We are very proud to present to you our latest BrandMentions updates. From Slack integration to RSS feed notifications, from Webhook real-time alerts to an improved notification management system, and many other features this juicy update has it all.
Plead guilty! We love self-improvement, and we're very keen on carefully listen to our users'needs, ideas, feedback, experiences. Not a week goes by without working on BrandMentions app improvements. And here is what we've been working on lately:
Slack Integration
Slack is where work flows. It's where the people you need, the information you share, and the tools you use come together to get things done. Slack is one of those apps that you keep it floating on your desktop all day, everyday. And we know you like getting productive just as much as we do. So we've recently integrated Slack within our app.
Slack is now integrated with BrandMentions. You can receive mentions data straight on your Slack channel.
Integrating Slack is super easy, and it's literally just a few clicks away. You can find the exact steps to do so within the BrandMentions documentation.
Once you connect Slack within the app, you'll get real-time notifications in any Slack channel. Here are some advantages of the integrating Slack within BrandMentions:
- It's an easy way to share content with the rest of your team.
- You can customize and filter the notifications so that, for example, you’re only getting Slack messages for negative mentions or coming from important influencers.
- You won’t need to check your BrandMentions dashboard as often
- Stay connected 24/7 with whatever you are monitoring
- You decide if you want a weekly "digest" notifications, daily or instant updates.
Customized RSS Feeds
With so much new content on the web being added daily, it can be tough to keep up with what’s happening online. And here's where BrandMentions steps in. Yet, we know that are some of you who prefer one solution that sometimes gets overlooked (and it's quite an old school one): The RSS feed.
Within BrandMentions you can create fully personalized RSS Feed alerts.
For those of you who don't know what an RSS feed is, you need to know that it's a standardized system to distribute content from online publishers to internet users. It’s a technology that has influenced many modern internet tools you’re familiar with.
Here are just some of the reasons you should integrate RSS feed within your BrandMentions account:
- You can follow updates easily
- Get an overview of the latest mentions, from the last week or the last 24 hours
- Have an overview of all mentions or only very specific segments, just as you need
- Get mentions data from all online media outlets in one centralized location
As we hope you're used to already, we try to make things as easy as possible for you when it comes to user experience. And RSS feed set up makes no exception.
With just a few clicks, you select the data range for your RSS feed (the last 24 hours or last week), the segment of the mentions you want to get data for (all mentions or maybe a very specific section of them), and that's it. Your RSS feed URL is ready to be embedded.
Real-time Notifications via Webhook
Webhooks are automated messages sent from BrandMentions to other apps when something happens. They're a simple way your online accounts can "speak" to each other and get notified automatically when something new happens. If you want, Webhooks are much like SMS notifications.
BrandMentions allow you to configure a webhook to send alert notifications to a remote web server.
Everything about how to set up Webhook and all the other technical details can be found within BrandMentions documentation.
We admit it, Webhook is a bit of a technical subject, yet let's try to understand it:
Picture a doorbell system – with a button near the door, and a bell in your living room. When a visitor pushes the button, you hear the doorbell ring, which tells you that someone is at the door – meaning, a signal is sent from the button to the doorbell.
Webhooks work on the same concept. The entrance door is a third-party app/site (webhook provider), which sends a signal when a specified event occurs. And the bell in your living room is what is called the “listener” in the software world. The listener is the URL thath receives the webhooks and performs a predefined action after that.
Pretty cool, right? That's what we thought, and that's why we worked a lot to make this integration possible. Remember that you can fully customize:
- the segment of the mentions you want to receive data for (maybe you want to receive data only for the positive mentions or only for the ones from a specific source)
- the trigger (you choose if you want to receive your mention data daily, weekly, monthly or instant, on the time zone that fits you best).
Better Alerts Management
Smart Alerts by BrandMentions are probably the best and most efficient way to monitor any brand, anywhere online. But this doesn't mean that there is no room for improvement.
Fully personalized alerts, for every need, straight to your Inbox, Slack channel, RSS Feed, or using Webhook.
We've just improved alerts bigtime. You now get to chose the segment of the mentions you want to receive mentions for, the frequency you want to get the mentions alerts, but also the channel you want to get the mentions on. That's right, from now on, you can create alerts notifications via:
- Slack
- RSS Feed
- Webhook
For each project, you can create several alerts according to your monitoring needs. You can get as granular as you want, and you can choose the channels you want to receive mentions on depending on what apps you use more.
You can create a weekly email alert with all mentions, a daily Slack alert for negative mentions only, and an RSS feed for the last 24 hours.
Of course, you can edit, pause, delete, and create new alerts notifications anytime you feel like. You're the one holding the reins.
We hope you'll enjoy the new improvements and you'll use them to the fullest.
For those of you who don't have a BrandMentions account yet, feel free to open one in a few seconds to check out all the goodies.
For those of you who already have an account and want to share their ideas or make improvements suggestions, check out BrandMentions' feedback page.
