Tracking your firm and clients through blogs

Christine Blank, a contributing editor at Direct Marketing News, wrote a nice article about the importance of monitoring blogs and RSS feeds from blog aggregators/search engines.

Searching products and trends on blogs rather than on search engines also helps marketers be more forward-thinking. Keyword searches bring up all the past information on the term, while blogs cover current and future trends, Beal said. (Anthony Beal of search marketing firm Fortune Interactive LLC) Also, marketers need to track what people are saying about their companies on blogs, whether it’s praise or criticism. …..

Though many marketers may not track blogs, Beal said that it is simple and less time consuming than people think. It also is an inexpensive form of research for smaller companies.

‘It’s the first time small companies can engage in market research without having to shell out money to a third-party firm to do that,’ he said.

Beal said the easiest way to start tracking trends on blogs is to visit a blog search engine such as Technorati or Bloglines. Type in the word or phrase related to your company or its products and services. Sort the results by relevance or date so you can see the most recent and important information that has been said about your company or services. Choose to be notified via RSS feed whenever new information on the product or service appears on blogs.

It’s amazing that law firms fail to monitor their lawyers and their clients in Internet discussions. Doing so would provide a quick competitive edge.