3 Tools for Monitoring Brand Mentions Online

It is important to monitor the internet for content that mentions your brand. As part of your digital marketing routine, you should be checking the pulse of your brand online. Today that means more than just responding to users on Twitter and Yelp.

Today users can post content on many places across the web. The biggest ones to watch are:

• social media
• blogs/websites
• news articles

We are going to focus on getting alerts for mentions that are not on social media. Hubspot does have a great social monitoring tool.

1) GOOGLE ALERTS

Google Alerts is a great free tool that you can utilize to get updates when new content is published on the internet. Google Alerts is free so there is no reason to not have multiple alerts set up.

2) OPEN SITE EXPLORER

Open Site Explorer by Moz has limited functionality in the free version but it still lets you find inbound links and mentions of your brand. You are going to want to look at the recently discovered links.

3) MENTION

Mention only lets you create your first alert for free. Their service makes it easy to collaborate with a team and view mentions from across multiple platforms.

WHAT TO DO AFTER YOU FIND A BRAND MENTION ONLINE

Positive Mentions 

When someone mentions you online you want to reach out to them and thank them for the mention. If they have not already you can ask for a link back to your site so users can easily learn more about your company. This is an important link building strategy. It also a great opportunity to start a conversation with a company or individual that you may be able to collaborate with in the future.

Negative Mentions

Spam Content – If your brand has received spam content you can try to flag it or contact an administrator of the website. If you received a spam link you should disavow the links in Google Webmaster tools. Spam backlinks can hurt your SEO rankings with Google. Moz recently launched a new tool that measures the “spam score” of inbound links.

Bad Reviews – At some point every business encounters a bad review. You should have a plan to quickly and professionally deal with the bad review.

Bad Comments – On most websites you can create an account to respond to negative reviews. At a small company, it is always great when a founder or CEO can respond for the comment.

Social Media – With all negative mentions you never want to argue with the individual. The key is to stay objective and respond as a human. Often users complaining on social media have failed to get an adequate response in another form. Ultimately they are looking for you to take action and correct the problem.

Website/Blog Posts – First you should contact the administrator or author privately to discuss the issue. If they do not respond it may be best to post a comment if possible. Again use the rules above for posting a simple, human, and objective comment.