Online Branding Tools
Did you know that 70% of bloggers write about brands organically? And almost half of that is product reviews?
According to Jupiter Research, 52% of readers say blogs factored into the critical moment they decided to buy. And over 40% of online moms use social media for prodict recommendations.
About 65% of blog readers access blogs specifically to get an opinion, and over 90% trust user reviews over an in-store clerk.
Online branding tools for social media monitoring and reputation management are key to tracking and engaging with existing conversations.
Reputation Management
Alerts are a great way to stay informed and are delivered to your inbox. It isn’t a perfect system but effective in combination with many of the others mentioned. Set to comprehensive so you’re informed as they happen. Link
Comments on blogs can provide insight to your brand, and now you can monitor them with backtype and co.mments.
Blogs are easy to watch over with tools like google’s blog search, blogpulse, technorati,
Social Media Monitoring
Radian6 is a popular paid social media monitoring tool
dna13 provides real-time access to TV, print, online and social media content
Brandwatch is a comprehensive social media monitoring service
Brandtology is an online branding intelligence tool
Cision offers another robust monitoring tool
Spiral16 can help visualize the presence of a brand online
ScoutLabs looks very promising
BuzzLogic is used by many large brands
Twazzup gives a look at real time results on twitter
Trackur is a social media monitoring tool that can export results
SocialMention searches the web for any mention of your keyword/brand
Addictomatic provides mentions of your keyword or brand from multiple sources
monitter and twitterfall are great ways to keep an eye on twitter brand mentions
Topsy is a tweet search engine worth trying
Keotag is easy to use and gives a glimspe across several popular platforms
boardreader helps monitor forum conversations
There are countless social media and public relations monitoring tools to be found online and this list is far from complete, but it gives you a starting point for some of the better options for online branding tools and social media monitoring.
First place to start would be setting up a google alert as it takes less than a minute and its free. You might also create a list of your brand name on twitter for an easy one click reference. The paid tools are far more advanced and often provide a dashboard for social media monitoring, but it might be more than some will need. Try out some of the suggestions to see which works for you.
Another area not really touched on but worth mentioning is online video. Using video marketing through sites like Youtube can be very effective, and your clips can also be embedded in your blog and easily shared.
Last but not least, keep an eye on Facebook. It has over 40% of social media traffic (comScore) and still shows steady growth. Understand that Facebook might not be a fit for everyone, but it’s worth exploring the idea and experimenting.
Social media accounts for almost 20% of online activity.
