Monitoring social media mentions can be a time-intensive process. The larger the company, the more products it offers and the more employees it has, the more things to monitor. When tracking down brand mentions and monitoring online commentary, consider using these five free user-friendly resources:
IceRocket.com
Think Google for social media. Ice Rocket looks like a search engine and works like a search engine. Simply type your search term of choice into the search box and you’re ready-to-roll. One of Ice Rocket’s key features is the ability to search social media platforms one at a time or as a group.
Social Mention looks similar to Ice Rocket but also allows you to setup free daily alerts. Social Mention will also evaluate the sentiment of the content recovered in the search and provide the average number of mentions per day for each term that you search.
Addictomatic.com
I was introduced to Addictomatic at a recent PRSA-CVC workshop and have come to appreciate the way search results are displayed and how clear the source of each update is to the user. As with any platform, preferences vary by user.
Facebook Insights
If you have a brand timeline, you have access to Facebook Insights. A free tool, Insights reveal which updates get the most exposure and the most interaction. Use the data within Insights to refine your content creation and content sharing strategies.
Twitter Search
Curious about a specific hashtag? Looking to catch-up on a Twitter chat that you missed? Eager to learn what people are saying about your brand? This free and easy-to-use tool allows you to monitor Twitter mentions. Whether your company has a Twitter handle or not, it is important to search the company’s name. Oftentimes, people will reference a brand without using the dedicated handle or hashtag and it is important to acknowledge their feedback.
Whether you are a power user or a novice, it is important to monitor what is being said about your brand across various social media platforms. While some companies will require a deeper level of monitoring and measurement, these five free resources are great starting points for monitoring online brand buzz.
