It's so easy to talk, isn't it? Sure, the first year or two of life was a little hairy, but since then we've done a whole bunch of talking, and sometimes that talking is smack-talk. But do you know when people are talking about you, whether it's smack or not? And are you actually listening?

Social monitoring, or listening, is probably one of the most important daily online tasks you should have on your to-do list, but is very often left unattended. However, social monitoring goes way beyond simply keeping tabs on what is being said about you.

Many social monitoring tools have been developed over the years, each with their own specific set of measuring tools (or Key Performance Indicators, aka KPIs) designed to fit the needs of both individuals' and companies' set of measurable outcomes. Knowing what you want to measure, however, is the key to deciding which tool is the right one for you. Here are some of the items of interest you may want to keep track of:

• Share of Voice - How often are you (or your brokerage) being mentioned versus your competition? Are you more prominent in the eyes of your buyers and sellers, or are they?
• Social Viewpoint - Would it be beneficial to monitor how often you are being praised versus being criticized? How about your competition? Social monitoring tools can track and record both positive and negative remarks made online in addition to what those remarks exactly are.
• Engagement - Stay on top of how many tweets, posts, mentions and comments are being made about you or your brokerage, in addition to the bounce rate from your website, clicks on links, time on site and video views/downloads. Learning whether or not you are you gaining more or less engagement would definitely be a plus in my book.
• Size Always Matters - I recently read an article by Gary Vaynerchuk where he said it really doesn't matter if you have 6 or 60,000 followers on Twitter, what matters is who your followers' followers are. I tend to disagree with this statement. The likelihood that you have a major player (or players) in your downline of 20 followers versus your 20,000 followers is highly unlikely. So size really does matter when it comes to the number of followers, fans, friends and subscribers you have. Monitoring the growth of your spheres should definitely be part of your social listening tool.

Other aspects that you'll want to take into consideration when choosing the right social monitoring tool are:

• Single or Multiple Users? - Will you have your admin / marketing team monitoring for you, too? Maybe you have a team where you'll need multiple accounts monitored.
• Monitor, Update or Both? - Do you want a tool that will be strictly a monitoring/listening tool, or would you like something that you can monitor AND make updates to your social accounts, too?
• Report Formats - Will you want to export your outcomes each month? Some tools allow this while others don't.
• Variety of Accounts - You'd like to think that all social monitoring tools are equipped to handle the top social sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn, but you'd be surprised! Make sure your top (most active) sites are included in the tool you choose to use.
• Integration Capabilities - Having the ability to integrate your monitored outcomes with tools such as Salesforce or Google Analytics would be a huge plus – some offer this added feature, too.

Now that you have decided what you want to listen for and which features your social monitoring tool must include, let's look at what the top tools are that are currently available:

1. Spredfast

PRO: This is for the team of all teams. Large brokerages will love this option with its availability of multiple users, ability to both push and pull information, an enormous amount of detailed reporting formats, and the promise of "taking advantage of sophisticated technology across your social ecosystem to get more business bang for your social marketing bucks" makes this a hands-down winner.

CON: At $1,000 – $2,500 per month to start, large brokerages/companies are definitely their target market.

2. Sysomos

PRO: Great for everyday use for everyday kinda agents. This is a much easier system to use than that of Spredfast, it allows for multiple Twitter, Facebook (pages), and Google+ accounts to be integrated and monitored, and you can respond and communicate with your audience as it is happening. The price is more reasonable, too, at $550 per month and up, with a $500 set up fee.

CON: Reporting features are not as robust as they could be, and it only allows up to five users (and an account manager). Currently, there is also no app for this tool available.

3. Sprout Social

PRO: While they only monitor Facebook and Twitter social accounts, they do have a tool called Web Alerts where brokers and companies can monitor non-social profiles, such as blogs, news sites and other content sources. This is a very simple system to use and has the basic features one would want for listening and responding in a timely manner. The cost is very reasonable, starting at $39 per month.

CON: If you are looking for some in-depth analytics or report functions, this isn't the tool for you. Also, if you have more than 10 profiles (including Facebook Pages, for example) you'll want to look elsewhere, too.

There are many other social monitoring tools available (such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud, UberVU, Crimson Hexagon, and ViralHeat) which you can research and see if they are a better fit. Understanding social impact allows you to build and improve your voice; comparing channels and attracting the right audience will grow your business; deepening customer relationships and answering questions on the fly makes you valuable. All this and more can be obtained from using the right monitoring tool.

The question is, which one is right for you?

To view the original article, visit the Tech Savvy Agent blog.