I found a good resource for Reputation Tracking Tools from Andy Beal.

What to track?

• Everything related to your company: variations of company/product names, names of your key employees, all applicable product or service names.

• Information related to your competition: variations of company/product names, names of key employees, all applicable product or service names.

• Information related to your industry: Moreover.com (feeds include retail investor news, clothing industry news, consumer durables news, retail sector news, etc.) as well as applicable trade publications.

How to track?

• If possible, monitor hourly as early action is crucial.

• Create custom RSS feeds based on keyword searches: Feedster.com, Technorati.com, IceRocket.com, Google.com/blogsearch, Blogpulse.com, MSN Spaces, Yahoo! News, Google News, MSN News and PubSub.

• Filter all feeds into one RSS Reader for easy and time-efficient monitoring options include: Newsgator.com, Bloglines.com, Google Reader or Pluck.com.

• Sign up for Google and Yahoo email alerts using your desired keywords (http://alerts.yahoo.com/ and www.google.com/alerts).

• Determine message boards/forums to track: BoardReader.com, ForumFind.com, Big-Boards.com, BoardTracker.com, iVillage, Yahoo Message Boards, MSN Money

• Determine groups to track: Yahoo Groups, AOL Groups, MSN Groups, Google Groups.

• Track changes on web pages via tools such as Copernic Tracker, Website Watcher and WatchThatPage.com. Monitor every page of your competitor’s web site and specific keywords on pages, etc.
o Also, a good tool for tracking posts to user groups, message boards, forums and blog comments.

Helpful Short Cuts:

• Create your own search engine at Rollyo.com. This is a great way to track sites that do not offer RSS feeds for keywords such as Consumerist.com, PlanetFeedback.com, ComplaintCenter.com, Complaints.com, Better Business Bureau and RipOffReport.com.

• Get a feel for stories that are creating “buzz” in the blogosphere via sites like Memeorandum.com and Blogniscient.com.

• Acquire an overview of blogger opinions (both negative and positive) via Opinmind.com, a blog search engine that allows you to type any subject into its search box.

• Learn about a specific blog’s traffic, credibility and popularity via PubSub.com, Alexa.com and IceRocket.com.

• Research backgrounds of bloggers, owners of forums and web site editors via domain name search tools such as Whois.sc and BetterWhois.com.

Overall Consumer Generated Media (CGM) Tips

• Investigate facts internally before taking action - could this be a competitor spreading rumor?
• Always take the high ground
• Be honest!
• Explain what you have done to rectify any issue
• Offer to resolve any complaints personally – have a senior-level staff member make the offer – try to continue discussion offline
• Rally friends, clients, peers and utilize your allies
• Don’t create new “personas” to support your position in blogs, forums and message boards as you’ll likely be caught

How to conduct outreach to CGM

Forums, user groups and message boards

• Task someone in-house with joining and participating in any applicable forums or user groups.
o When trouble strikes, impact will be reduced if someone from your organization is a regular contributor (has credibility already) and can voice your company’s side of the story.
• Consider sponsoring most influential forums.
o Less likely to see sustained criticism if you are a supporter/sponsor.
• Build alliances/partnerships with most vocal members.

Blogs

• Identify the author of the blog, read their profile.
o Who are they? Who do they work for?
• Read author’s previous work to get a feel for his/her “persona.”
• Understand the threat level – How respected are they? What is their audience reach?

• If a blog post is factually incorrect…
o Ask for removal or retraction and send supporting evidence.
o Offer to keep blogger informed of future news - Google used this on me :-).
o If these outreach methods garner no response from the blog author, consider correcting the post in the comments section. This is a last resort - what you really want is correction/retraction.

• If blog post is true, but negative…
o Send your side of the story.
o Explain how you are addressing the situation.
o Add comment to post.
o Indicate your willingness to receive any email questions – take it offline.

Balancing Negative CGM

• If it’s true…
o Don’t ignore or hide
o Participate in the discussion and be honest
o Add response to your web site
o Issue statement addressing what has been done
o Engage crisis communication expert with CGM experience

• If it’s not true…
o Politely request blog, forum, news site owner remove or retract
o Consult a lawyer
o Contact other blog and forum owners with correct information
o Ask them to consider publishing your response
o Add statement to your website – work with a search engine optimization firm to ensure all content has been optimized and will achieve top search rankings

I posted most of the article here as I want to remember it.