The Internet can make or break your brand’s reputation.  So, it’s important to understand what’s being said about you and your business online. Viralheat, which just came out of private beta yesterday, is a spiffy  new tool that makes it affordable and easy to monitor the buzz about your company.

All you have to do is create an account and give Viralheat some keywords or topics to search for. Viralheat searches Twitter and over 200 video-sharing sites for mentions of your keyword, then breaks the data down into attractive, easy-to-read graphs and charts.

I used Viralheat to search for keywords related to usefultools.com and threw in a search for Michael Jackson, just for fun.  Viralheat takes a little bit of time to search, so those of you looking for instant gratification will have to cool your heels. Good things come to those who wait.

Specifically, you get a tally of how many times your product or service has been mentioned on Twitter, along with a breakdown of whether people are saying good things, bad things or neutral things about you. You can also search for your competition to see how you compare. This aspect of Viralheat  is remiscent of Boalt.com’s “Gossip Girl Sentiment Experiment,” which we reviewed in May.

However, Viralheat is much more comprehensive. You can also see, at a glance, which of your posts are being shared the most, as well as which websites are being referenced when people discuss your keyword or topic, as well as a list of videos that have been shared.

Stats are further broken down to track retweets and to show you who is talking the most about you. Plus, you can click on any of the tweets, videos and websites listed for more detail.  Viralheat also offers nightly email updates to help you stay on top of all of this information.

Social media monitoring is not a new concept-Radian6, Sysomos, and ScoutLabs all offer similar services.  According to Leena Rao of TechCrunch, “the differentiating factor for Viralheat is in its price.” I’d have to agree-the competition focuses on larger companies. With plans starting at $9.99 per month, Viralheat works for smaller companies and even individuals, as well as large companies like Coca-Cola.

The user interface is clean and displays a lot of data in an easily digestible format.  If you have an online reputation to protect, Viralheat will be extremely useful for you.

What do you think of Viralheat? Have you used other social media monitoring services, and how does it compare?

Our Rating of Viralheat

Tags: Business

Categories:social