25 Tools and Tips to Following Your Brand Online

There are plenty of ways to keep track of the conversations taking place on the Internet regarding your small business or your personal brand.

I wanted to create a list to help the beginners of social media marketing keep track of what is being said on the Internet.

1. Sign up for a business Twitter account. Start following and joining in the conversations!

2. Sign up for an account on HowSociable. Awesome tool.

3. Create a Facebook Fan Page. Invite your friends and clients to the page. It will help you keep track of your contacts as well as the conversations surrounding your brand.

4. Are you already on Twitter? Use Twitter Search to follow keywords across the millions using this awesome tool!

5. You want another Twitter Tool. Twilert allows you to sign up for email notification when something is mentioned regarding your brand.

6. Want to follow the conversation on Facebook? Try out the Facebook Lexicon.

7. Creat a folder (or a separate email address) to keep track of all the search happening online regarding your brand. This will help with organization.

8. Yahoo Pipes is an amazing tool that helps you organize content and alerts. Check it.

9. Did somebody say something about your brand? Make sure you respond. Respond as quickly as possible.

10. Search for any word on Twitter using Tweetscan.

11. Watch any personal branding video you can find by Gary Vaynerchuk.

12. Did you come across a negative comment? Respond in kindness but strategically. More often than not.. you will kill the negative comment just because you were listening.

13. Do you know how your industry is trending in the online environment? Check out Trendpedia.

14. Create a LinkedIN group for your business. This could be a great way to keep employees communicating. There is no reason you should be doing all the work!

15. Read the Quick N’ Dirty Social Media Monitoring Guide.

16. Do whatever Comcast is doing in the social media environment. Most of the time… they are doing it the right way.

17. Get over the fact that social media is not a black-magic… my college kid only uses it… tool. It is here to stay.

18. Would you rather pay for a complex monitoring service? Try Radian6. I know.. I have a small man crush on Radian6.

19. If you don’t have a blog… start one. It is important to be creating the content with the other content creators… why? Wouldn’t you rather someone be forwarded to your personal opinion rather than a landing page and brochure site?

20. Andy Beal thinks you should check out Backtype to monitor blog comments. I would agree.

21. Try 123People. That is far as I am going to go with that one. You just need to try it out.

22. Keep a watchful eye. Set aside a couple of minutes a day (once of twice) to check our online brand management. It is important to create the habit and stay on top of the conversation.

23.  According to Roger at ContentandMotion… you should be trying MonitorThis... “brand search on acid.”

24. For the more technically advanced… try Filtrbox.

25. Constantly read. read. read. We will never be ahead of the curve if we do not invest in ourselves. Subscribe to Wired. Whatever you do… make sure you stay on top of your game.

It is extremely important to at least implement one or two of the tools listed above. There are 1.5 Billion people with Internet on the planet. 81% of the entire global population is near a connection.

4.5 Billion mobile/internet devices will be on the market in 2010. The world is changing… are you going to change with it?