Are you monitoring what people are saying about your company and products online? Is anyone even talking about your business?

Without the right tools, it can be a nightmare trying to keep tabs on who’s saying what and where they’re saying it.

And if you can’t see what they’re saying and where they’re saying it, how are you supposed to engage in the conversation which is one of the keys to social media marketing.

So to make your life easier, I’ve highlighted 5 tools below that you should be using in 2012 to monitor your businesses social media presence (or your personal social media presence).

1. Social Mention – A site that offers real-time social media search and analysis. It’s very easy to use and features the most common indicators of social media activity (strength, sentiment, passion and reach).
2. Google alerts – Google alerts allows you to set up search queries for keywords and then will  email/RSS feed you whenever it finds those keywords. Start with keywords that include your company name, products, and your URL.
3. Search.twitter.com – Here you can search for keywords or phrases and view those mentions (up to two weeks) as they occur on Twitter. Once you find relevant keywords you can subscribe via RSS feed.
4. Addict-o-matic – this site creates a custom web page which aggregates the latest buzz on your company or products from a variety of sources including major search engines, YouTube, Flickr etc.
5. BoardReader – this search service scours all the forum and bulletin boards on the web, delivering mentions and comments about your business. And yes, lots of people still use forums – so don’t ignore them.

There’s quite a few others out there, and many premium services that will offer clever analytics and graphical representation of your social media presence.

At the very least , these will cover 80% of whats being said about you and/or your brand online – and they’re free!