Marketing Pilgrim

A good sign that online reputation monitoring is maturing as an industry is the publication of Econsultancy’s Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer’s Guide 2008.

The only other guide (I had seen) is published by Social Target, so a second comprehensive guide is a sure sign that there’s a growing demand for services that help you monitor social and mainstream media.

Like most guides, Econsultancy’s doesn’t come cheap at $255, but then again you do get 142 pages covering 16 different vendors–including my own Trackur.com.

Trends in this sector, covered in this report, include:

• Proliferation of content and social media means technology holds the key to online brand monitoring.
• Free tools become more widely available but vendors seek to add value to technology through human interpretation.
• Companies seek to harness power of social media to improve products, services and perceptions of brand.
• Importance of measurement and push for industry standards.

The 16 suppliers profiled are:

Asomo, Attentio, Brandwatch, CyberAlert, Cymfony, FindAgent, iCrossing, Market Sentinel, Nielsen Online, Onalytica, Radian6, RepuMetrix, Reputica, StrategyEye, Techrigy, Trackur.

You can buy the full report here or download a sample for free!