Are You Watching?

 

One of the ways of staying in the loop is listening and monitoring. Your website upgrade is up and running, you and your team are blogging … so what’s next?

It is very important for you to know what is being said about you, your website, your blog, your brand, your marketing, and your identity. Naturally, if everything that was being said was positive, you wouldn’t need to worry, but the reality is there are going to be negative connotations to everything, so you need to be watching.

We are now looking at who is watching, listening and monitoring. We all need to appreciate that by being present and creating conversations, we no longer just have to only worry about how people feel about you, your company and your brand. Your digital agency should ensure you know who is watching, and more importantly, what are they watching for?

There are a few internet tools that are free to assist you in monitoring the conversations that are taking place with and without you or your input. We recommend you take the time necessary to master these tools. Not only will they assist in monitoring you, your company and your brand, you can also monitor keywords and phrases that impact your business. They will assist in you keeping the pulse of the conversation and ensure you have credible information that impacts you and your business directly.

Google Alerts is one way to keep your eyes focused on you, your company, your brand and also your industry. It assists in allowing you to stay focused on areas of interest, concern and trends that impact your overall marketing initiatives.

Technorati offers tools to monitor blogs and what those blogs are saying about you, your company and your brand.  If someone is talking about you, it would seem prudent to be keenly aware who they are and how large their audience is. When it comes to blogs and bloggers, not only is the size of the audience important, but their overall ability to spread their message is critical. Technorati rates blogs based on authority as well, and rankings are relevant to the search criteria based on this score.

Google Blog Search, (yes Google again), has a quick search feature using RSS feeds, where a quick and easy search will keep you automatically informed of key terms and information related to you, your company, your brand, your industry and or your competitors.

These steps will assist you in keeping informed, knowledgeable and involved in your marketplace and in the conversation. Remember, as with your digital footprint, the conversation goes on with or without you. If you’re not watching, you should be, as well, it may be more important to know who is watching you.

Michael Bickerton, Raven5, June 2010

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