The value of your company's brand name is at stake if you have not properly set up a platform to monitor what people are saying about you online. Word-of-mouth was the most amazingly effective yet most feared tool two decades ago. One bad remark out to your neighbor and you could lose the business of the entire neighborhood!
Fast forward two decades later and we have pretty much the same thing. But it's faster, it's fiercer and it now connects people from beyond the neighborhood. Now, one bad remark out there and you could lose customers from all around the world. If that is not frightening for you as a business owner, I don't know what is. It's called Web 2.0, and it’s the rumor mill of modern society.
As easy as it is for people to say things about your company online, you have tools to capture them and respond instantly. Don't believe me? Try going on Twitter and say something nasty about a big company like Google, Apple or Microsoft. We are pretty sure someone will come right up and try to make amends with you. And that is precisely how you are going to monitor your own brand. Once you have established how you want to monitor yourself online, make it a routine.
How can use listen to them?
Google Alerts. Google’s web crawler, Googlebot, is sent out into cyberspace in every single direction and to discover the latest news and information. You’ll want to subscribe to their feed for your name or brand so that whenever there is word out there in the cyber world, you get a notification. You can even tell Google Alerts
to send you email alerts whenever someone is talking about you.
Technorati. In some ways, folks tend to believe blogs more than they believe websites. Word of mouth, remember? For most of the web, Google is apt in dealing with what is being posted out there. But, blogging is a whole different story. If you want to know who is blogging about you, search for your name or brand on Technorati. With this tool, you can also monitor other people's reactions towards blog posts via their comments, links, trackbacks, pings, etc.
Twitter Search. The fastest way to get word out is by way of Twitter; be it good or bad, one thing is guaranteed... it will spread like wild fire the world over within seconds after your tweet. I have known many people who have used to Twitter to get noticed by the big guys. You can search for your name or brand via twitter search or use a search engine that can give you a list of results from a variety of real time news sources. A good example is Collecta. If you just want to monitor for mentions of your brand on Twitter then Tweetbeep.com is a good tool to use.
Don't think that you are not big enough to care about your online image? Well, think of it this way...you have bigger competitors out there and they are bound to be online. In a way, you can use all the above mentioned tools to monitor your biggest competitor just to see what they are up to. Well, it might sound a little sneaky but hey, it's fair game for the social web.
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