High-Five!

Five new tools to track conversations online.

Caption: Katy the Kitten demonstrates how painful it is to be left hanging by your co-workers.

Happy Monday BoostStrappers!

Have a good weekend?  Awesome. 

We, at eBoost Consulting, are huge advocates of the "high-five!" (note the deliberate use of the all-too-under-utilized exclamation mark, denoting excitement and vigor).  We lament how it's fallen out of favor in today's efficiency-minded society, replaced by customary emoticons sent via IM.  And when I say, "we", I really mean me since this is something I was thinking about since I was left hanging by Early B last week as I held out my hand for a high-five.  Boy, this younger generation sure grew up different than I...

You feel me.  I know you do. 

Where was I going with this?  Oh yeah.  I do, in fact, have five super powerful ways to connect with your customers.  Consider this my digital version of a "high-five!" to you. 

*slap*

1. Trendpedia.  Identifies and graphs trends in social media.  This helps when setting your online PR plan and outlining your respective news curve if/when creating buzz.  Currently in beta but fairly powerful already.  Another good idea is to post your trendlines on social technology sites such as Delicious, Digg, Twitter or Facebook. 

2. Pipes (Blog Mentions).  From Yahoo! (another brazen company that isn't afraid of the exclamation mark), it tracks blog mentions from places such as Google, Technorati, and Icerocket. 

3. Pipes (Social Media Firehose).  Yep, also from  Yahoo!  Think Google Alerts on steroids.  Grabs mentions from Flickr, Twitter, Friendfeed, Digg, et al.  SUPER powerful. 

4. Alltop.  What else do you expect from Guy Kawasaki?  Nothing but the best.  Alltop aggregates the top blog posts about topics from around the world.  In a time when we have information overload, Alltop clears the noise and filters the information for us.  Excellent resource. 

5. Summize.  Search engine for Twitter.  A simple value proposition that provides a lot of value.

So there you have it folks.  Five tools to track conversations about you on the web.  Getting in the ear of your customers and peers is one of the single best ways to improve your business.  Listening is important. 

You feel me.  I know you do. 

High-five! 

-johnny