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Tracking the trackers

I have been remiss in not paying enough attention to social media monitoring software. I suppose it's understandable given that social media is at the margin of CRM - moving to the centre, but still in the outer shell - and monitoring software is somewhere beyond that orbit in the software equivalent of the Kuiper belt. Maybe it's time to pay a little attention there, because monitoring software can be a big addition to your marketing strategy, and much of it is free.

By Denis Pombriant

23 Apr 2009

First, what is it? Social media monitoring software is a class of applications delivered online that track aspects of how you and your company are being talked about on the web.

There are applications that track text - Twitter feeds, blog posts, comments and the like. These have been around for a while, and a classic example is what might still be called a "vanity search" on Google and other search engines. The basic idea is that the search engine looks for fragments like "Beagle Research" or "Pombriant" and brings links back to your email. If you recall the Steve Martin classic movie, "The Jerk", getting a Google Alert is equivalent to receiving a new phone book.

Read the full article here.