It’s nice to know what people think about you, even if sometimes it’s not as glowing as you’d hope. For businesses this can be even more important, since it can mean the difference between a successful marketing program and one that’s heading to dirt town. There’s no shortage of tools to help businesses track their brand online, but many of them are very complicated and cumbersome to use.

Mention is an online service and free software combination which offers a very easy to use system for big and small companies to track what people are saying about them on the web, in forums and in social networks and news outlets.

The program is compatible with Linux, Windows and Mac and once downloaded and installed you get to sign up for a free account, which gives you up to 3 alerts (i.e. keywords you can set) and 500 mentions a month, which is more than enough for most small firms. You can enter in any kind of keyword you like (even those of your competitors) and the program will then scan the Internet for any mention of the word or phrase.

It’s fast and it works well. We particularly like the fact that you can store ‘mentions’ that you like as Favorites, and maybe use them later as testimonials or constructive criticism. You can also share the tracking chore with other users, which means you can have your friends, family and business colleagues keep track as well, so as to spread the load.

Unlike more complex services, there’s nothing much more to Mention than tracking and storing, so the interface is easy to get to grips with, and there’s no confusing options lurking to intimidate the unwary user. For that reason, we think it’s perfect for those who are a little shy about all this social media hype, but who would like to see how it can benefit them in action. Take a look, it’s definitely worth a download.