We’ve covered a ton about how to monitor strategically this month, but we still have a few things to share! We hope you have gained insight into the strategy of monitoring over these last three posts. We’ve learned what monitoring is and how to do it successfully, but the next step is selecting the right tool that will help you in your efforts.
It is best to analyze a few different services and make a decision after weighing what fits your needs at the time, and what you foresee as your likely future needs. At Stanton, we needed a service that had the capabilities we found essential – Boolean, large keyword threshold, and real-time alerts. With this understanding of what we needed, we set out on our search to compile information.
Here’s What We Found
Awario, Brand 24, Mention, Mentionlytics and Keyhole were the top services we found. Any of these programs could help strengthen efforts toward monitoring objectives and have a positive impact on strategy, but we wanted to find one option that would allow us to maximize the impact of our monitoring across several different clients for varied goals, and make the process as seamless, timely and reliable as possible—all at a cost-effective pricepoint, of course.
Decision Time
Based on this analysis, a number of sales calls, and a great many free trial periods, the service we found that best supported our capability needs (along with some additional benefits) was Awario.
You’ll see that the only capability that Awario was lacking was sentiment analysis. Although sentiment analysis is a nice capability to have, it is not essential. In fact, even with a provided sentiment analysis, our team finds it essential to review each mention for our own assessment, since computers are still not always completely reliable for determining this.
Awario was a strong investment in all the key areas we needed.
One of Many Options
Each of these services allow for you to optimize your monitoring efforts and automate some aspects that can help save time while taking targeting to the next level. However, they are far from the only options.
Depending on what you want to monitor (social media, broadcast, web-based news, or print), there are a wide range of tools ranging from a simple single function to the deluxe package.
If you’re not ready to make a monitoring service commitment at this time, a free alternative, such as keyword alert service TalkWalker Alerts, may help you take the next step.
