How to use social media to listen

 

 As I mentioned in a previous post, if you are unfamiliar with social media you could start off by using it to research what is being said about you, your company, your products or your competitors.

 Here are some ways you can listen to what is being said about you in the news, on videos, in blogs or in groups.

 

1. Set up Google Alerts - delivers mentions of you / your company in an email or by RSS feed
2. Search Blog Search Engines or platforms for relevant blogs to regularly monitor (set up a feed).  For example search Google Blog Search or WordPress.com.
3. Set up a Twitter account and follow a relevant user.
4. Use Delicious.com - it has an excellent search facility that provides tagged articles, statistics and information.  Additionally it provides information about the users who have tagged these articles.  Delicious also provides an RSS option. 
5. Hire a specialist company such as Neilsen BuzzMetrics, Brandwatch, Sentiment Metrics, Whitevector or Echo Sonar.  RMM, a social media company, recently surveyed ten leading monitoring companies, which provides factors to consider when choosing a monitoring company.

Google Alerts could be especially useful for handling a crisis or new product launch.  Its searches allow the user to track for example what has been said in the last hour or last day.

Check out what company Brandwatch, has to say about the listening industry on their blog.