Original post by Mary Hiers
However small or large your business enterprise, your customers, clients, and prospects talk about it online. They may comment on your blog, post Facebook updates about their experience with your product or service, or send out tweets related to your business.
Keeping track of your online reputation is critical for maximizing success and dealing with problems before they have a chance to gain traction with a larger audience.
Mobile apps can be put to work monitoring your online reputation, and it’s smart to have more than one, because they work in different ways and can bring you different valuable information.
Having a selection of apps on your phone monitoring your online reputation is convenient and allows you to act swiftly if the occasion calls for it. Here are five apps, listed alphabetically, that you can use for monitoring your company’s online reputation.
1. Flipboard (iOS and Android)
The Flipboard app is free and is described as “your personal magazine, filled with the things you care about.” You can search for people, topics, hashtags, and keywords related to your enterprise, and then flip through your results in a magazine-style format. First you set up sections you want and then add social networks you want to monitor, and the app brings it all together, making it easy to find the information you want.
2. Gist (iOS)
Gist, a free iPhone app, brings you news, updates, and information about your contacts and competitors on the go. The optimized dashboard gives you a quick way to view traditional news sources, blogs, and Twitter updates based on a person or company and makes sharing of news easy, with perks like one-click email to selected contacts.
3. HootSuite (iOS and Android)
The HootSuite app is free, but HootSuite itself offers both free and paid accounts. The app allows you to monitor multiple social media accounts on social platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+, and more. The app now includes manual syncing between the app and your HootSuite web dashboard for social networks.
4. Reputation Alert (iOS)
Reputation Alert for iOS is a free app that helps you monitor Twitter conversations by setting up alerts whenever your name, product, service, or other keywords are mentioned on Twitter. Alerts are based on tweets of interest, which are gathered using the Keyword Group, which you set up using business names, relevant industry keywords, and attitude attributes.
5. Sprout Social (iOS and Android)
If you have an active account with Sprout Social (starting at $39 per month), you can use the free iOS or Android app. With this app, you can search for mentions of your brand (or a competitor’s brand) not directly linked with your social media accounts, stay up to date on industry news, and find potential followers with similar interests.
When using these apps, your choice of keywords is a critical factor in how useful they can be. Typical keywords you should consider when using an app to monitor online reputation include:
- Brand names
- Names of products and services
- Company owner’s name
- Names of C-level executives
- Important industry keywords
- Competitor names
Success today depends on cultivating a positive online reputation, and this means taking people’s opinions into account and developing a healthy interaction with them through your website, blog, and social media accounts.
When you commit to accepting feedback, you must also commit to facing this feedback promptly and honestly. If one of your products or services incites widespread online criticism that goes unaddressed, competitors can swiftly take advantage of the situation. Having an online reputation management plan is critical, and with mobile apps that allow you to monitor your online presence, you can address problems and celebrate successes wherever you go.
Photo Credits: Michal Marcol / freedigitalphotos.net, adamr / freedigitalphotos.net
Mary Hiers is a freelance content writer for numerous clients in the fields of medicine, IT, law, and digital publishing.
