Brand monitoring
What is brand monitoring?
Brand monitoring means watching the web for mentions of your brand: social posts, forum threads, reviews, articles, videos and podcasts. Each mention can be read, replied to, or used as feedback, and the overall trend shows how awareness and sentiment are changing.
It overlaps with social media monitoring but covers the whole web, not just social networks.
Why brand monitoring matters
For startups especially, every mention matters: a question you answer, a comparison you join, or a complaint you fix can win a customer. Monitoring also finds unlinked mentions and new communities where you are discussed.
Related marketing terms
Brand mentions are any time your brand is named online, in posts, comments, reviews, articles or videos, with or without a link.
Social listening is tracking public conversations about your brand, competitors and market, then learning from and acting on what people say.
Reputation management is monitoring and improving how a brand or person is seen online, through reviews, replies and search results.
Unlinked brand mentions are pages that name your brand without linking to your site, often a chance to ask for a link or a correction.
Google Alerts is a free Google service that emails you when new pages it indexes match your keywords, such as your brand name.