With the emergence of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, there is always a conversation going on about your industry and possibly even your company. Are you part of that conversation?

Whatever your goal is, if you’re using social media as a means of communication, having the tools to monitor what’s being talked about in your industry, about your company, and about the content you are producing is key. It provides you insight and an opportunity to respond to comments, make suggestions and become recognized as someone who is in touch with their audience.

With the tools I’m about to mention, you can create keyword alerts that send updates by RSS or email on your brand, company, CEO, marketing campaign, a developing news story or on your competition.

Here’s what I use for monitoring the job market, my competition and my companies:

• Google Alerts: creates alerts by RSS or email from a keyword search that you create and then notifies you whenever a site on the internet mentions that keyword or phrase.
  

• Search.twitter.com: Like with Google Alerts, Twitter Search allows you to create a saved search that updates you when new information on that search appeal on Twitter.

• Social Mention: “Like Google Alerts but for social media.”

If you’re already using an RSS reader, you can create RSS feeds with all of the tools listed and add them to a folder in your reader. I label my folder “monitoring” and place all of my feeds in there. If you don’t already use an RSS reader, I suggest signing up with Google Reader.

It’s super easy to stay up to date with RSS! Whenever a new web page or social media site mentions the topics you’re monitoring, you’ll be instantly updated in your reader.

Does anyone else use any interesting tools to monitor their brand?

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