Close to half of the world’s population uses social networks monthly, creating an unprecedented forum for exchanging experiences and opinions—including ones about your product or brand.
Accessing, analyzing and addressing those opinions is absolutely essential to crafting marketing, PR and communications strategies that advance your goals, amplify your message and build your brand.
Which is exactly where social media monitoring comes in.
What is it?
How can it drive smarter decisions that move the needle?
Here’s what you need to know.
What is social media monitoring?
In basic terms, it’s the process of regularly tracking and analyzing online mentions and conversations about your brand, product, industry or competitors across different social media platforms.
What’s the point?
To keep an eye on your online reputation and identify potential issues or engagement opportunities.
How’s it done?
Either manually with tools like Google Alerts or through specialized software that automates the process and provides detailed insights and analytics.
Why is social media monitoring so important?
Social media monitoring uncovers insights vital to the success of your marketing, PR and communications strategies.
It enables you to:
● Monitor your company’s online reputation and address any negative comments or reviews before matters escalate
● Identify customer sentiments and preferences that can be used to inform product development and marketing strategies
● Track emerging industry trends and topics—and stay a step ahead of the competition
● Respond to any customer service issues in real-time—and improve the customer experience
Social media monitoring in action
Social media monitoring has several applications that can help businesses in different ways.
Here are a few.
Reputation management
In today’s world, your online reputation is your reputation. Period. Monitoring your company’s online presence is a key part of a successful digital marketing strategy.
Social media monitoring helps you understand what’s being said; engage with consumers responsively; and quickly resolve issues—enabling you to better control the narrative and effectively advance business goals.
Customer sentiment analysis
Rather than just counting mentions or comments, true sentiment analysis enables you to gauge emotions and opinions—and process all those mentions and comments in proper context.
Social media monitoring allows you to measure that sentiment and respond as needed.
Competitor analysis
Understanding where your brand stands in public opinion means understanding how it aligns with the competition. Competitive insights and benchmarking are critical to putting product performance into the right perspective.
Social media monitoring allows you to see the big picture, refine your strategy and stay a step ahead.
Crisis management
Online sentiment spreads (extremely) fast. Ensuring that negative sentiment doesn’t grow out of control means staying in tune with the conversation and in control of the larger narrative.
Social media monitoring allows you to identify problems early on and craft responses that contain—and resolve—potential crises.
FAQs about social media monitoring
1. Is social media monitoring just for large businesses?
Nope. It’s an invaluable tool for businesses of all sizes, delivering insights critical to understanding customer sentiment, tracking new trends and identifying opportunities for engagement.
2. Which social media monitoring tools are the right ones to use?
With so many social media monitoring tools to choose from, finding the right ones for your particular product or brand is essential.
The trick? Identifying your project objectives, establishing a budget, determining the resources at your disposal (time, manpower, etc.) and figuring out what kind of monitoring support you’ll need (training, monthly reports, etc.).
Once you have the answers, you can do the research and find the right tool.
3. Why can’t businesses just do a Google search?
Most social media monitoring tools filter out spam, duplicates and data ranges that Google can’t—delivering only relevant content and more precise results.
4. What does social media monitoring cover?
Beyond standard social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube, quality monitoring tools will extend your reach to forums, blogs and news and review websites.
5. How do you find the most relevant information?
Most social media monitoring tools enable you to write a query to find the coverage you want. Additionally, complex search strings make it possible to find exactly what you’re looking for while eliminating irrelevant content.
Keep your finger on the pulse of public opinion
Social media monitoring is an essential tool for any business charting a path through a rapidly changing, rapidly expanding digital media landscape.
Which is to say, every business.
From assessing customer sentiment to conducting competitor analyses to tracking trends as they emerge, the right monitoring tools give you the analysis and insight you need to make informed decisions about your marketing and customer engagement strategies.
See how Cision's media monitoring solutions can help you meet your team's unique goals. Speak to an expert today.