One of the most valuable benefits that social media offers is the ability to listen. There are many tools available to allow you to keep track of who is talking about your business, as well as any keywords relating to your business.
There is so much knowledge to be gained just from listening and paying attention to what your customers are saying about you and your industry.
Here are some cool tools to help you listen and learn:
- search.twitter.com ~ This allows you to search twitter for specific phrases or keywords and see real time results. You can also use the advanced search to narrow down the results by location or time period.
- Kurrently.com ~ this website allows you to put in keywords or phrases and will search both Facebook and Twitter, as well as the major search engines
- Google Alerts ~ You can set up alerts based on your company name or specific keywords and Google will email you daily with the latest results that include those terms. You see articles and blog posts.
- LinkedIn Answers ~ You can research the types of questions that are being asked related to your industry. As well as answer the questions and build your expertise.
- Board Tracker ~ allows you to search discussion forums for specific terms.
By taking some time to follow specific searches, you can gain really valuable information about your industry and customers. All of the above are great tools to help you!
