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Reputation is everything. And on the internet, that couldn't be more true.It's important to always know what people are saying about you -- whether it's your customers, your competitors, or the press. And on any given day, it can be tricky to keep up with what your audience is sharing across a variety of social media platforms. So, we've rounded up some of the best free social media and brand monitoring tools from around the vast web of social networks. Nearly all of these tools are free, but some offer paid versions with more features and capabilities. Let's dive into each one -- and see if you want to test them out today....
The key to making the most of social media is listening to what your audience has to say about you, analysing the data and, finally, reaching social media business intelligence; using all these insights to know your customers better and improve your marketing strategy. If you are a social media rookie, this list of the Top 10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools might come in handy.
When looking for a tool, it’s a good idea to try a couple of them and choose the one that suits your needs best. However, bear in mind that these tools are not an alternative to Enterprise-level tools, such as Brandwatch, which brought social media monitoring to a new level, offering a much higher variety of services and in-depth analysis. It all depends on your needs. That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best free monitoring tools...
There are many ways in which reputation-threatening and stakeholder relationship-threatening issues can be identified. Early identification and strategic action are key to dealing with issues successfully. So having tools in place which make it easy and intuitive for a public relations professional to identify issues are a boon for reputation protection and enhancement....
The news that Google is shutting down Google Reader on July 1 of this year shook the Internet to its core this week. For many, it is the go-to feed aggregator that made looking deep into the heart of the online world possible from one window, and the news of its demise has us wondering what we'll do next. What next? How about dumping Google Reader and switching to Feedly? In fact, a half-million people already switched in only two days. Having a sudden influx of 500,000 new users can be a lot to handle for any site, but Feedly seems willing to meet the challenges needed to greet lost Googlers with open arms. In a blog post, a Feedly blogger said the company is committed to keeping the site up and running despite the big jump in numbers. Feedly isn't content to continue existing while hundreds of thousands of new users flock to its shores. Feedly isn't content to continue existing while hundreds of thousands of new users flock to its shores. The Feedly blog also said the company is committed to adding new features, and to taking suggestions from new users about what they would like those features to be....
Monitoring what people say about you or your business online is crucial. It helps build relationships, generate leads and protect your reputation. Using a Social Media Monitoring Tool is really an essential tool that should be part of your social media tool box. In this article we outline how to use ‘Mention App’ to monitor the web and social media. It is a very comprehensive and effective tool that is well worth exploring. My personal experience with mention is very positive. I have connected with so many people because mention notified me that they mentioned my name or company name and I wouldn’t have found it without using mention. So the following information is well worth reading!...
Millions of updates are shared on social media every day and years worth of content is spread along with it. When we log in to Twitter we are greeted with “What’s happening?” On Facebook it’s with “What’s going on?” Social media demands content from us and is driven by user-generated content, but it adds a lot of noise across the social media channels we are using and on the social web. Some organisations sport hundreds of followers and unique visitors to their blog every month while others have thousands of followers and generate so much more unique traffic. Which one has more influence? Of course you will think that the organization with a larger audience has more influence, and in some cases, you might be correct. But, digital influence goes so much further than the number of people following you or the traffic you are generating to your blog....
Whether you needed a time-saver, analytics or just to engage your followers, 2012 offered a plethora of new social media tools. With the Twittercycle replacing the traditional news cycle and social media etiquette evolving, social media management tools can help you harness the power of social media in your reporting--and prevent social networking overload. Here are some of the year's best new social media tools:...
Earlier this year, my friend and colleague Heather Whaling turned me on to a new tool: Newsle. For the uninitiated, Newsle is like Google Alerts for individuals and media hits. A great way for you to track friends, colleagues, competitors and journalists who are in the news (or creating the news). In essence, Newsle gives you a chance to track LinkedIn connections, folks in your email address book and Facebook friends as they pop up in news stories and articles across the Web. The best part? Newsle will send you an email with this information when your friends or colleauges are in the news–so you know just about as soon as they know (it seems).
OK, I know, this might not seem particularly helpful, but consider the following ways Newsle might help you and your PR effort...
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Real-time social analytics and engagement platform NUVI rolled out a set of key new features this week, including a very cool Twitter Group Monitoring function.
Recently used by CNN to track national sentiment in the George Zimmerman trial, NUVI’s visual intelligence platform extrapolates data from millions of sources including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Delicious, Reddit, Vimeo, and Flickr to dish up actionable insights for digital marketers.
