I was talking at a conference recently about how to harness the power of social media. One of the topics raised was how to monitor your media and feedback in a world of blogs, pods and video logs. On one hand the job of media monitoring is much harder these days, as conversations are no longer taking place in 'official' discussion forums or company web spaces. Instead your audience can be sharing their compliments and complaints all over cyberspace, and the challenge is to work out where and when you should participate.

Stories move fast across the internet and it's important to open your digital ears as wide as you can. On the other hand technology now makes the job much easier.I was talking at a conference recently about how to harness the power of social media. One of the topics raised was how to monitor your media and feedback in a world of blogs, pods and video logs. On one hand the job of media monitoring is much harder these days, as conversations are no longer taking place in 'official' discussion forums or company web spaces. Instead your audience can be sharing their compliments and complaints all over cyberspace, and the challenge is to work out where and when you should participate.

Stories move fast across the internet and it's important to open your digital ears as wide as you can. On the other hand technology now makes the job much easier.Tracking column inches used to be a full time job for a PR person or even team. Drinking coffee, scanning newspapers and cutting out any mentions of clients in the news or letters to the editor. Now we can use software to carry out the very same service, delivered direct to your inbox. Online monitoring activity is known as Reputation Management and the first step is finding out what is being said to enhance or besmirch your good name. Tracking keyword mentions across the web and blogosphere can now be as simple as setting up an electronic alert, then waiting for a 'ping' to be sent by email or to your mobile device when your keywords are mentioned. For Gmail users there is a Google Alerts tool now available for Beta testing, where alerts can be sent weekly, daily or as they happen for the keenest news hounds. Another news clipping service with a free and paid for option is Clip & Copy.

It's very easy to forget that Google isn't the only search engine there is, and ReadWriteWeb have a good overview on 17 Top Search Innovations, as well as a bumper list of the Top 100 Alternative Search Engines. When using any search tool always remember the golden Boolean rules. To improve your results immensely, use a plus sign (or AND) for grouping words together, a minus sign (or NOT) for screening out words you don't want, and put quote marks around names or phrases to highlight them.

I am already finding the new wave of social search tools very useful for tracking mentions of keywords within the blogosphere and twitterverse, as well as more traditional websites and portals. If you are using Firefox as a browser then there is a large list of extra search add-ons you can download and add to your browser's search box. I have recently added Tweetscan to track Twitter and Blogdimension, which hails itself as a Web 2.0 Search Engine.

Phil Bradley has written about a range of new search tools that I had never heard of, like Keotag which directs their search at a range of social networking/bookmarking sites. Silobreaker is a superb contextual search engine that not only brings in recent news stories, it also displays videos, article volume, networks & trends. If I was working in a newsroom full time I would be on this site daily, and you can see how clever this tool is when you do a search for Kiwi folk heroes, Flight of the Conchords. As Bradley says: "In short, this is a magnificent news search engine, and has, in a stroke, just blown away the competition."

So if you want to know what your public thinks, then why not set up an alert or search and find out? Remember to trust your own judgement on who and what you listen to, and never be afraid to correct misinformation to protect your online reputation. Just keep this piece of advice at the back of your mind, that you are never as good as they say you are, but then you are never as bad as they say either!

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As well as being TBI's strategist, Helen Baxter a.k.a. MsBehaviour runs dance-music label TMet Recordings, 3D animation company Mohawk Media and has a fortnightly slot on National Radio called 'Virtual World'.

03/04/08