If you own or run a small local business or a franchise such as a restaurant or shop, you probably care about your reputation. Word-of-mouth marketing it nothing new: People are social, and tend to share their experiences. But with new tools such as FourSquare, Instagram, and Facebook, people don't just share: They broadcast, and you should be listening. VenueSeen (plans start at $20/month; 14-day free trial) lets you listen to what people say about your business and look at the photos they share.

When you click an individual photo in VenueSeen, it opens in a lightbox showing a larger version of the photo, the comment that was posted with it, and comments other users made about the image. You can also see who posted the photo, and if you click that user's thumbnail, you get to the person's profile page on Instagram or whatever service they used. The lightbox also lets you tweet that photo, share it on Facebook, or pin it on Pinterest. This is brilliant, because it means you can take genuine moments your clients captured, and then broadcast them to show what your business is like.

Apart from photos, VenueSeen also lets you look at tips and reviews. When I tested the service in a pre-launch sneak peek, it only pulled in text updates from Foursquare. Text reviews can be more important than photos, especially for finding out about disappointed customers and things to improve. That's why I was surprised to discover there is no way to reach the users who posted the reviews: Clicking their username or thumbnail does nothing. This can be frustrating, especially when you stumble on a negative review and want to reach out to the customer and make amends. (On the other hand, "Is Yelp Fair to Businesses?" tells a cautionary tale about customer contact gone awry.--Ed.)

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use this Web-based software.

--Erez Zukerman