People always ask about monitoring tools for social media. There are plenty of very expensive solutions out there designed for big brands. But I suspect for many food and drink businesses costs are always going to be an issue simply because many aren’t that big.
Luckily some of the best tools are free, although if you do feel inclined to pay for any probably Hootsuite is the best.
Some of these tools have the ability to pre assign activity, but I’m not sure if this is a good thing. Things such as Facebook and Twitter are conversational. Think about chatting to somebody at a bar, or a party.
You can’t be conversational if you have a robot sending out tweets pre programmed several hours or days earlier. You best and most influential activity will be rapid fire conversations you dip in and out of. If you just want to broadcast your own news then you are doing it wrong.
You have to mix that news in with other more interesting conversations – football or racing perhaps -and not too often.
However, I am an advocate of planned social media activity – one blog post a week, targeting 5 new Twitter followers a day, 1 Facebook conversation a day, 5 new food photos uploaded a week etc.
It means you keep the activity constant, which is one of the secrets of success.
So here are the basic monitoring tools:
1. Google Alerts
Updates that mention terms you specify.
3. Tweetdeck
Tweet from multiple accounts and send updates to multiple social media platforms. Monitor mentions by setting up searches.
4. Seesmic
A bit like Tweetdeck but with added features.
5. Hootsuite
The only drawback is you have to pay, although only from USD5.99 a month, for the full features although there is a free version.
6. Klout
The key to monitoring is measuring and one thing you may want to measure is your influence as a brand. Klout is a pretty useful tool to get a basic idea.