This document provides an overview of basic social media monitoring tools. It discusses why monitoring social media conversations is important for understanding customer needs and competitor activity. The document then describes several free tools for monitoring general social media conversations, Twitter specifically, blogs, forums and blog comments. These tools can help track brand mentions, products, influencers and sentiment. The document emphasizes listening first before engaging and using monitoring tools as the foundation of social media strategies.

1. Social media sessionsListening tools October 2010

2. Outline Introduction Our process - recap Monitoring – why? Monitoring – basic tools

3. Introduction Welcome to the hand-out version of our training session focusing on social media monitoring and research. This is a very top line look at some of the tools you can use to keep track of online conversations. Let’s begin...

4. How we approachsocial media

5. Our process – a quick reminder... We use a very straightforward process when developing social media activities, whether they are for internal or external audiences. It starts with listening, and developing a specific picture of what our relevant communities are saying / doing. Once we know what we are dealing with, we establish the best ways to engage with them, adding value at all times. Following a specified phase of engagement we’ll analyse the impact we’ve had, taking those learnings and feeding them back into the ongoing cycle. Listen Analyse Engage

7. Add value

8. Never sell

9. Respond quicklyIf these elements are part of your approach, the communities you operate in are far more likely to follow you, trust you and ultimately, recommend you. Be useful Add value Never sell Respond quickly

10. Monitoring – why?

11. Why listening is important... Social media platforms connect people with shared interests and passions. People participate because they have something of value to contribute (in most cases). They are engaging in conversations and sharing things that their networks are interested in. If we take the time to see what they are saying / doing, our job is much easier. We should shape our activity on the people we want to reach. They are our ‘editors’.

12. 10 reasons why brands listen... Complaints Compliments ‘Expressed’ needs Competitors ‘Crowd’ sentiment Influencers Measurement Audits Crisis / issues Threads / chains Via top rank marketing blog

13. A real life example... “I bought a mattress from Argos based (primarily) on this Twitter exchange.”

14. Monitoring – basics

16. Products / services

17. People mentions

18. Topics / subjects

19. Journalists / bloggers

20. Comments / viewsThe great thing is that everyone is providing these insights for free. Right here, right now.

21. The basic monitoring toolkit... Today, we are going to briefly look at some basic free tools you can’t start using straight away for current and prospective clients. You may be familiar with some of the tools, but each has a role to play if you want to get an overall picture of what is being said / shared. Let’s go...

23. Audit stage

25. Can identify influencers (basic level)

28. Track published posts and run archive searches