Social Media Monitoring for PR

Social media monitoring is a vital part of online reputation and brand management and PR plays a pivotal role in keeping an eye on and managing what’s being said online. Learn how to use social media monitoring to enhance your public relations strategy, measure results, monitor your company or reputation online.

We highlight the best tools to help you sort through the noise, including paid and free services. Also, we flag  emerging trends in this fast-changing social media world. Also, see our Media & Social Media Monitoring Tips & Tools page for a more complete set of traditional media monitoring and emerging social media monitoring tools, tips and resources.

Other social media and PR resources you may find useful: Best Social Media Bloggers for PR to Follow, Best Social Media Tools for PR, Blogging & PR, Online Crisis Management, Social Media Tips & Strategies, Social Media – PR Lessons and Twitter & PR. And, the PR Coach’s own blog  This Just In… will also keep you current twice a week. Sites with a W are PR Coach “winners.”

Editor’s Note: We’re keeping these older links for reference, but they are not the most current resources. You’ll find those at our Public Relations & Social Media Insight pages on Scoop.it as follows:

• Public Relations & Social Media Insight – current PR and social media insight, tips and links updated daily.
• Simply Social Media – a collection of simple, basic social media tips.
• Top Social Media Tools – you’ll find a large toolbox of current social media tools as they’re released..
• Twitter – if you prefer Twitter, check out and follow ThePRCoach Twitter feed.

Social Media Monitoring

3 Tools to Track Your Social Media Influence
Simple measurement advice and three essential tools.

5 Social Media &  PR Measurement Trends to Watch in 2009
Five trends to watch? Social media, quest for standards, engagement, cross-platform measurement challenges and a battle of accountability vs economy. From Italo Vignoli.

5 Ways to Track Your Competitors Using Social Media
Use these five tips for social media monitoring to keep an eye on your brand and the competition.

6 Critically Undervalued Social Media Success Metrics 
Dig harder for PR measurement value.

6 Essential Tools to Determine Social Media Influence
Interesting social media measurement Tools.

8 Essential Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
Here are eight free social media monitoring tools reviewed by Andy Beal.

8 Social Media Metrics You Should Be Measuring
Here are eight social media metrics worth tracking.

10 Questions for Social Media Measurement Success 
Here are 10 key questions you should ask about social media measurement.

13 Ways to Monitor Your Brand on Social Media: Do You Know What’s Being Said About Your Company Online?
Jeff Bullas shares 13 excellent ways to keep an eye on your company or your reputation with both free and paid tools.   W

20 Totally Free Buzz Pocket Mining Tools
20 free social media monitoring tools that Marty Weintraub says will help you keep tabs on who’s saying what about you.

100 Tips and Tools to Research the Social Web
An excellent set of tips and tools from Select Courses to enhance your research on the social web. Valuable resource.   W W

100 Tips and Tools to Research the Social Web
Useful, practical list of 100 tips and social media research tools.   W

A Quick ‘n Dirty Guide to Setting Up Social Media Monitoring
Kat French shows how to set up social media monitoring using free tools and as little as 30 minutes a day.

Alerti
New social media monitoring is fairly priced and fully featured.  Worth a test drive.

Are Your Ears Burning? 20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing
Here’s 20 tools to help you monitor your social media.

BrandMentions
BrandMentions is a great tool that helps you monitor the online presence of your brand online. Its purpose is to detect all the web mentions that your brand or your competitors have in a given period of time.

Do Your Social Media Skills Measure Up?
Getting a handle on social media measurement.

Easy Social Media Monitoring [Video 6:53]
Want to know how to monitor social media? Lorna Li show how with several free tools.

Exploring Social Media Measurement: Radian6 [Video 10:20]
Jason Fallis interviews Radian6 CEO Marcel Lebrun about his company’s social media measurement tool.

