Do you monitor online conversations?

Are you looking for new tools to track your mentions?

Whether you want to observe quietly, learn about your customers and what they’re looking for, respond to critics or simply engage in conversation, you need to know what people are saying.

In today’s blog, I’m going to help you with 5 key tools that will help you track your BRAND. 

Mention

Mention is one of the newer tools that replaced Google Alerts. (Google Alerts would send emails notifying you whenever a keyword or phrase you specified was cited online.)

Mention is a way to visualize your online presence, separating the signals you want from the rest of the noise online. The platform allows you to monitor millions of sources in real time and in 42 languages, so you can react and interact.

Do an online search or elect to receive a daily email of the aggregate of mentions from the previous day. Plus, if you work with a group or large company, export stats to PDF or CSV, so you can share data with your team.

Mention offers a 14-day free trial, and then a variety of plans from which to choose. The free basic plan is one alert, one user, 250 mentions/month.

Talkwalker

Use Talkwalker Alerts to set up a search query for your keyword or phrase. Narrow the returned data by result type, language, frequency and quantity.

 

Talkwalker gives you brand mentions over time, as well as the sources where these mentions occur. Learn about the performance of the brand mention, the engagement levels, influencers talking about your brand (this includes websites, as well as social media), sentiment analysis, general themes featured in a tag cloud and demographic data (location, language and gender breakdowns).

There’s even a world map tracking where conversations originate. Pie charts hover over every location to indicate the sentiment in each country.

 

While Talkwalker Alerts is another free service to use as a replacement for Google Alerts, I don’t find it as comprehensive or thorough as Mention. For example, on one of my searches, Talkwalker found about 50% of the references that Mention located. However, I use them in tandem to ensure I have decent coverage.

Topsy

Topsy is a search engine that lets you monitor brand mentions across the web, with a focus on social insights from top conversations online. Topsy’s database is in real time, and it measures sentiment and provides analytics.

Sort by links, tweets, photos, videos or influencers, or include everything. Plus, drill down to how recently results were discovered. This is especially helpful if you have a large volume of content to wade through.

 

Topsy appears to have more comprehensive data than both the Mention and Talkwalker free service. Just remember, its focus is on influencers and top (not all) conversations.

 Hootsuite

Perhaps the easiest and most common brand-conversation monitor is Hootsuite. It helps you keep on top of chatter in real time on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

To use Hootsuite most effectively, craft a stream with the keyword that represents your search.

First, add a stream, and then select the keyword. Now, select the account under which you’re monitoring the brand. Next, type in the keyword or phrase. Add it, and then add the stream.

 

You can also do searches for your brand on Hootsuite for Twitter and Facebook. There are free, pro and enterprise accounts available.

PinAlerts

PinAlerts is more of a Pinterest alert system than a traditional brand monitoring platform. It monitors links to pins from your website, and notifies you via email when someone pins from your site.

Using this tool, you can jump right into conversation with people on Pinterest who shared your pins and develop relationships with them.

 

PinAlerts gives you another angle from which to monitor the mentions of your brand’s URL.

Want more people to see your Instagram posts? Are you using Instagram tags effectively?

 

 

 

Add a Tag to an Instagram Feed Post

 

Now let’s walk through the steps to tag another account on your Instagram content. It’s important that you only tag people or brands that are actually in your post. Don’t tag a bunch of people in a post in which they don’t appear simply to get their attention. This is discouraged and may get you flagged for spam and hurt your chances of success on Instagram.

 

Add a Tag to a New Instagram Feed Post

 

To add a tag to a new feed post you’re uploading to Instagram, start a new post like normal with a photo or video. When you get to the caption screen, you’ll see an option to tag people.

 

 

 

If you’re uploading an image, tap anywhere on the photo and you’ll see a pop-up box where you can type in the name of the person you want to tag. Select that account from the list and the tag will appear on your image.

 

You can drag the tag to move it around on the screen so it’s right over their head or off to the side if you don’t want to cover up your image.

 

If you’re uploading a video, tap on the Tag People option and you’ll be able to add the tags of people below the video.

 

To add multiple people, simply tap anywhere on the image again and you can add another person. You can tag up to 20 people per post.

 

When you’re done tagging people, tap on the checkmark in the upper-right corner to return to your regular upload screen. Continue loading the post like normal and you’re all set.

 

Add a Tag to an Existing Instagram Post

 

If you want to go back and edit an existing post on your Instagram profile, you can do that too. Navigate to that piece of content in your gallery, tap on the three-dot icon in the top-right corner, and select the Edit option.

 

 

On the image itself, you’ll see the Tag People option in the lower-left corner. Simply tap on that, follow the same steps to type in the name, and select the person you want to tag in the image. When you’re done, simply save your changes.

 

 

#2: Remove Your Tag From an Instagram Post

 

Now that you know how to tag somebody in an Instagram post, chances are your account may get tagged in posts as well. But what if you don’t want to be tagged in that content? No worries! There’s a quick and easy way to remove the tag.

 

Go to the post you’ve been tagged in, and at the very top, tap the three-dot icon. In the pop-up, choose Tag Options.

 

 

The last step is to tap on Remove Me From Post. Your tag is now removed and you won’t appear in that content anymore.

 

 

 

#3: Add a Location Tag to an Instagram Post

 

Another type of Instagram tag you can use to get more exposure is location tags.

 

When you tap on Tag Location on the caption screen, the location options will default to what’s near you. If you don’t see the location you want to tag, simply start typing the location you want and a list of matching options appears.

 

Select the location you want to use and you’ll see it on the caption screen. Now complete and publish your post as normal.

 

Once you upload your Instagram content, you’ll see that location appear right below your username. That’s actually clickable. Someone can tap on that and navigate to search results for that location.

 

 

 

 

That brings me to the primary reason you want to use location tags: searchability. People on Instagram are looking at locations for things to do and what’s going on in the area, or to find out more about that business. If you’re tagging that location in your content, there’s a good chance you may show up in those search results and other people will see your content related to that location.

 

Pro Tip: If you’re a local business that’s tagging your location in your content, encourage your customers to tag your business location too. This will give anyone looking at that location a wider perspective of what it’s like at your business.