It’s that time again – time for a “One Thing I Can’t Live Without” installment. This time, we’re bringing you answers from one of our speakers at the upcoming eTail West conference. Her name is Lisa Grimm and she is the Digital Brand Manager for Mall of America.

With more than 400 stores and a whole host of attractions from an aquarium to Nickolodeon Universe complete with roller-coaster, this mall is not your average collection of shops, and naturally has a good reason to attract a social media following. Lisa monitors how the brand is being talked about online and makes sure to keep the brand images where it should be. That’s why her “One Thing I Can’t Live Without” has to do with managing the online community surrounding the brand. Take it away Lisa…

Lisa Grimm

1. As an online marketer and retailer, what’s something you can’t live without? And we don’t mean coffee. We mean anything from a technology tool to a partner to a cool trick you do on Excel to a coworker.

This question is just as bad as asking me what my favorite movie is; practically impossible to answer. Since part of my eTail presentation focuses on community management, I’ll choose Boxcar as my tool I cannot live without.

2. Can you explain what this is – if necessary?

Boxcar is a nifty notification and search query app for iOS. Knowing what is being said about your brand at all times is crucial these days, and Boxcar is an amazing solution for the community manager on-the-go. Through the app, you’re able to enter which Twitter accounts (and several other social sites and RSS) you’d like to receive notifications for. This differs from the many other Twitter apps available because it allows the ability to query information. In Mall of America’s case, we want to know when people mention “Mall of America or “MOA” and other popular brand phrases in order to keep a pulse on brand sentiment and how people are experiencing the Mall.

3. Why can you NOT live without this?

Reputation management and our online communities are very important to us at Mall of America®. MOA™ sees 42 million annual visitors, so there is a lot for us to glean from monitoring conversations that are happening in real-time.

4. How often do you use it and how long have you been using it?

I’ve been using it since 2009 and I use it every day.

5. If lightning struck tomorrow and you suddenly didn’t have this one thing, what would you do to improvise?

I’d rely on our SCRM (social customer relationship management) platform, which is great, but nothing is as fast and easy-to-use as Boxcar when you’re mobile.

6. How can other people get this too?

Go to the app store on any Apple product and download the app. There is a desktop version of the app, but I don’t use it.

BONUS: And what’s the non-work related thing you can’t do your job without? This is where the coffee, or anything else comes in…

Chad and Hank – my husband and dog.