Your company’s online presence is a huge opportunity to grow your business.

Unfortunately, it’s also an excellent opportunity rob you blind . . . of your time if you aren’t careful.  BUT . . .

Here are five (5) ‘basic’ options that will:

1.  build your online presence, and

2.  require very little time to maintain

Create a Google Alert for key brand, industry, client and competitive terms
You can create an ‘alert’ on Google for any phrase, name, competitor, client, etc. to stay current about their online mentions and activities.  I’m often surprised to learn what a client (or, competitor) is doing.  Often the only way I’d learn what they’re doing is when a Google Alert tells me about them!

Create Twitter lists of your clients, competitors and key media contacts.
Lists on Twitter are a great way to create highly targeted groups of key people for you and your business.  If a message is more relevant to some than others, have a list of those who are most likely to enjoy it.  At the same time, lists that segment your contacts can help you ‘tune in’ to what your clients, competitors, peers are saying.  Very helpful!

Create a Google Reader account and follow 25 ‘Top Dog’ blogs in your industry
People are talking, aren’t they?  But it’s hard to keep up, right?  Wrong.  So go to Google, create a Reader account and ‘subscribe’ to some great minds offering the best and brightest ideas for your industry.  A quick scan of recent posts will make you a ‘sparkling conversationalist’ at your next meeting with clients.

Use social media settings in your CRM and add Rapportive to your email
Wouldn’t you love a personal assistant who can whisper in your ear everything someone you know has been doing online?  Rapportive is a great plug-in / add-on that will do that for you.  It saves you time and makes you wise.  How cool is that?

Monitor mentions using tools such as TweetDeck, HootSuite or SproutSocial 
These are called ‘Listening Posts’ for a (very) good reason.  They search out ‘mentions’ of you, your firm, your competitors, trends you’re watching, etc. and ‘deliver’ them to you.  Again, these serve to keep you ‘in-the-know’ about what’s important to you and, once you set them up, they work 24/7 for you.  Cool, huh?

KEY POINT:
Creating your total online presence begins by LISTENING . . . but it doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming to do it if you use technology wisely!