Maintaining your online image

With social networking becoming more and more popular and not just with the teens and tweens, don't be surprised if your professional network start conversing with you about your latest Facebook post or Tweet.  I was at a Women In Leadership monthly luncheon when one of the ladies at my table asked me how I got involved in Building Steam, which is a local running program.  I was completely surprised by the question, and I knew she could tell by the expression on my face. She said "I am following you".  I had to laugh because I didn't realize anyone of my professional network connections were truly following me.  It ended up a great connecting point with some of the new individuals at the table and lead into some great business conversations. 

So back to my point, with your professional network starting to follow you or your company online, how do you monitor your online image?  We all know bad news spreads faster than good, and it's hard enough to control it when it's word of mouth, but when it is a tweet that is showing up on everyone's Twitter that are following them, things can get out of control fast. 

So here are some tools are online monitoring or spying:

• www.backtype.com - sends alerts when a comment is made that includes your company name or brand
• www.blogpulse.com - searches blogs for mentions of your company
• www.boardreader.com - searches message boards, forums, videos, and Twitter
• www.google.com/alerts - sends you alerts when your company or brand appears on the Web, blogs, news, video, or discussion groups
• www.icerocket.com - searches blogs, news, Web, MySpace, Twitter, images
• www.search.twitter.com - searches for mentions of your brand or company on Twitter
• www.tweetdeck.com - among other things it can monitor mentions on Twitter
• www.technorati.com - searches blogs, photos, and videos

If you don't think your competitors are not using these tools, think again.  When I tweet'd "going kayaking and reading a book - is there anything better to do tonight?", I had three "following" requests from sporting good stores and two from other individuals.  When I tweet'd "heading to Wine & Book Club - I just finished the book! Yes!", I had two "following" requests from wine companies/providers.  Companies are using these types of tools to find their customer base or to expand their customer base.  You might want to search for people tweeting about "homes", "commercial space", whatever your specialty is to find out the online pulse of what is out there.  Some of these applications/tools also let you restrict the search to a specific demographic area.  They are very powerful and constantly evolving.