Listening to real time conversations for opportunities, leads, and reputation management is now a standard marketing item on the to-do list.

While there are services such as Radian6, Trackur and Jive Software (Filtrbox) that provide this kind of tracking for a fee, there are a number of tools that any do-it-yourselfer can employ to capture much of what’s being said about their brands, people, products, and industries in real time:

1.  Google Alerts

This one is certainly not new, but I still find people who don’t tap into it. Google Alerts allows you to set up as many custom searches as you like and have Google alert you via email or RSS when any mentions of those search terms hits their radar. Not 100 percent foolproof, but very good.

2.  Google Reader

Google Reader is an RSS reader, which means you can use it to subscribe, capture, read and display anything that produces an RSS feed. Most people use it to sort and read blogs, but anything with an RSS feed will show up here, so you can filter a great deal of content, including tags in bookmarking sites such as Delicious. Every customer and competitor blog feed should be in here.

3.  MyReviews Page

Rating and review sites such as Google Places and Yelp have become essential marketing tools. Monitoring reviews is a big part of managing and building reputation on these sites. MyReviewsPage alerts you when a new review shows up on many of the more popular review sites.

4.  Backtype

Backtype primarily focuses on blog comment streams and is a handy way to track this important content source.

5.  Boardreader

Bulletin boards and forums have lost a lot of their buzz due to social networking sites, but many industries still have very strong and active ones. Boardreader is your alert tool for the most popular bulletin board and forum sites.

6.  Social Mention

Social Mention is a real time search engine and important part of the mix because it not only catches things that others miss, it offers a wide variety of content types such as images, video and audio mentions, as well as giving some data about the influence and sentiment of the mentions.

7.  Netvibes

Netvibes isn’t a tracking or listening tool, but it’s a nice way to manage viewing all of the data you collect. Netvibes allows you to create a custom dashboard of RSS feeds and other elements and can be a great way for you to bring all of the content created by the tools above into one handy viewing station.

John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine.

He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. You can find more information by visiting http://www.ducttapemarketing.com

Photo Credit

Just as in the 2010 version of The Masters, here is my version of The Masters (of Marketing)

You’ll find Legends of Marketing, proven modern-day Marketing Thought-Leaders, and up and comers.

Enjoy!

Hole #1:   The Gary Halbert Letter

Hole #2: DuctTape Marketing

Hole#3:  Gary Vaynerchuk

Hole#4:  Claude Hopkins: Scientific Advertising

Hole#5:  Dan Kennedy

Hole #6: The Cluetrain Manifesto (entire field of contributors)

Hole #7: Drayton Bird

Hole #8:  Paul Myers

Hole#9:  Seth Godin

Hole #10:  Jay Abraham

Hole #11:  Michael Gerber: The E-Myth

Hole #12: HubSpot

Hole #13: David Meerman Scott

Hole #14: Gary Bencivenga

Hole #15: Al Ries (and daughter Laura)

Hole #16: Denny Hatch

Hole #17:  Chet Holmes

Hole #18: Jay Conrad Levinson: Guerrilla Marketing

My picks?

Hoping for a Phil and Tiger shoot-out on Sunday with Anthony Kim in the mix.

Would love to see Freddie and Tom Watson contend, but don’t think they’ll be a threat come Sunday afternoon.

Poulter will fade. Westy will be a factor.

Winner: Phil.

More on The Masters:

• The Masters Golf 2010: Ranking All 18 Holes at Augusta National (bleacherreport.com)
• Masters 2010: 10 greatest moments on YouTube (telegraph.co.uk)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m in the process of putting together a Kick-Ass Course on using Google Local Search and social media marketing tools to Attract Your Ideal Client.

If you’d like the Inside Track on Updates and wanna get in on a Pre-Launch Discount, be sure to enter your Name and Email Address below.

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Now Google gives “Location Independent” local businesses the ability to list their Service Areas in the Google Local Business Listing.

Let’s say you’re a contractor serving multiple towns and communities…

You can handle this two ways in your Google Local Business Listing.

Log-into your Google Local Business Listing Dashboard

You’ll now find a “Service Area and Location Settings” section.

1. Radius Distance from a fixed Location Point.

2. Specify a List of Towns/Zip Codes of your Service Area.

(Click image to Enlarge)

If you’re looking to target specific zip codes, towns, or neighborhoods, you’ll want to pick the second option.

Here’s one more location “tip” on Google Local Business Listings:

Google allows you to list Five Category Listings. Choose your Main Category Listing. On your additional four Category Listings, you can use your Category, with a Geo-Location description.

For example, your Main Category Listing is “Kitchen Remodeling”.

On your additional four Category Listings, you use:

“Kitchen Remodeling- Scottsdale,AZ”

“Kitchen Remodeling- Phoenix,AZ”

“Kitchen Remodeling-Glendale,AZ”

“Kitchen Remodeling-Cave Creek,AZ”

One tip on this approach: Use towns/zip codes in the four Category Listings other than your Main Location.

Here’s an article to give your more information on this approach and additional Google Local Business Listing Tips:

5 Ways to Improve Local Search Rankings

Even more Google Local Business Listing and Local Search Tips:

• Google Image Search – Its Importance For Your SEO (mt-soft.com.ar)
• Searching Locally: Recap from O’Reilly Where 2.0 (ysearchblog.com)
• How to Create a Great Local Search Business Listing (ferreemoney.com)
• Google Helps You Find Things Nearby (marketingpilgrim.com)

_______________________________________________

Now… Here’s my FREE Special Gift for YOU…

A Special Report/Workbook (Previously sold as an e-book to home improvement and financial services pros for $49) … No Opt-In, No Obligation… Click the link … Boom! You got it!

