Free Social MediaMonitoring Dashboard

How To Build A Quick And Dirty Monitoring Tool For Learning, Listening, Or Tracking Anything

By Steve Farnsworth

Who Is This For?

Anyone who needs a quick and free social listening dashboard

How Can You Use This Technique?

#1 Become an “Expert” on any topic by reading 3 to 5 blog posts a day for a month on your topic of interest

How Can You Use This Technique?

#2 Know when people talk about you or your company online

How Can You Use This Technique?

#3 Keep a sharp eye on your competitors

You will need a Google

account. If you already

have one, then go to the

next step.

Pick the keywords you want to track

For this project let's use my name

“Steve Farnsworth”

Let's test our search term on Google to see what kind of

results we get with Steve Farnsworth

Steve Farnsworth has 592,000 search results. That's lot.

However, we can use Boolean search operators to get fewer, but

targeted results

Boolean search operatorsare symbols we can use to fine-

tune our search request

Let's quickly review the most common ones

“ ” = Using quotes returns results with that exact phrase.

Example “San Francisco”

AND = Using AND returns only matches with both terms.

Example Baseball AND Angels

+ = Using a plus sign in front of a word returns only results WITH that word.

Example +Cats

- = Using a minus sign in front of a word returns only results

WITHOUT that word. Example -Dogs

And you can combine them! Let's try a few with our search...

Fewer results!

Let's use a few more Boolean operators and keywords to see if

we can achieve better results

Even better! Now, 98% of the results are just what I want

Also, don't forget to use the

+ and the –

They're very powerful in fine-tuning your search

I'm happy with those kind of results. So, I'll make a note and

save the search term:"Steve Farnsworth" AND "Social

Media" OR Marketing

Now Google “Google Alerts” or go to http://www.google.com/alert

Now, type in your search term and make the selections I've marked

Now click here

You will now see a list of your Google Alerts

View new results as they come in by visiting Google Reader

Let's take a look at your Google Reader.

A.K.A. Your New FreeSocial Media

Monitoring/Listening Dashboard.

This is where your search results will automatically be sent every

few hours

You can find Google Reader from the Google home page, too

See our Google Alert was saved for us

You'll see results here as they come in

You may need to have a number of searches depending on your

needs. So, here is how to keep it organized.

Keep searches organized by using folders

You can add other searches and subscriptions to your Google

Reader

When you see this symbol on a website it means you can subscribe to receive updates

This service is called RSS. While many blogs, websites, and search engines have it, not all do.

When you find and click that RSS button it should look like this

Select and copy that URL

Go back to your Google Reader and click on “Add A Subscription”

A box will pop-up. Paste your RSS feed URL and

click “Add”

Now, new results will be delivered to your dashboard as

they're found

Test different keywords to perfect what search queries work best. Have fun, and...

Remember, learning and experimenting equal experience

Steve FarnsworthProvides training, workshops, consulting, and strategic action plans to help mid to large-sized companies and organizations incorporate best marketing practices to shorten sale cycles and increase preference for their products or service by effectively integrating social media into their marketing mix.

Jolt Social Media(650) 331-0594 (land & mobile)Email: JoltSocialMedia@Gmail.comLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevefarnsworthTwitter: http://twitter.com/SteveologyBlog: http://stevefarnsworth.wordpress.com (Digital Marketing Mercenary)