More and more people take advantage of brand monitoring to better implement their online strategies and techniques that will help them to attain better business success. Users realize that such tools – whether free or paid – are so powerful and effective that they have become a must-use tool that can help their online business to grow at a fast and efficient rate. Indeed, brand monitoring is so potent that it is capable of helping web masters and online businesses to enjoy immense online benefits, ones that can’t be enjoyed just a few years back.
Why take advantage of brand monitoring tools?
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Avoid brand fraud
With brand monitoring tool, people are able to determine that a brand is offered by a credible company or not, allowing them the chance to avoid such brand if indeed it is a fraud. Social media helps spread the word against a product or brand that people have little trust on. Brand monitoring tool offers valuable information on the Internet, making the latter a reliable avenue for promoting truth about a particular brand or product.
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Promotes online reputation management
Free brand monitoring tools help online reputation companies to use advanced techniques and strategies, allowing their clients to attain positive online reputation ([tp lang=”en” only=”y”]click to learn more about reputation management[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]learn more about reputation management at reputationmanagementconsultants.com[/tp]). As soon as brand monitoring tools discover negative comments about a brand, these can be countered effectively by the owner with his own positive articles and reviews.
Is it really necessary to use brand monitoring tools?
Brand monitoring has been an indispensable task for companies and businesses to undergo. Without going through such process, you will not be able to learn about the comments and feedbacks that customers say about your product. Conversations about your brand are important as they give you the opportunity to improve on your product.
Not considering brand monitoring is a huge mistake. Many brand conversations are negative in nature. If you are not able to correct it by providing explanations or promising customers to come up with a better brand, this can spell a disaster to your business.
It is a must that companies take advantage of brand monitoring tools. The use of these tools will not only help them to learn about what customers have to say about their products, but they also have a chance to identify their brand’s strength and weaknesses, giving them the chance to focus on correcting the latter and come up with a better brand.
Top free tools on brand monitoring
1. Feed Reader
A top monitoring tool to use is a feed reader. Many can’t do without Google reader because it is one of the most convenient tools to use for numerous monitoring functions such as sorting feeds, and bookmarking or listing them as favorites. Google reader is effective in sharing feeds to one’s network.
2. Site and blog posts
You can use your own website or blog as a free brand monitoring tool. If you have one, see to it that you have an account at Technorati.com and have your site registered on it. The latter is known as the biggest search engine for blogs. Hence, if you have your blog in it, more people will know about your brand. You can also get a RSS alert subscription; this will allow you to learn about feedback on your brand.
3. Social Media comments
Free tools, such as Yacktrack, allow you to look for comments and reviews on your brand posts and comments from various platforms such as Blogger.com and WordPress blogs, Stumbleupon and Digg. For example, any comment about your brand on blogs can be picked up by this social comment locator tool. Once alerted, you can opt to join the conversation.
4. Discussion Boards
Discussions boards are effective in learning about how people talk about your business and brand. An alert-type monitoring tool informs you about any existing comments and discussions in discussion boards. The best ones are boardtracker and boardreader.
Simply put, free brand monitoring tools offer an affordable and effective solution to your need to gauge and understand your brand better. It allows you to know how your brand is perceived by your targeted market. These tools allow you to take advantage of such vital information that will help you to improve on your brand and business, ensuring profitable results.
The author is an online marketing expert who has helped hundreds of businesses in the branding process. She recommends business owners to constantly monitor their online reputation from social media sites and blog comments, and take help from a professional online reputation management firm.
From all these tools i use only Feed Reader and pretty happy about it) but the other options are also cool) Have to toy with them)
Awesome post!
Since branding is very important to build online authority so that we can gain some reputation to our blogs as well. So i never tried any mentioned tools expect feed burner.
Thanks for the awesome resource.
Thanks for sharing! That awesome tip, online reputation is key of successful blogging business and present our brand image. To keep updated and monitoring about those things should what we all have to do in order to archive business goals. That great I learnt.