Setup HootSuite
While Google Alerts is a free tool you can use both for personal purposes and for
business purposes, for free, Hootsuite is a much more powerful social media
management platform.
It will allow you not only to listen to what people are saying online about your brand but also assign conversations, respond directly from a single platform, as well as publish and get social media analytics.
In Hootsuite, you will create a dashboard of “streams”—these are updated in real time
with your social mentions.
3. Click “Add Social Network”.
4. Connect the social network of your choice, following the steps on screen. You will
6. Click on “Search” to Search for a custom term you want to add in your stream.
a. Brand Name + Industry/Category
8. Once you have entered your search term, click on “Add Stream”. Repeat the
To set up your Hootsuite, follow these steps:
1. Go to Hootsuite and sign up for an account. You can start with a free plan, or pick
a free trial of one of their paid plans.
2. Once you have your account set up, log in and go to “Dashboard” (green button
in the upper right hand side of the screen).
3. Click “Add Social Network”.
4. Connect the social network of your choice, following the steps on screen. You will
likely be directed to a login page for each social network, where you will need to
log in with your company’s credentials.
Repeat this with all the social networks you want to monitor
5. Next, we’ll start creating “streams” to monitor. Select the social network you want
5. Next, we’ll start creating “streams” to monitor. Select the social network you want
to add a stream for (in our example, Twitter)
6. Click on “Search” to Search for a custom term you want to add in your stream.
7. We recommend you get started with one stream for each of the following terms:
a. Brand Name + Industry/Category
b. Brand Name + Common complaint
c. Brand Name + Review
d. Brand Name
e. Founder/CEO name
f. Product Name
g. Competitor Names
8. Once you have entered your search term, click on “Add Stream”. Repeat the
process with all the search queries listed above.