Google Blog Search
Google Blog Search is a useful search tool for research, monitoring and targeting bloggers.   W

Guide to Monitoring Social Media Conversations
Here’s how PR can listen up. W

How Big is YOURS?
David Meerman Scott suggests how to measure social media and marketing results.

How Influenced Should You Be by the Rising Obsession With ‘Social Influencers’?
What counts most asks Advertising Age columnist Simon Dumenco?

How Sociable?
Free tool measures more than 30,000 brands across 32 metrics.

How to Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard
Marty Weintraub writes an excellent guide to setting up your own monitoring system with free tools. Really useful!   W

How to Monitor Your Brand on Social Media
Practical tips on monitoring from FreelanceFolder.

How to Select a Social Media Monitoring Service
Here’s a really helpful checklist to use in picking a social media monitoring service.

How to Track 500 Business Blogs in 10 Minutes a Day
Mashable shows how to listen to many conversations online efficiently in just three simple steps.

Interview with Katie Paine on Measuring Social Media
Katie Paine zeroes in on the important things to measure in social media.   W

Is Social Media Monitoring Ready for Prime Time?
Jay Baer explores the potential impact of Microsoft’s new monitoring tool Looking Glass.

Is There a New Measure of Success for Social Media?
Useful measurement insight.

KD Paine & Partners Propose New Un-Standard for Social Media Measurement
Thoughtful look at social media measurement and valuable list of potential metrics.   W

Klout: What’s Your Influence Report Card?
Heidi Cohen looks at offline clout.

Like or Dislike? Five Tips for Analyzing Social Media Sentiment
Have a goal in mind and a plan ready for how tracking sentiment will help your company improve.

Monitoring Your Brand Reputation Online Matters
Basic social media measurement strategies.

Online Engagement and How to Measure It: Excerpt from “Measure What Matters” 
Smart online measurement tips.

Online Reputation Monitoring Beginners Guide
Updated analysis of some of the free reputation monitoring tools by Trackur’s Andy Beal. Includes tips and links as well.   W

PostRank Analytics: Missing Link Between Social Engagement and Web Analytics
Dave Fleet on how PostRank Analytics extends the analysis from Google’s free services at a modest price.

Social Media Analytics: 6 Steps to Measuring What You Care About
Superb look at measurement that matters for PR.  W

Social Media Benchmarks, Metrics and Data That Count 
Excellent PR measurement insight from Barry Hurd.

Social Media Measurement 2011: Five Things to Forget, Five Things to Learn 
Excellent advice from Metrics Man – Don Bartholomew.  W

Social Media Monitor Makes Tracking Facebook, Twitter Brand Growth Simple 
Social media measurement, PR tool to try.

Social Media Monitoring Gaining Ground But Has Plenty of Room for Growth
But 43% still don’t plan to respond.

Social Media Monitoring Tools [Video 10:08]
A solid presentation on social media monitoring tools by Scott Hendison.   W

Ten Reasons Small Businesses Should Monitor Online Reputation
Lee Odden highlights 10 reasons to monitor your online reputation.

Three A’s of Social Media Measurement: Attention, Attitude, Action 
Really useful PR measurement tips.

Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation
Dan Schawbel shares his monitoring system and looks at 10 free monitoring tools to help you keep an eye on your brand.   W

Top 10 Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying For
These 10 fee-based services are good enough to pay for writes Dan Schawbel in a helpful review.   W

Top 20 Social Media Monitoring Vendors for Business
Valuable reviews includes cost of services.  W

Tracking Yourself and Your Blog Brand Across the Online Social World
Lorelle VanFossen looks at Yahoo Pipes for tracking yourself and your brand online.

Using Search to Prove Social Media’s Value
A look at measuring social media value and establishing ROI by Jason Falls.

Ways to Measure social media effectiveness
Basic tips to get you started.

Your Complete Guide to the Best Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
Excellent, practical advice from Simply Zesty.  W

Photo Credit: Solo via Flickr