There are an abundance of online platforms through which people can share their thoughts, feedback, and opinions of a brand, business, or product. As a small business owner, it can get overwhelming trying to keep up with the conversation, and manage your online reputation.
Your goal should essentially be to actively monitor what’s being said about you so that you can quickly respond to those voices, both good and bad. Luckily, there are free and paid options readily available for online reputation management. People are talking, and here is your chance to jump into the conversation.
FREE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT TOOLS:
There are some great tools at your fingertips that will help you see what exactly is being said about your brand or business.
The first, Google Alerts, is an easy way to see when your chosen key words are mentioned online.
Create a Google Alert for your business name, or any industry key words, to keep up with the latest trending topics and customer feedback. Google Alerts offer a convenient and free service, with relevant alerts arriving in your inbox daily.
SocialMention is another free tool that offers the transparency of categorizing your brand’s mentions into postive, neutral, and negative. If you see a growing number of negative feedback, SocialMention gives you the opportunity to dig deeper and see what all the fuss is about. A great tool to save time and energy!
Many of the conversations occurring are sparked on Twitter.
Twilert is identical to Google Alerts, but focuses on the most popular social media platform, sending you alerts regarding specific key words. In addition to Twilert, we recommend using the Twitter search bar. Seems simple, but the search bar will show you a real time feed of who is mentioning the word you’re searching. Both options are great to see who exactly is discussing your brand, and what exactly they are saying.
PAID REPUTATION MANAGEMENT SERVICES:
Paid online brand management services tend to be more in depth, and offer additional convenience. Paid online brand management and monitoring runs anywhere from around $1-$600 per month.
TwelveFold Media, formerly known as Buzzlogic, offers an application, where you can discover, engage and assess influencers in your industry. The collaborative dashboard shows who is blogging about you, and is paired with watch lists for tracking specific bloggers, blogger profile lists, and social maps. The convenience of this service? You are able to quickly share this information with others at your company. This service is best for those businesses with a marketing or PR department.
BrandsEye offers in-depth online reputation management for your small business, but keeps you up to date on your competitors as well. Founded in 2004, BrandsEye allows you to set up an account to receive notifications via email, RSS or SMS for any mentions of your brand. Brandseye runs at about $1 per month for bloggers, $95 a month for small businesses and $350 for enterprises. Not yet sure about forking over cash? BrandsEye offers a two week free trail for the budget-conscious business owner.
Cision is an online brand management service that monitors over 100 million blogs, tens of thousands of online forums, and over 450 leading rich media sites. Having been in business for decades, Cision can provide a comprehensive solution across the board with the latest in technological innovations. Like the other services, they also have a Dashboard and daily reports, with e-mails coming to you twice a day about who’s mentioning your brand.