Assessment of Social Monitoring Tools for SMB of the Past

Abstract

The presented article deals with social media monitoring, the challenges linked with measurement of gained value and the relevant factors that affect the process of choosing the right tools for small and medium businesses (SMB) with a limited marketing budget from the point of view of 2012. First, the article discusses the reasons why SMB should monitor social media and summarizes the problems connected with monitoring. Second, the available tools and information sources for monitoring social media are described. Finally, the criteria of acceptance are selected and the set of tools are evaluated. We found that it is possible to find a mix of free social media monitoring tools that can successfully compete with paid tools. Therefore, a small company with a strongly limited budget can achieve satisfactory results without significant budget.