Are You Listening? (Part 2 of 4)

by Laurel 7/14/2008 7:25:00 AM

(This is part 2 of a 4-part blog series on Managing Your Online Reputation)

What’s worse? Having people say negative things about your company, or having people say negative things about your company and you being the last to know about it?

There are a number of tools you can use to scour the Web to learn what people think about your company, what they are saying, etc. Here are a few tips:

1. Act like a customer.
Pretend you’re a customer at different stages of the sales cycle. Do some Google searches for your industry, your products, your company. What shows up? Search blogs the same way with Technorati, or a Google blog search. Use BoardTracker to search forums (or search Google with “forum [your industry/company here]”). Search Amazon for specific products when applicable. Find out what people want to know by browsing questions in Yahoo! Answers and LinkedIn.

2. Trend Tools
Google Trends and Facebook Lexicon give you some neat graphs if you input a keyword. Try inputting your company name, competitor name, products, services, or industry terms to see when people talk about these things, and when they search for them most.

3. Inhale the Web
This one is really neat. And quick. Input a query (like your company, product or service, a compeitor, target keyword, event you're involved with, etc.) in the search field, and Addict-O-Matic will “inhale the web” and deliver the most recent updates in popular sites that contain your query – like Digg, Summize and Flickr.

Here's an Addict-O-Matic sample screenshot where I searched for "inbound marketing summit"

(You can also search each of these sites independently, of course.)

It’s a good idea to set up a Social Media Resource Guide to constantly monitor key sites and keywords, so you always know what your customers, employees, potential customers and other key publics are saying. By listening to their needs, desires and complaints (yes, those too), you can basically get some free market research from the people who care the most.

In short: People are talking about you, your company and your industry. Don’t you want to know what they’re saying?