The importance of setting up alerts for your business in today’s competitive and digital world cannot be overlooked any longer. The internet is a challenging as well as scary feat to comb through for specific people and content. A savvy alert system will come into good use as it will filter the entire World Wide Web to bring to you the most needed information.
Smart and savvy businesses use alert systems all the time to keep track of content and visibility. They have been using visibility tools, such as Hootsuite, to organize new mentions of business name, keywords, products, and services. The process has never been this straight-forward, time-saving and easy to do. Not only are many of these tools free, but they allow you to monitor your business, your competitors, and the industry in real time. Overall, alerts applications are powerful tools to analyze and understand who is saying what about your company, business sector, and keywords.
Our agency is committed to equipping our readers (and clients) the ability to manage some of their reputation by themselves, such as alerts and mentions. The process is quite simple. The tools are very user-friendly. And in this article we highlight three 3 of the most innovative online reputation management tools that you could be using at home today.
How to Pick the Right Tool | Online Reputation Management
When searching for an alerts platform to monitor your brand, it’s important to keep the following questions in mind:
- What type of alert does your business need?
- How do you want to be notified- via desktop, email, mobile, text, RSS, downloadable web app, or combination?
- Can you directly respond to the complainants?
- Which social media platforms are tracked?
- What is the difference between the free and paid versions (if available)?
- Does the tool have a free version or a free trial?
- Can the tool be customized for your business?
- How easy is the reporting?
- Does the tool integrate with your website and other platforms?
- What type of help is available when your team has a question?
- How many keywords can be monitored at a time?
Important Tips to Keep in Mind | Online Reputation Management
- Once set up, most notifications can be sent as frequently as you want them to. Each alert system/visibility tool has a settings area where you can easily change your preferences.
- Choosing too many specific keywords at one time may cause some congestion in your inbox. To avoid confusion and a feeling of overwhelm, start slow. Once you understand how to use the tool and read the reports, you can add 1-2 keywords to your alert system every few weeks.
- Most tools allow you to set up alerts for your business name, industry leaders, important keywords, locations, events, services, products etc. Feel free to use it to the max. Spying on competitors is one of the most overlooked parts of online reputation management….but so useful.
3 Must-Have Tools to Monitor Your Online Reputation
1. Google Alerts
Google has many useful (and free) tools for digital marketers, and Google Alerts is fortunately one of them. If you are a tech savvy person, then you probably already know what it does and how to use it; either for monitoring your brand or for content creation. Simply enter your company name the same way you would enter terms in your niche you want to get alerts for. You will get email notifications of your mentions via Google’s database, based on your preferences.
The only downside is that many social media channels and the content that appears on those channels will not be shown on Google Alerts. The reason why we still included Google Alerts on our list is because it alerts you of new search results, especially negative ones, as soon as they appear on top SERPs. No other competitor is able to do the job as good as Google.
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite cannot be beat in the online reputation management field. It covers more social networks than any other platform, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, and Foursquare. As well, the weekly reports and the excellent team management facility (delegating tasks, sending private messages) are very-user friendly and easy to ready. It also boasts three benefits that cannot be matched by other tools: 1) it permits users to monitor specific search terms in real time; 2) it comes into good use when multiple people are managing social media accounts; 3) it allows users to use RSS feeds to post to their personal or organization’s social networks.
3. SimilarWeb
Many of you are already familiar with SimilarWeb as you have been using this tool to monitor website rankings. Fortunately, this free tool has much more capabilities. Users are able to see how much traffic a particular site or blog receives on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It is also an enterprise monitoring tool that helps you benchmark your site against competitors for factors such as time on site, bounce rate, and page views per visit. This helps you understand how you compare to the other players in your industry and make the necessary changes. Best of all, it also offers a range of digital insights – market research about your industry. This includes brand visibility reports to show you how well-known and well-respected your business is within your field.
About iRISEmedia | Online Reputation Management Company | Toronto & the GTA
IRISEmedia is a digital marketing agency that focuses on helping clients in Canada, the U.S. and globally with digital marketing services consisting of website design, app development, social media marketing management, online reputation management and online branding. Our team helps clients manage and grow their online presence and branding to increase qualified web traffic, leads and revenue. If you would like to speak to one of our Online Reputation Experts for a free consultation please contact us today at 1-855-493-3622 or visit us on our website.
