Monitoring is time-consuming, yet very useful for your business. That's why many monitoring tools have emerged to help you automate it.
By regularly analyzing your market trends, competitors' actions, or what's being said about your brand, you can constantly adapt your offerings. You also gain a steady source of inspiration for your own communications.
But how do you save time and sort faster through the mass of information published online? These 10 monitoring tools help you automate your web surveillance very easily.
The tools in this article were selected by our team and are not sponsored. Discover how to sponsor your tool.
1. Google Alerts: best free monitoring tool
The best-known monitoring tool is called Google Alerts. Completely free, it lets you create an alert for keywords or phrases.
You can then receive results by email (at a frequency you choose) or as an RSS feed. The second option is useful if you use a feed aggregator like Netvibes or Feedly.
Organize your monitoring Setting up Google Alerts takes just a few minutes and lets you receive emails at regular intervals to monitor competitors, identify trends, or see what’s being said about your company on the web or other sites.
2. IFTTT: free monitoring solution
Also free, IFTTT allows you to automate part of your monitoring. This tool is based on programming micro-applications that perform actions automatically. That may sound complicated, but rest assured, it’s very simple!
The acronym IFTTT stands for: IF This Then That. In other words: if a certain thing happens, a certain action must be performed.
For example, imagine you want to collect tweets that mention your brand. You could automate the task by asking the tool to send you a DM, populate a Google Sheet, or email you as soon as someone posts a tweet containing your brand.
You can also perform the same action from an RSS feed and therefore combine the tool with Google Alerts.
3. Zapier: automated monitoring tool
Let's continue with the free tools with Zapier. It is based on exactly the same principle as IFTTT, except that it is older and therefore more developed. You have many more apps available to automate your monitoring and other daily tasks.
The tool also offers more complete workflows, because there can be multiple automation conditions (whereas IFTTT only allows one).
However, all these additional features make Zapier harder to pick up. You should therefore ask yourself whether you really need such a complex tool for your monitoring.
4. GigaAlert
The monitoring tool GigaAlert is a useful complement to Google Alerts. It works similarly to the tool offered by the American giant. You also have the option to set words or phrases and adjust the email sending frequency. In addition, you can exclude sources that don't seem relevant. This way you receive better results.
However, the main difference between this tool and Google Alerts lies in the search engine used: GigaAlert relies on Yahoo to surface results. The advantage is diversifying the results obtained and therefore having more comprehensive monitoring.
5. Alerti
Among all the tools presented, Alerti is the most comprehensive. As such, it comes at a cost. Nevertheless, the price is very affordable, since it starts at €15 per month for 1 alert.
Its main advantage, compared with competitors, concerns the sources of information. Alerti does not limit itself to scanning Google results; it also brings in tweets, Instagram photos and videos, public Facebook posts, YouTube videos, forum posts, etc.
You then miss no update on the keyword or expression you are monitoring.
6. X / Twitter
X / Twitter is an essential social network for seeing and being seen, but it is also a very comprehensive monitoring tool that will help you gauge your brand's momentum. Of course, you can also use it if you are interested in a particular industry, company, or network of influencers.
As the leader in microblogging, X processes an impressive amount of information thanks to the threads that flood the platform. Fortunately, there are several easy-to-implement solutions for setting up alerts.
You can, for example, specify topics that interest you with keywords preceded by the well-known hashtag. You will get a list of the most recent activity, organized by media type. Following accounts is also a simple and effective way to get real-time information, provided you select reliable sources.
To save time, download a free app designed to exploit the data compiled without X / Twitter. There are many easy-to-configure tools available. TwilertFor example, integrates an advanced algorithm capable of sorting and analyzing posts, then sending you a summary by email. All of this from a simple list of keywords!
7. Flipboard
Thanks to collaboration with numerous media and outlets, Flipboard allows its users to define target themes and receive news related to the desired frequency.
Although it can be used like a simple newspaper you might buy every day, Flipboard has other advantages. Acting as a genuine information tool, Flipboard relays all the latest news from multiple feeds to provide the most accurate information immediately. One of Flipboard's advantages is its interaction with social networks and video platforms like YouTube. The built-in sharing features save valuable time.
Fully customizable, Flipboard shows you what you want to follow, but also the content you should follow. You can even enrich the platform by publishing articles from your account for other users. Completely free, you only need to create an account and define your interests and the topics you want to follow.
8. Feedly
Feedly is a RSS feed aggregator compatible with all browsers and devices. It was created in 2008. Favored by over 15 million internet users, it is one of the most used curation tools in the world. Its goal is to gather and organize all the feeds saved by the user. Content updates are automatically sent by email or via notifications.
This monitoring tool is intended for those who want to control their content sources. Its approach is therefore not thematic: it is primarily the chosen sources that determine the displayed content. Feedly is particularly suited for certain activities, such as targeted sector monitoring, competitive benchmarking or monitoring of theonline reputation of a company or a brand.
Although Feedly is a "raw" aggregator, it stands out with a clear and intuitive interface. The user can organize content by category and select several display types:
- List mode displays only the article titles (sometimes truncated). It's ideal for getting an overview.
- The thumbnail mode highlights the main image associated with a piece of content.
- The article mode allows more content to be displayed (lede and first paragraph).
Feedly has useful sharing features. It is compatible with major social networks.
9. Netvibes
Pioneer of the personal dashboard, Netvibes is a monitoring tool that allows you to follow multiple information sources simultaneously. Created in 2005 before being acquired in 2012 by Dassault Systèmes, it has improved over the years to integrate social networks and keep up with technological developments. It is based on the concept of the personal dashboard, a tool developed to visualize the news related to a given topic with a single click.
Of course, the user can combine multiple dashboards according to the topics being monitored and switch from one window to another very easily. Creating sub-tabs allows for even more specific search themes to be refined.
Note that there is a paid version of Netvibes that offers additional features, such as powerful search filters and even faster feed updates. However, the free version is more than sufficient for personal or recreational use.
10. Quora
Operating on the same model as Flipboard, Quora is "a place designed to learn and share knowledge." Collecting users' articles, the platform allows you to acquire and access a wealth of information on wide and varied topics.
Its advantage? It also borrows some of Feedly’s functionality thanks to its contributor-following feature. Indeed, as soon as you like a piece of content, you can follow the author and thus build a database of qualified authors who provide the information you’re looking for.
Its added value? Paying its contributors. Contrary to big companies like Twitter, Quora has implemented a compensation system for qualified contributors selected by the platform, based on the revenue generated by their articles through advertising. A portion of the ad revenue generated by their questions is reserved for them to reward their contributions.
How to get the most out of monitoring tools?
Monitoring tools are very convenient for getting informed in a few clicks, spotting topics relevant to your activity, and monitoring your online reputation. To avoid pitfalls, be sure to configure each tool according to your actual needs.
If you simply want to stay informed about news in your industry, there’s no need to clutter yourself with multiple alert systems that could generate daily notifications.
Try to choose relevant and precise keywords when setting up alerts. Also be wary of overly generic terms and synonyms. If not, you may receive information that doesn’t match your expectations.
Finally, don’t accumulate more than 2 or 3 complementary monitoring tools, otherwise you risk receiving the same activity multiple times.
Our tip for automating your monitoring
With these 10 monitoring and analysis tools, you regularly take the market’s temperature while conducting daily competitive analysis.
No post about your company will escape you! No article from your competitors will be published without you being informed. This way you’re sure not to miss any important publication.
If you want to save time on your daily monitoring, post an ad on Codeur.com, to find a freelancer ready to help you!