PLAY TO WIN: The Secret to Building a GREAT Business…

Discover Your Strengths

P.S.— Inside Play To Win you’ll find four fun, yet powerful business-changing exercises…

PLUS… Two Revolutionary Resources to help you discover your talents and leverage them as strengths in your business and your life.

___________________________________________

Photo Credit:Flickr

On a perfect Spring Easter weekend, we tee it up at The Links at Google Local Business Center.

Hole #1: Local Marketing: 97 Percent of Consumers Use Online Media for Local Shopping

Hole #2: The Amazing Google Wonder Wheel

Hole#3: Title Tag Change That Makes a Local Difference

Hole#4: Mobile Coupons and Google Local Business Listings Change Coupon Industry

Hole#5:  Guide to Learning Local SEO and Local Search Optimization

Hole #6: How to Optimize Your Site for Google in 2010

Hole #7: Local Search Marketing Pitfalls

Hole #8: With Google’s Nearby Places, Reviews Are More Important Than Ever

Hole#9: Local Search Complexity = SMB Frustration

Hole #10: Google Local Business Center User Guide

Hole #11: Google Local Search Marketing Articles Archive

Hole #12: Google Local Business Center Adds Tools for Service/Home Businesses

Hole #13: 5 Reasons Why You Need Local SEO

Hole #14: Increasing Your Google Local Business Ranking- Google Local Business Optimization

Hole #15: Best Practices for Your Google Local Business Center Listing

Hole #16: Why the Google Local Business Center Fails

Hole #17: 6 Proven Ways to Increase Your Google Local Business Listing Rank

Hole #18: 13 Ways to Promote Your Local Business for Free

Have a Fantastic Weekend!

Happy Easter!

More on Google Local Business Center and Local Search Marketing:

• Google Local Business Center Privacy Breach? (blogoscoped.com)
• How to Create a Great Local Search Business Listing (ferreemoney.com)
• Getting More From Your Google Maps Profile (ducttapemarketing.com)
• Google Local Business Listings are Being Hijacked Again (searchengineguide.com)
• Google Local Business: How to get your business to appear at the top of the local search engine results at no cost (krishnade.com)
• The Rise of Google Local Business Listings (blogstorm.co.uk)
• Searching Locally: Recap from O’Reilly Where 2.0 (ysearchblog.com)
• Getting Your Small Business Listed on Google Local for Free (powertofightthebigboys.com)
• Mobile Search is Local Search (blogs.praized.com)
• Is Google Local Search For Sale? (ducttapemarketing.com)

Photo Credit: Flickr

Here’s where smart marketers who really understand website optimization separate themselves from the ordinary guys.

None of this is sexy, cool, or exciting – in fact, it’s detailed, hard work. It requires tons of patience and persistence.

Unlike Home Depot, Fidelity, GM, and McDonalds, you don’t have a billion dollar ad budget. You can’t afford to settle with “getting your name out there.” You must be careful with your marketing dollars.

You don’t have enough time or money to play the brand name recognition game with your competitors such as GEICO or Lowe’s.

You will lose…and it will cost you thousands of dollars in ad costs, not to mention lost sales.

Your marketing must be surgical, laser-like precise

And you must know to-the-penny, what it costs to bring in a client.

You must know with precision the lifetime value of the clients.

You must have systems in place to track and measure all your marketing.

And here’s a little side bonus benefit from tracking and knowing your numbers

You’ll find that what you measure automatically improves. Whatever you stop measuring automatically decays and gets worse.

So you see, you DO want to maximize the power of your advertising dollars, get the most bang for your buck, figure out where to spend your time, money, and energy, investing in and finding out what works, and doesn’t work.

Now, if you don’t mind blindly spending money, wasting tons of time, hope and pray that something…anything…works. If you’re a short-term, tactical, pick-only-the-ripe fruit thinker, and you’re simply not interested in building a profitable business that frees your time, then just skip this testing stuff.

This testing and knowing your numbers isn’t complex

However, it does require work, and the guts to change and ditch the wrong stuff that you worked hard to implement, and perhaps spent gobs of money on.

Just for starters… here’s a few key numbers you need to know:

• Your per lead cost from ALL lead generation sources.
• Your cost to land a client
• How much you can afford to spend to get a lead, to get a client
• Your Return On Investment of each and every ingredient in your marketing mix.

Lots of people are afraid to ask these tough questions so they ignore them or pretend that having a vague idea is good enough.

It’s troubling to know that what you’re doing isn’t working and face the fact that you got to do something else. (especially when you’re not quite sure what really will work )

Your clear mandate is that your marketing must be held accountable for concrete, measurable results. The “hope and pray” approach is not going to cut it.

Pinpointing exactly what works…and doesn’t work…and constantly tweaking your marketing systems and processes, will position you for incredible growth. Not doing it, makes your business a crap-shoot.

And here’s the good news…

97% of your competitors don’t test their advertising. 97% have no clue about their numbers.

Imagine your clear advantage over your competition you have in knowing your numbers.

What are YOUR Numbers telling you?

______________________________

Now… Here’s my FREE Special Gift for YOU…

A Special Report/Workbook (Previously sold as an e-book to home improvement and financial services pros for $49) … No Opt-In, No Obligation… Click the link … Boom! You got it!

PLAY TO WIN: The Secret to Building a GREAT Business…

Discover Your Strengths

Steal the Success Secret that Warren Buffet, Tiger, and Oprah practice.

P.S.— Inside Play To Win you’ll find four fun, yet powerful business-changing exercises…

PLUS… Two Revolutionary Resources to help you discover your talents and leverage them as strengths in your business and your life.

___________________________________________

Flickr Photo Credit: James Cridland