Top 5 tools for monitoring social media

Matt Hodson
July 13, 2012 | COMMENTS

By now we have all heard of the U.S. Senate FCU postcard and the uproar surrounding it. There have been many examples over the years of small “crises” breaking online without the credit union’s knowledge until it gets picked up by the media. Being swift to react is now key online and setting up a simple online/social media monitoring policy can help mitigate that risk. Here are just 5 of my favorite free tools to help you monitor your name online.

1. Google Alerts: The granddaddy of them all. You can set up alerts to be emailed to you whenever your credit union or any of the execs are mentioned in a blog or news article.
2. Search.Twitter.com: Twitter is everything from what you are eating to your frustrations. People will talk about you and your competition on Twitter. Wouldn’t you want to know what they are saying? You can even filter the search by city.
3. Yelp: The online review site is a great way to see if people are talking about you.  By “claiming” your branches on Yelp you will get an email whenever anyone reviews a branch. Don’t forget to check the forums occasionally as well.
4. SocialMention.com: While you cannot get the RSS feed or Email alerts right now, Social Mention is good as a social search engine. It will even look through public Facebook posts.
5. Technorati: Technorati is another blog search engine. While it may pull some of the same results as the Google Blog Search/Alerts, it is still a good idea to have this as a backup. It will even allow you to set up an RSS feed.

While this list is by no means inclusive, it is a great starting point to get your social media monitoring strategy in place. When done right, it can be just as effective as the services that cost $500, or more, a month.

Matt Hodson is the Director of Marketing at Health Care CU in Murray, Utah.