4 Tools to Monitor Social Media

by Herb on June 25, 2012

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Social Media Monitoring Tools for Small Businesses4 Free Tools to Help Small Businesses Listen to the Web

Do you really know what people are saying online about you?  your business? your competition? your products or services?  Do you know what social media networks your potential customers like to use?  Today, technology allows any small business owner or entrepreneur easy to use tools to keep your pulse on the market.  In today’s blog, we show you some of these tools and explain why you want to harness these intelligence gathering assets for your business.

"Herb Lawrence, ASU Small Business" ASU Small Business and Technology Development Centerby Herb Lawrence, Arkansas State University Small Business and Technology Development Center…Listening to Small Businesses from the Delta to the Ozarks

Last week the Arkansas SBTDC hosted a special webinar for military veterans in business: Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing.  One of the tips we passed on included some very easy to use (and free) tools available to set up “listening posts” on the web to learn what is being said online.

Tips to monitor social media conversationsWhether you want to know what people are saying about a specific product or service, brands, your competition or even your business, a wide variety of online tools are available to you to help get the “G-2″.

Because listening is a critical first step to setting up an effective online marketing plan, especially with social media, I thought I would pass this segment on to all our readers.   Before you jump off on the deep end of social media marketing, you need to have your “digital finger on the pulse” of what your market is saying.

Four easy to use and maintain social media monitoring sources we “like” include:

  • Addict-o-matic,
  • Google Alerts,
  • Twitter Advanced Search, and of course
  • Social Mention

In the “storify” article below we share a little about these four tools and some great tips on how to easily put them to work for you.  Also at the bottom of the article we share some links on “additional” monitoring tools you may want to use as well.


Scheduling Tools for Beginners

Time management is critical for online marketing success. Posting to a number of sites can be time consuming. Savvy social marketers leverage scheduling tools that allow them to prepare their posts at one time, schedule their delivery and chart the results. This post shows some basic tools to use

Storified by Herb Lawrence · Mon, Jun 18 2012 13:08:06

Hootsuite is one of my favorite scheduling tools especially when I am working with a mobile device. Post to a number of popular social media sites, schedule narrative, images, video, etc. then set the time for it to go out on the different networks.  Both a free and premium option is available.  I have found the free version works fine for us allowing me to maintain 5 different accounts at no charge.  Hootsuite is easy to learn and start using.  Below I have provided a video “How To” from Convertingcopy and an article from Boxcar Marketing.  
Onbile
HootSuite Review and Tutorialconvertingcopy
How to Use Hootsuite to Manage Social Networks | Boxcar MarketingThursday, May 24, 2012. How to Use Hootsuite to Manage Social Networks. Use Hootsuite to manage social networks. Hootsuite is a great s…
Buffer.com is another scheduling tool that we use.  As with any of these sites, there is both a premium (paid) and a free version.  The free version allows you to maintain 3 accounts at no charge and you can set schedules for delivery.  One point about buffer that I like is that I am able to place the “buffer” pin to my dashboard then any time I run across a neat article to share I can instantly put it out on my schedule from buffer without having to leave the page.  Good fall back tool to consider.
How and Why I Use BufferJan 30, 2012 … One of the services I believe marketers should provide their followers and community members these days is that of fil…
How To Use Buffer to Manage Twitter for Business – Nate Riggs Blog …May 1, 2012 … A few times each year, I take a long and hard look at the tools I use to manage my presence and do some Spring cleaning…
3rd is TweetDeck as an online monitoring and scheduling tool.  I am not a big fan of Tweetdeck but know a lot of folks use it so here are the basics of what TweetDeck does and how to use it.
How to Use TweetDeck: Step-by-Step Instructions – wikiHowHow to Use TweetDeck. … Using TweetDeck, you can effectively follow many more people and topics than you would be able to do … Apri…
How to Use Tweetdeckdhnaves
Scheduling Posts for Facebook Pages.  Although all of these scheduling tools allow you to schedule posts to Facebook pages, Facebook does not really like you to use these 3rd party tools and penalizes you in their Edgerank algorithm.  Fortunately Facebook has come out with its own tool to allow you to schedule your posts on Facebook directly from your page.  If you aren’t familiar with this new tool take a little time to read the Mashable article below.  Walks you through the process very easily.
Facebook Finally Lets Page Admins Schedule Posts, Have Different …May 31, 2012 … Third-party apps like HootSuite just got a little less relevant with an update from Facebook that lets Page admins sch…
Of course the scheduling tools I mentioned above are only the tip of the scheduling “Iceberg”.  Below are two excellent articles with other tools that you may want to consider.  Thanks to Kissmetrics and Social Media Examiner for providing great information like this to pass along.
Cmpnet
6 Tools Social Media Experts Use to Update Facebook PagesOne of the things that the new Facebook pages design makes obvious above all others is the lack of updates on a Facebook page. While upda…
13 Tools to Simplify Your Social Media MarketingAre you looking for tools to simplify your social media activities? Many businesses feel overwhelmed when implementing their social media…
So what scheduling tools do you use?  Have you used the ones we outlined above?  What do you think of them?  Leave us your thoughts and we will pass on to our readers.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of your market place is critical for small businesses and…thanks to free resources like these is a simple process.  Are you using any of these?  If so what tips do you have to share with our small business friends?

Have you uncovered some other “gems”?  Tell us about them, we love to share with our readers.

Learn more about how you can set up monitoring tools, and WHY you should listen before you “leap” into social media.  The Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center hosts a wide variety of 3 hour workshops around the state including how to leverage online marketing that will help your business grow.

In Northeast or North-Central Arkansas?  Then check out the ASU SBTDC training calendar.  For information about workshops from our other centers around the state visit the Arkansas SBTDC website.  if you are outside of Arkansas find the SBDC nearest you at ASBDC.

We also offer free, confidential consulting assistance to start up and existing businesses.  Learn more about how to put our experienced consultants to work for you at our website ASU SBTDC, click “services”.

For our military veterans, the Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing webinar was one of an ongoing series of online training opportunities you don’t want to miss.  See the webinars coming up (and access to the ones you may have missed) at our ASU SBTDC website, click on Veterans.


Tagged as: internet marketing, social media marketing

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