From Google blog search, to SocialMention to Twitter search to backtype; if you’re trying to monitor your brand mentions in the social space with or without the aide of professional tools, you’re quickly buried under a tabvalanche.

Tabvalanche (tab•va•lanche) n.
Being buried under so many open tabs that it slows your Web browser and computer to a crawl.

To avoid the Tabvalanche, I recommend Netvibes as a way to make your own social media dashboard. Netvibes is one of a handful of customizable Web-based start pages that use widgets. In a space with Pageflakes, iGoogle, and MyYahoo, I find Netvibes the easiest to use.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Sign up for a Netvibes account
2. Click the big green “Add content” button in the upper left of the screen
3. In the subnavigation click “Essential widgets.”
4. On the lower right-hand side of boxes that appear, you’ll see a button called “Web page.”
5. Enter your search page results URL in the text-entry box that appears (not the original URL, so instead of “http://search.twitter.com” you paste “http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Hong+Kong+Phooey”).

Many results pages, like the example above, also offer the RSS version of the search results. In this case, you’ll want to substitute clicking the “Add a feed” button for step two. Then rinse and repeat for all the services available to search out your brand mentions. Your computer and productivity will thank you. I have to say, this isn’t an original idea by me. Sadly, I can’t remember where I read this technique originally to attribute it, but it’s quite useful.

Speaking of thanks… this post comes to you courtesy of John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing. I left this idea as a comment to his post on Listening in a Digital Age for his readers, really as a refresher – thinking that many people already knew about this. So you can imagine how surprised and flattered I was that he spun it off into its own post: The One Page Social Media Dashboard. So here I am reposting it for you.

Are you using methods like this to track your social media footprint? Add a coment below with your thoughts, or continue the conversation @mleis.

Of course, if you’d like help creating a social media program that drives results for your brand, I’d be more than happy to help.

Update 4/7/09: Thanks to Simon Andrews, who reminded me on Twitter this morning to add Addict-o-matic. It’s specifically a search dashboard presenting results in widget-form from as many as 25 various sources. The easiest option of them all!

Related posts:

1. Why smart spends in downturn focus on social media
2. The Brand Cause: Focusing Social Media Strategy
3. Five things I’ve learned about Social Media, StumbleUpon style
4. The Three Colorful Circles of Social Media Strategy