Online interactions can make or break a brand. That’s why social media monitoring is now essential for businesses, requiring active listening and response to consumer feedback about your brand, products, competitors, and industry.
Understanding social media monitoring
Social Media Monitoring vs. Other Terms
Social media monitoring is frequently confused with terms such as social media listening, analytics, intelligence, and management. Although they share common objectives, each fulfills a specific role:
– Social media listening: Understands sentiment, emotions, and context in conversations.
– Social media analytics: Quantitatively analyzes metrics like mentions, likes, shares, and impressions.
– Social media intelligence: Transforms analytics into actionable insights for strategy.
– Social media management: Involves operational activities such as content scheduling and engagement.
Implementing social media monitoring
Getting started
Effective social media monitoring begins with defining objectives and identifying relevant keywords. These could include your brand name, product name, industry terms, and campaign hashtags. Social media monitoring tools streamline this process by aggregating data from various platforms into a single interface.
Instantaneous engagement
Social media’s fast pace demands quick responses. Monitoring tools offer real-time alerts, allowing businesses to promptly address both positive and negative discussions. This proactive strategy helps prevent potential crises and enhances customer interactions.
Comprehensive channel coverage
In contrast to social media management, which allows businesses to concentrate on specific platforms, effective monitoring necessitates extensive coverage.
Conversations occur across a wide range of venues, from major platforms like Facebook and Twitter to specialized forums and blogs. Automated tools are crucial for efficiently tracking mentions across these varied channels.
Leveraging data and insights
Analyzing conversations
Thorough monitoring extends beyond mere mention tracking; it entails evaluating sentiment, engagement metrics, and long-term trends. Such data provides actionable insights to fine-tune marketing strategies, improve products, and optimize customer service.
Content creation
Insights gathered from monitoring aid businesses in creating pertinent content that resonates with their audience. By identifying compelling topics and effective formats, marketers can tailor their content strategies for optimal engagement.
Crisis management
Early identification of negative sentiment empowers businesses to proactively address issues before they escalate. Preparedness and prompt responses are essential for minimizing reputational harm during crises.
Best practices in social media monitoring
1. Decide why you’re monitoring
Social media listening is versatile, and useful for customer service, feedback, and tracking hashtag campaigns. It’s essential to have a clear plan for each purpose to avoid data overwhelm.
2. Choose a tool that fits both your budget and needs
There are many social listening tools available, ranging from free options like Google Alerts to premium services costing around $1000/month.
3. Choose relevant keywords
Select keywords based on your monitoring goals. For customer service, track your brand, product names, and hashtags to catch all relevant mentions, even those without direct tags. For other purposes, adjust your keywords accordingly.
4. Check for spelling and punctuation
Include both correct and common misspellings of your keywords to ensure you capture all relevant mentions, especially if terms are confusing or easily misspelled.
5. Use required keywords
To compare your brand with others, use the required keywords. For instance, to monitor discussions comparing Nike to Reebok, set Reebok as a required keyword in your project monitoring Nike.
6. Think twice about long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords narrow your results and might exclude relevant data. Balance specific phrases with more general terms to cover all possible mentions.
7. Clean up your social listening results
Regularly review and refine your results for accuracy. Use excluded keywords to filter out irrelevant mentions, manually delete irrelevant results, and block domains or authors that provide irrelevant data. Adding specific required keywords can also improve result accuracy.
8. Explore all the features of the social listening tool
Fully utilize your chosen tool’s features, including the latest updates. Explore filters, reports, and metrics to gain deeper insights.
9. Prioritize your results
Organize results by importance using features like Sentiment Analysis, Interactions, and Influencer Score filters to address the most critical mentions first.
10. Create a benchmark to compare your results
Compare your current results with previous data to measure progress and identify trends over time.
11. Customize your project and set up email notifications
Tailor your notifications for real-time or scheduled updates to stay informed without being overwhelmed.
12. Customize your storm alerts
Set alerts for sudden spikes in mentions to quickly respond to significant changes in online conversations about your brand.
13. Get the complimentary mobile app
If available, use the mobile app version of your tool for on-the-go monitoring, complementing the desktop version.
14. Collect historical data
Start monitoring early to build a historical data archive for comparison, aiding in the identification of patterns and anomalies in your results.
15. Develop and maintain good monitoring habits
Consistency is key. Regularly check, clean, and respond to your social listening data to stay on top of your social media presence effectively.
Conclusion
Monitoring social media has become essential for businesses. By actively observing online conversations about their brand, products, competitors, and industry, businesses gain valuable insights that inform strategic decisions.
These insights cover areas such as enhancing customer engagement, managing crises effectively, refining content strategies, and evaluating campaign effectiveness.
By utilizing effective tools and adopting best practices, businesses can maintain a proactive approach, responsiveness, and a competitive edge in their social media efforts.
