Top Tools on the Internet

There are a growing abundance of tools on the internet these days, and everyone needs a little direction about choosing the best ones for them.  Here at The Hayzlett Group, there are some tools that I think are especially important.

I think that listening is so important so “listening tools” is first on the list.  As most of you know, I put in one of the first “Chief Listening Officers (CLO)” ever in a big corporation.  In a smaller business like mine, YOU are the CLO – as well as the person that is responding to the blogs and writing to the customers and everything else in between.  I want to look at tools that allow me to listen both in volume, and also in sentiment.  (Sentiment meaning the positives and negatives in measuring what you are listening to).  One company providing great tools for this is PeopleBrowsr.  We use PeopleBrowsr as an acquisition tool for volume and sentiment – to look at getting more people involved.  Not just listening, but getting the volume to grow your business as well.  In terms of the sentiment, the positive and negatives are measured and charted over time.  Use this to see that you are improving and getting your ROI – which everyone wants to do.

It is also very important to have visual tools – The Hayzlett Group uses Itracks.   (I happen to be chairman of is company, so I am a bit more partial to it.)  Itracks offers tools that help with research to be able to get things online.  We use a lot of online focus group activity for our clients and also for my work in television and public speaking. These tools give me real-time results.

There are many social media tools that I could not do without.  I mentioned PeopleBrowsr earlier, they have a tool called “Playground” that we use pretty extensively here at The Hayzlett Group.  It replaced my old Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, and some of the others.  “Playground” offers more tools and is very intuitive in being able to manage the information getting out in messages.

You MUST have Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – a tool that most businesses overlook.  Use LinkedIn to capitalize your contact management – what can you do to mine your data and better utilize your contacts?

Speaking of contacts, you better make sure you’re backing everything up. Phone, tablet, PC, photos, contacts, text messages, important files–CyberSynchs does it all. The Hayzlett group uses CyberSynchs to back up all our data. And the best part? When my daughter loses her phone or her tablet (which happens more than you can imagine) she can remote wipe the phone, removing all the information so no one else has access. And when she buys a new one, she simply uploads it all with a couple clicks.

If you’re a parent, the bonus to their site are parental controls and GPS locators. Anyone with pre-teens or teenagers can use the application’s algorithms to monitor key words for sexting, cyber-bullying and drugs–across all their electronic devices. Our kids are everywhere on the Internet these days, this tool helps reassure parents and keep them informed.

Not only are our kids everywhere on the Internet, but videos are too. Video content is exploding. So don’t ignore this important tool for your company.

Video and blogs – “vlogs” – are very important, or blogs with video.   The Internet is so free and open and it is important to be able to express without filtering.

The last great tool for your future is for your brand – Top Level Domains.  Look at owning your own name or category and getting it out there.

These are just a few of the tools that my team at The Haylett Group uses both internally and for clients.   When searching for tools think about what will be used in the future.  Look at tools that link to mobile and video and keep an eye on anything that uses social media.

Below are links to companies and their products for you to check out and hopefully use.  We are also happy to put you in contact with any of these companies.

Itracks – www.itracks.com

PeopleBrowsr – www.peoplebrowsr.com

CyberSynchs – www.cybersynchs.com