I am trying out Backtype after reading here. Socialmention is cool too. Seems like FiltrBox is not working as I try.
Saravanan
· 9 months ago
Dan, Useful stuff! I have been using Google alerts for a long time. I am trying out Backtype after reading here. Socialmention is cool too. Seems like FiltrBox is not working as I try.
Abhishek Kumar
· 9 months ago
You recommend backtype and cocomment for monitoring comments. How about disqus comments? Thats supposed to be leading the race towards comment discussions. And I see mashable has added it as their comment system as well.
TravisV
· 8 months ago
I think we're going to see a lot more vertical emphasis in brand reputation monitoring. Many of these tools cast such a wide net (i.e., ALL of Twitter, ALL publications, ALL blogs, etc.) and by being so horizontal don't have much depth in any one industry. ITDatabase is a new start-up (we're launching in May) that tackles the IT industry and brand management / media relationship management in this industry. None of these other "everyman" tools that span all mediums and industries can compete with a solution that's very precise to a single industry (at least, that's what we're hoping to prove in our case).
Herb Firestone
· 8 months ago
Great list. Here's two more to add next time. Icerocket used to be my favorite until I discovered Whos Talkin!
Kathie M. Thomas
· 7 months ago
But how do you get back on Google Alert when for some reason you've been taken off it! I have never learned why, my requests for help at Google are never responded to and I don't know what I did for them to exclude me from the alerts. Very frustrating.
Mark Flaherty
· 6 months ago
great list. thanks, more intelligence about our business intelligence software mentions :)
Jon
· 5 months ago
I tried that one and it doesn't work well. There is no organization with the results if you input your name. See for yourself. Thanks for the comment.
alisonjuli23
· 2 months ago
We are your premier source for information that will expand your presence on the web and help your business grow. www.contentunltd.com
milan13
· 2 months ago
anyone know how to recieve alerts when your brand name is mentioned on a specific website e.g. yahoo answers ??
All Comments
@ Dina - Happy to help :)
I recognized Samepoint.com. I use it alot because it gives me profile across most social networking platforms and has content on emerging companies in the wireless space that are not tracked by StarPR and some of the other tools here at all.
Can you elaborate on the organization that you see from the others that makes them relevant?
donovan
Samepoint was just reviewed by Mashable. It was a big surprise for us. Since that review, we have made some positive changes. We gladly took the criticism then and will continue. It makes us better. If you have time, we would enjoy candid feedback via learn@samepoint.com .
Happy Holidays.
I've attempted to phase out Mashable from my life (too many "Me too!" posts), but this list was very helpful and I recommend it to anyone, particularly for students looking for jobs and those looking to sell advertisements for their blog.
@Kari, thanks for notifying me of that tool. I will check it out.
Great list of resources! I use all the tools listed above. My top 3 are: Twitter, Google Alerts, & BackType
As the general public becomes more and more comfortable with these social tools/web properties it will become even more essential to be able to monitor conversations about your brand, products, & services because we have already witness many examples how quickly something negative can spread about one's company with use of social media tools like twitter, facebook, etc.
The list Dan offers above should give any company a leg up on any issues that are arising about their business and will allow them to address those challenges immediately.
These tools should not only be thought of as only "brand management", but tools to tune into the conversation(s). Listen. These are really "listening" tools.
Any company that chooses to listen and follow through with what their niche community is requesting is bound to win.
Well said and a great contribution to this comment string. I'll like to get your fank opinion and critism of www.samepoint.com, it's currently in beta and it's being built to deliver that listening post for the voice of humanity online. Please take a look at it and provide feedback.
I think they are good listening tools at first, if you want to discover a niche topic or follow some keywords pertaining to your industry.
It isn't a good use of your time to monitor an online brand that doesn't exist when you first start out. I would rather see people work hard to develop content and then monitor their reputation.
Thanks so much for including BackType. We use many of the tools and strategies you listed on a daily basis. I wanted to add, that as well as managing your own comments and following influencers, you can use BackType Alerts to keep updated by email or RSS on mentions of keywords in comments.
@Davide - I'll check it out, thanks.
Try my name - http://www.samepoint.com/?q=dan+schawbel&se...
It tells me nothing. I can't endorse and recommend a service that doesn't work.
Plus a service that is running solely on a GODADDY bargain basement server just shouts of stupidity and smells like a service run out of someone's basement. The results speak for themselves.
This way you have an aggregated dashboard of all of your listening tools which you can quickly access without having them scattered or listed separately in your preferred reader.
http://useragent.metapede.com/2008/11/30/2-ways...
I was on the founding team of a company called Scout Labs (http://www.scoutlabs.com/ still in closed beta), which is a paid service for doing this stuff - plus some analytics components. There are some nice free tools out there for doing a bit of the analysis, but nothing really powerful (yet), especially when it comes to sentiment.
Thanks for the mention. We're thrilled to be number 8 on your list. Excellent post and all great tools for brand monitoring.
Jon
170+ Resources and Tips To Help Manage Your Reputation Online
@wiredprworks on twitter.com
My personal favorites are Google Alert, Delicious, Backtype social mention and
123people (great for personal brand monitoring.
Jennifer
http://www.searchat.co.uk/index.php/internet/se...
Cheers
Jan
:)
For someone as I, that is stsrting to creat a web 2.0 culture in a recently created hotel chain - Tiara Hotels & Resorts, this will help a lot!
I've mentioned your post at our twitter: http://twitter.com/TiaraHotels
Cheers!
Nuno Valinhas
One point I would make is that this covers very generalized information. Google blog search (for example) will never tell you about a consumer review of your product found on a commercial site. This is important regardless of what industry you are in.
For example, if you make/sell baby cribs, consumers can (and will) post their opinions of your product on retail sites such as target.com (amongst others). Or, if you are a hotel selling rooms, you can find consumer reviews on TripAdvisor.com (again, 1 of many). You get the idea.
Social Networking sites carry a very broad audience and many different topics, and are certainly important to be involved with. However, don't forget to dedicate some time to the sites that are specific to your particular market. In other words - make sure you're fishing where the fish are.
The only way to stay on top of user generated content (UGC) associated with online retailers is to use a tool designed to monitor these specific sites. Very few of these are commercially available today, however I suspect they are going to become an important part of your social media aresenal very soon.
Cheers
of alert (such as
google alerts), you
should also consider
setting up alerts
that track your
competitors to keep
up to speed on what
they are doing and
make sure you stay
at least level if
not a step ahead.
Reputazione online
Useful stuff! I have been using Google alerts for a long time. I am trying out Backtype after reading here. Socialmention is cool too. Seems like FiltrBox is not working as I try.
Useful stuff! I have been using Google alerts for a long time. I am trying out Backtype after reading here. Socialmention is cool too. Seems like FiltrBox is not working as I try.
www.contentunltd.com