There are a lot of great tools being suggested in the comments section of our recent Twitter tool post – but one that I’ve been checking out today is Monitter.
Monitter is a tracking tool for Twitter that enables you to enter multiple keywords that you want to monitor and then to watch any tweets that mention these words in real time.
Here’s how it looks with four words that I just plugged in (click to enlarge):
Potential Uses for Monitter
While there are other tools around that track keywords there is a lot to like about Monitter and I could see it being useful for many applications such as:
Vanity watching – you can see that two of the words that I’ve entered are ‘problogger’ and ‘twitip’ – words that are associated with my brand. Watching words like these are important if you’re interested in monitoring what people are saying about you and your business, brand, products etc.
Networking – interested in networking with people talking about a topic that you’re interested in? Enter a keyword associated with that topic and watch who is using the word. It might take you a while to find the right word (for example my ‘twitter’ column is updating so fast I can’t keep up.
Business Opportunities – I write a blog about digital cameras and how to use them. When I enter the word ‘digital camera’ I’m immediately tapping into the conversations of thousands of people talking about their cameras. Already in watching those keywords I can see people talking about how their cameras don’t work, asking how to use certain featured etc. A smart business would be using tools like this to interact with those people.
Enlarging Your Twitter Community – I just did a quick experiment and added the words “first tweet’ to a column. Within seconds I saw 10 people leaving their first ever Twitter entries. All it took was me to reply to them with a ‘welcome to Twitter’ and to follow them and I had three new friends.
I’m certain that there are many other ways of using a keyword monitoring tool like Monitter – I’d like to hear how you use them (and what other tools you use).
Monitter Features
- Monitter by Location – in the top left corner you can add a location and specify a distance from that location that you want to monitor tweets from.
- Language – in the bottom left corner you can switch to a number of languages
- Add Keywords – in the bottom right corner you can add or subtract columns to monitor.
- RSS – want to monitor keywords via RSS instead of on the Monitter website – no problem – once you’ve added a keyword you’re given an RSS feed for that word.
- Widgets for Your Website – want to show your blog or website reader what people are tweeting about a keyword? There’s a widget tool that enables you to add real time monitoring of keywords to your site.
- Advanced Search - you can search for @problogger to find references to a twitter user, “enclose your search in quotes” for exact phrases, search for one term OR another, search for terms mentioned with links and more (see the ‘help’ link in the right hand navigation area.
One thing that I’d like to see added to Monitter would be the ability to reply somehow from within the page. At the moment when you hit reply you’re taken to Twitter to reply.
Overall I think this could be a useful tool. I won’t use it all the time but I think it’d be particularly useful during a conference or when lauching a project.
Interested to hear what others think of Monitter and how you’d use it.
I am trying to see if it is suitable for me.
Monitter is very cool. I discovered it myself the other day. I love how you can watch the results come in in real time.
nice post Dareen. This is nice tool for twitter.
Darren:
I have found Monitter to be a very useful tool, TweetDeck for me brings together the best of Monitter and Twirl into a single interface with keyword monitoring and most of the post/reply functions of other Twitter communications tools. Monittor has one big advantage in that it is a cloud tool and accessible from any internet ready computer.
Thanks for your review.
John Easton
http://www.customerflypaper.com/about
Monitter looks fantastic, specifically for brand monitoring/management. Love the fact that it’s real time and tracks more than one keyword (vs. 1 query on Twitter Search). Personally, it’ll help me be more efficient when monitoring specific company keywords.
Great writeup, Darren.
Darren, great site. Way to make a site surrounded by this popular tool! Good idea.
I saw this being use at Blogher DC by some women. I need to start using it for a client I am consulting for. This could really help me. Thanks for the reminder.
I had abandoned Twitter for Plurk but now, you’ve gotten me right back. Thanks for sharing this.
Ooh, great – thanks Darren – during my search via Google I wasn’t able to find this website, and it’s going to be very useful.
I just started doing the same thing except I use Snackr combined with RSS feeds from searches that I do on Twitter search (previously Summize). The advanced search really lets me refine what I monitor. It is actually a lot like TweetDeck except with less features. The downside to Monitter is that it is a “full screen” app like TweetDeck. I like the ticker approach like Snackr because I can monitor Twitter as I ‘work’. I also use Twitterrific.
-Matt
I’ve tried out monittor and it’s pretty cool. I don’t know that I would personally use it regularly, but if I wanted to check out things in an expanded view from time to time, I’d give it a look over. I just think it’s a little unrefined (that might not be the right word) at this point.
I’ve been using Monitter for a few months now and I love it, mostly because it auto-updates which most other Twitter keyword tools do not. I had it loaded up on election night with “Obama”, “McCain” and “America” just so I could get a wide array of what the winners and losers of this election were feeling. I also like to enter my brand names (like you suggested) and my name just so I can see what people are saying about me
I just gave monitter a shot. I like what I see. I would love it if this tool could be integrated with tweetdeck for mac so that I could have everything in one place!
Awesome tool! Now I can easily hook up with other twitter users and follow keywords! Thanks Darren
One thing that I’d like to see added to Monitter would be the ability to reply somehow from within the page. At the moment when you hit reply you’re taken to Twitter to reply.
If you use Flock (and possibly Firefox) as a browser, with the Cool Iris Previews extension, you can move to the Twitter user name on the Monitter blurb and then click to their Twitter page.
For real i think the power twitter have its great, becuase it have a lot of potencial ondiscover, what i thing its that they are still program to invent depending form twitter.
Good post.
You should also check out http://tweetgrid.com/ which does similar twitter real-time search and also has some added features. It allows you to tweet directly from the page and reply to tweets as they come in (which is a feature request you had in your post). You can also save your grids by creating a short URL specifically for your custom grid to save as a book mark or share, or you can tweet a link to your grid for all of your followers to see.
I have just started Twitter.I find it great tool for site/blog promotion.
Dareen thanks for this type of your blog posts because we can learn lot of on your both blogs.
Surender Sharma
Technology Blogger
India
I am again back on TwiTip because I am reading some important& useful tutorials herre.
I use to be the proud “owner” of the Twitter name “election” until one day I woke up to find that Twitter took it from me.
It’s their web site, so they can take any name they want from a user any time they feel like it. I think they should have tried to contact me first, though. At least give me a t-shirt or something!
Personally, I would like to see a solution like blogging where this can’t happen. Perhaps someone could start a similar service BUT sell good names for $10/year. As long as you don’t go really crazy and violate obvious laws your name is yours to keep.
Some type of centralized Twitter type service would be nice… the way it is now you could build up a massive audience and Twitter can then take it making all of your hard work a waste of time.
I found an interesting way to find cool links on Twitter. You can also use it to find out interesting things people are buying, funny YouTube videos, etc.
Use the twitter search service and filter like this: cool filter:links
I put up a more detailed tutorial here:
http://www.businessideadirectory.com/market-research/use-twitter-to-find-money-making-and-business-ideas
Another great tip Darren. A great tool for blog post ideas too. Alex – I agree this would be awesome in Tweetdeck with one panel monitoring a keyword.
It looks to me like TweetDeck does most of these things already, with the added functionality of allowing you to tweet or reply (or send a direct message) without leaving the program. I’ve been using it for a week or so, and I like it better than Twitterific, which is the other stand-alone Twitter client I’ve used.
based on your post, I tried Monitter last night and liked it very much. Lots of applications for my legal practice. Many thanks!
Oh no! Now I’m gonna spend time doing this, too!!
Congratulation on this new venture. I am problogger fan and admire about your work with bloggers around the blogsphere.
Keep in touch
Obrigado
Marcos