NUVI reports include text explanations and color-coded charts detailing volume, sentiment, influencers, location, and virality of mentions....
As digital communication continues to explode more organizations are recognizing its importance within the marketing mix. In order to develop strategy and allocate resources business leaders need to understand the effectiveness of their existing digital initiatives. A great way to do this is to conduct a digital audit – a study of your brand’s digital presence (on its own and in relation to your competitor set) across six key areas: Reach, Architecture, Content, Conversion, Integration and Measurement.
Before launching the digital audit it’s important to establish basic criteria with respect to rating status, structure and performance. To help guide next steps set up a simple decision filter that will aid in prioritizing your findings. One simple way to do this is to assign a color coding systems as follows...
Launched in 2010, Kothari’s mobile news app presents articles as scrollable image tiles. In 2012, he debuted an equally elegant web version. Pulse has now surpassed 20 million users. The Headliner 1. Text Equals Stress “When we founded Pulse at Stanford, we would interview classmates as they opened all of their RSS subscriptions. They’d cringe because the first thing they saw was all this text, and an inbox that told them the hundreds of stories they hadn’t read. Suddenly, there’s this struggle just to catch up with what’s going on in the world.”...
The news that Google will be retiring its Reader service has been met with criticism by many circles. A dedicated fan base has been left out in the cold and have been given three months to now look for an alternative service. ... Before you start looking, you should first download your Google Reader data from Takeout. By following the link here, you can download all your data on a handy xml file. Google says that it should be easily transferable to alternative services, but that really depends on whether said services are allowing users to do this. Some like Feedly already do, but other services will quickly follow suit. Even if you don’t use the file straight away, it’s handy to have for future reference....
Social media monitoring has become a mainstream practice across almost every industry. Marketers evaluate web chatter in real time to create dynamic and timely social media content that adds to or sparks a conversation with new and existing followers. It makes sense that brands would focus on data-inspired social media strategies: Pitney Bowes noted that 25 percent of surveyed respondents will put social insights to work in the near future, and a report from J.D. Power and Associates discovered that 87 percent of social users buy from brands they engage with positively online. Social media monitoring can significantly enhance companies’ internet marketing campaigns, and brands that want to take their efforts to the next level should consider sharing audience-responsive content in real time. Take a page from McDonald’s content marketing menu. Recently, eMarketer’s Debra Aho Williamson interviewed McDonald’s Director of Social Media Rick Wion about how the global fast-food brand adapts to the changing social media marketing world. Williamson discovered that McDonald’s uses social analytics to reach real-time marketing goals. Wion noted that the fast food company constantly tests and learns as it goes, putting together different marketing messages and evaluating responses before taking the next step. In essence, McDonald’s creates a choose-your-own adventure-like campaign and delivers ready-made content to take advantage of social chatter and trending topics....
Excerpted from article by Search Engine Land: "Bit.ly announced a new set of APIs named Social Data APIs. The new APIs allow you to search for top stories in real time over the Bit.ly URL network. You can quickly see the top URLs and stories for any specific query right now, in real time. The three types of functions include: 1) True Realtime Search: Search for top stories and URLs in real time by query and geographic area. 2) Attention Spikes: This doesn’t require you to search by keyword, instead the “bursts API” returns the current phrases that are receiving a burst in attention beyond what we would expect. 3) Metadata about URLs: Bit.ly will provide the metadata on URLs based off of keywords, topics, content, language, and location relevance..."...
Via Giuseppe Mauriello, massimo facchinetti
dell is eyeing a new revenue stream in what's already a crowded space: social-media strategy. The PC giant is launching a social-media services group that will be competitive with digital agencies, startups such as Dynamic Signal or Crimson Hexagon, and enterprise giants such as Salesforce and IBM as it attempts to transform away from PCs and toward business services. Dell has been providing both social "listening" and strategy services to 10 clients on a test basis over the past year, including the American Red Cross, Aetna, Caterpillar, Kraft Foods and Clemson University. Now it's planning to make its services available to both new and existing Dell clients.... [Interesting strategy to develop social media service offering by Dell computers ~ Jeff]
Corporate communications heads agree (82%) that discussions in social media and social networks can impact on a company’s overall reputation and licence to operate, but are split on how seriously it should be taken. Forty per cent said that criticism in social media channels was taken too seriously while 46% disagreed....
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Check out these free social media and brand monitoring tools to take your social game to the next level.