Tweetbeep: Twitter alerts via email

1Tweetbeep is essentially Google Alerts for Twitter. Whenever you’re mentioned on Twitter, you’ll get sent an email with details of that mention. You  can specify any search term you want. This is great for people who are not ready for the power of Tweetdeck of HootSuite with all their bells and whistles. Twitter is the most real-time account you have of what people are saying about you, so it’s really important to have a Twitter listening tool that matches your comfort level.

Tweetdeck: Your command center

2Tweetdeck is great because it runs in the background and gives you desktop alerts for mentions, similar to Microsoft Outlook when you get a new email. You can customize the different columns and have an array of search terms for people talking about you on Twitter. For example, mine has the following columns: @ replies of my personal Twitter account, @ replies of my organizational account, mentions of “humane society,” mentions of “hsus” and direct messages. When you’re ready to get real serious, ask your IT department for a second monitor that you can put just Tweetdeck on. (See photo at top.)

Kurrently: Check your public persona

3It is amazing, and scary, how many people still do not lock down the privacy on their Facebook profiles. That’s what makes Kurrently so useful: It’s a search engine for public Facebook updates. It actually now pulls in a lot more than Facebook updates, but that’s what I find it most useful for.

Twitalyzer: Turn monitoring into metrics

4It is very important to think about your goals and how you’re going to measure success when diving into a new online venture, and listening is no different. There are many tools out there for measurement, but I like Twitalyzer, because of the breadth of statistics it provides and its ease of use. The graphs are pretty, too. It provides data such as number of followers, number of tweets, number of retweets, top hashtags, number of mentions, etc – which are great metrics. For Facebook, check out their built-in analytics for your fan page.

Google Alerts: Trusty standby is still critical

5You’ve been using Google Alerts for some time now, right? At the bare minimum, you should use Google Alerts for your organization’s name, acronym, prominent staff names like your CEO or executive director and large campaigns you’re working on. Depending on the number of mentions you get, you’ll probably want to set the alerts to come to your in-box as they happen so you know quickly what’s being said and can determine a response, if needed.

Twilerts: Twitter alerts via email

1Twilerts is a brand application that enables you to receive regular email alerts of tweets containing your brand, or whatever keyword you want to stay on top of. Think Google Alerts for Twitter. It allows you to track up to 10 queries, using its basic or advanced options, after creating a free account through your Twitter account or through Gmail.

Rating: ★ ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based

PeopleBrowsr & Kred: Social analytics for serious marketers

2PeopleBrowsr is a Web-based search engine for real-time conversations. The possibility to search bios and tweets by authority, location and links are among its Twitter features. But this is only the beginning, as this tool provides you with plenty of more options to keep track of your brand. It will even analyze tweets and classify them as positive or negative and track sentiments overtime. PeopleBrowser also offers full social analytics solutions with the ability to monitor Facebook, blogs and forums. With pricing beginning at $149 per month per seat, this is clearly an option for power users who really want to go deep with their tracking. Interestingly, the company announced last month that it’s offering a new service called Kred as a competitor to Klout.

Rating: ★ ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based

Sideline: Keep on top of key terms

3Sideline is a free monitoring tool from Yahoo! that lets you specify keywords to keep track of via an attractive downloadable app. It runs on Adobe AIR and is open source (though Yahoo! sticks an odd “all rights reserved” notice at the bottom). Sideline has advanced search features, including auto-refreshing of search queries and scanning trending topics. It also offers an Influencers tool to watch what important people are saying about a topic. Watch a four-minute screencast at Vimeo.

Rating: ★ ★
Platforms: Desktop

SocialMention: Social media search & analysis

4SocialMention lets you search keywords on Twitter; however, it also looks for mentions on 100+ social media properties. Place widgets of tracked searches on your website or create daily email alerts for searches. You can only search for one keyword at a time, although you can set up more than one alert. The dashboard, however, goes beyond only searching for your keyword; it also shows you sentiment, top related words, top users and top hashtags.

Rating: ★ ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based

Twitter: Lists and advanced search

5Twitter offers several free tools which can help you keep track of what’s being said of your brand. The ability to create Twitter lists can be hugely helpful if you keep them organized. Third-party apps, such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, make viewing lists easier. With the advanced search options, you can monitor negative impressions, questions and tweets by location.

Rating: ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based

Monniter: Live Twitter search

6Monniter is a free real-time Twitter search and monitoring tool. It allows you to narrow your search by geolocation, to set up multiple queries and to see them side by side. Plus, you can pause the monitoring of each column. Saved searches aren’t part of its options since you don’t have to sign up to use it. You can, however, place a keyword-tracking widget on your website.

Rating: ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based

SocialOomph: Boost your social media productivity

7SocialOomph will monitor the tweet stream for you and periodically email you a list of messages containing your specified keywords. You get a limited number of keywords with the free version, but it’s more than most other free tools allow. The professional version costs $27.97 per month. Socialbrite uses SocialOomph to auto-follow new followers — despite its awful interface.

Rating: ★ ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based

SproutSocial: Social media monitoring

8SproutSocial is an elegantly-designed social media dashboard which also allows for keyword tracking. You can aggregate your searches into one data stream to streamline your searches. It also helps you manage Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare and other networks. The Pro version is $9 a month, while the Business version is $49 a month. Only the Pro version gives you the option to narrow keyword searches by location. They do, however, offer a 50 percent discount for nonprofits. Email support@sproutsocial.com to request your discount.

Rating: ★ ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based

TweetBeep: Twitter alerts

9Tweetbeep lets you track conversations with hourly updates or daily emails. To use this service, you have to sign up and confirm by email. It will also track mentions of your website, even if tweets use a URL shortening service. You can set up 10 keyword alerts for free or upgrade to the Premium version for $20 a month, and get up to 200 alerts with a 15-minute alert option.

Rating: ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based

TweetAlarm: Keep an eye on Twitter keywords

10TweetAlarm allows you to track as many keywords as you like and gives you notices whenever you want — daily, weekly or as often as they find tweets that match your query. You can also ignore tweets from users of your choice, including from your own account.

Rating: ★ ★
Platforms: Web-based