People are using the Internet to talk about your brand and your products – are you listening? Do you know how to listen?  Listening is easier then you think, and you don’t have to buy an expensive monitoring tool to do it, either.

Want to know what people are saying about you on Twitter?  Facebook?  Blogs?  Forums?  No problem.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to set up the ultimate listening station using Google Reader, a free tool.

The Setup

For this hypothetical example, we’ll be setting up a listening station for the New England Patriots, since lots of people like to talk about the Pats online.

1. Sign up for a Google Reader account (this may require signing up for a Google account, if you don’t already have one)

Your Brand New Google Reader Account

2. Set up Google Alerts for relevant keywords.  Choose the comprehensive search, and set the delivery option to feed.  Click create alert, and then on the following screen, click view in Google Reader.  You should now be subscribed to your Google Alert in your Google Reader.  Repeat as necessary.

Note: you may experience some overlap between your Google Alerts and the other feeds we’ll set up below.  This is OK.

Google Alerts Set-Up

3. Go to Twitter Search.  Run a search for a relevant keyword term, like “New England Patriots”.  Click on feed for this query on the right hand side of the screen.  Add to your Google Reader account.  Is your search for a particular geographic area?  Use Twitter’s Advanced Search to narrow your search by geographic area.  Repeat as necessary.

Twitter Search Results

4. Facebook has a search feature, but does not allow you to subscribe to searches via RSS.  But there is another option.  Go to Social Mention and select Facebook by clicking on the select social media sources option underneath the search box.  Run your search and subscribe by clicking on the RSS feed icon on the right hand side of the search results screen.  Add to your reader account.  Repeat as necessary.

Selecting Facebook on Social Mention

RSS Subscription Option

5. What about forums?  There’s probably a lot of discussion about the Patriots on sports forums, right?  Go to BoardReader, run a search for your target query.  On the search results screen, hover over the show tools link, and select RSS.  Add to your reader account.  Repeat as necessary.

Note: at the time of this post, both BoardReader and BoardTracker were having technical difficulties, and I was unable to get RSS subscriptions to work.  The above info is how you would set it up if it were working correctly.

Forum Search

RSS Subscription Icon for BoardReader

6. Now for the blogs.  Several options exist for searching blog posts.  Google Blog Search and IceRocket can both get the job done.  For this tutorial I’m going to use Social Mention again.  Follow the same process as you did for step #4.  Only this time, select the blogs option to the right of the search box.  Subscribe to the results via RSS, and add to your Google Reader account.  Repeat as necessary.

7. YouTube.  There’s probably a lot of activity on YouTube for New England Patriots clips.  Go to YouTube.  Search for your relevant keyword term.  On the results page, click on the RSS icon in your browser’s address bar.  Add to Google Reader, repeat as necessary.

YouTube Search

8. Flickr.  At this point in time, Flickr does not allow you to subscribe to keyword searches.  So we must turn to Social Mention once more.  Follow the same steps as you did on step #4, only this time, select Flickr instead of Facebook.  Subscribe to the RSS feed on Google Reader.  Repeat as necessary.

Searching Flickr Through Social Mention

9. Any other unmentioned website or media platform.  Go to the site.  Run a search for a target keyword phrase.  Look for RSS subscribe options.  If an option does not exist, check a website like Social Mention.

Organize Your Findings

By now, you should have several feeds set up for a variety of searches.  Here’s how to organize your Google Reader account for easy reading.

1. Go to Google Reader.

2. Click on settings.

3. Then click on Google Reader settings.

4. Click on the subscriptions tab.

5. Start organizing your feeds into folders, in this example, I’ll group feeds into folders by keyword.  You could also group by medium, or if you do this for multiple clients – by client.

Google Reader Subscription Settings

6. When you’re done, your reader might look something like the picture below.

Organized Google Reader Account

And that’s it!  You’re now set up to monitor your brand or business across a variety of popular platforms and it’s all free.

Got any questions?  Leave them in the comments!

Photo Credit

Related posts:

1. Peer Inside My Google Reader Account
2. How HubSpot Created an Industry: The Ultimate Inbound Marketing Case Study
3. How To Set Up a Custom Domain With Your Posterous Site

Have you ever felt lost in a sea of data, with no possible way out?  If so, then you're probably an Internet marketer, in some form or flavor.  For a typical Internet marketing client, I find myself measuring several dozen different data points at any given time.  From Quantcast metrics to Google Analytics, Social Mentions and Conversion Rates – I sometimes get the feeling that there's just too much.

As Internet marketers, we have to measure everything… right?  To prove our value, to prove that Internet marketing works, to show stakeholders that our efforts have an impact. 

I mean, I get it.  Numbers can't possibly lie, and in this very digital age, there are very few things that can't be converted to measurable numbers in some form.  Plus, pretty charts and graphs make it much easier for decision makers to justify the expense (investment) of an Internet marketing campaign.

But have you ever asked yourself – how much is too much?

This is what I'd like to see: a consolidation of data.  Let's come up with a metric that either measures several different important data points and aggregates into a single number, or, we start cutting out data that just doesn't matter, or isn't accurate.

That said, an aggregate single data point may be too ideal to be a reality.  Internet marketing measures are very subjective, and thus, a single point probably won't work.

Cutting out useless data may be the best option.  How do you do this?  Find out what the true goals of a campaign are, and measure only the variables that will help to advance those goals.

For example, say you're running a campaign that's meant to increase conversion rates.  Would you measure your Twitter reach and engagement?  Maybe.  But wouldn't you rather measure your site traffic, actions, exit pages, flows and conversions?  Yes! Of course!  Twitter reach may in some way influence conversion rates, but I think when you get down to it, the extra data will cloud the picture and lead to some poor decisions.

The bottom line is, yes, data is important, and measuring campaign performance is not an option.  But lets be sure we're picking the right data to measure.  After all, who wants to drown in data?

Related posts:

1. There’s no future in SEO
2. The 5 Principles of Inbound Marketing
3. How HubSpot Created an Industry: The Ultimate Inbound Marketing Case Study