Your brand relies on its customers and consumers. One of the quickest ways to lose these consumers and risk the strength of your brand is to ignore social media. Knowing what is being said about you is the first step towards making a change and improving your business. While not all brands will take the jump into participation, all brands need to be monitoring.  Here are 5 places you need to monitor your brand:

1. Forums: Is there a forum about your industry? It’s easy to find out, just do a quick Google search. Find out the biggest ones and search through for your brand.
2. Twitter: Even if you don’t use your account very often, at least set one up so that you can run searches for keywords in your industry and your own brand name.
3. Facebook: You’d be surprised how many “I hate X Company” groups and fan pages there are. Make sure that yours isn’t one of them. Also, you may want to make sure that the employees aren’t taking to the social media sphere to bash your brand either!
4. Search engines: Google Alerts allow you to set up keyword searches for your business name, executives in the company and even long phrases. Make sure you know every time your company is mentioned on the web.
5. Blogs: Just like forums, almost all industries have 5-10 top blogs that cover the products and companies. Make sure you know who they are and what they are saying about you.

What else can you monitor to protect your brand in the online world?