The Importance of Social Media Monitoring

Once you delve into the world of social media for your business it is very important to start social media monitoring. Social monitoring allows you to keep track of what is being said to and about you on the various social channels. There are tools available that help you see what people are saying about your brand, who is using keywords you want to track, and quickly respond to those engaging with you on the various social channels. When choosing a social media monitoring tool, efficiency and accuracy are key features to look for. There are plenty of free tools available, some of them may have the features you need and some may not. There are also paid tools and programs that are usually more robust and offer more specific features.

Reputation Management

Reputation management is one of the goals with monitoring your brand online. It also means taking your monitoring beyond just social channels and adding in media monitoring that encompasses the web to include other websites, including review sites. You can be instantly alerted when your brand, or keywords about your brand, are talked about online. The sooner you know about a problem and the faster you respond to it, the higher the chances are that you will be able to resolve it. In many cases, just responding to a problem or complaint online is half the battle. Most other consumers simply want to know that you respond to issues online and they do not care about the particular details of an incident.

Identify

Another function of social media monitoring is to identify specific people to help grow your business. By monitoring specific keywords mentioned online, you can find potential consumers to whom you can introduce your brand. Another possible target to focus on would be media, bloggers, and writers in your industry who might offer extra publicity by writing about your news that you can send them after finding them through social media.

Analyse and Report Social Activity

Some media monitoring tools go beyond alerting you to your name or keywords being used in social media and also include analytics and reporting. These type of robust tools really help the marketing team because you will know what tactics work best, the best days and times for posting, and how many people your social media campaigns reach.

Social Media Monitoring Tools

Here are a few different social media monitoring tools available. You can look into each one and decide which one is the best match for your business, your budget, and the specific needs of your marketing campaigns.

  • Google has two tools that will help you monitor mentions on sites indexed by Google. You can use their “Me on the Web Tool” or set up Google Alerts.
  • Topsy is a monitoring tool for Twitter that monitors mentions and sentiment.
  • IceRocket.com is a free website that allows you to search social sites and receive immediate results for mentions of keywords or names you want to monitor. It works with blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.
  • There is a very comprehensive a set of social media monitoring tools that come from a company called iSentia. They specialise in Asia Pacific social media monitoring and press release distribution, and offer tools specific for the regions, countries, and cultural differences prevalent in A-PAC countries. Their tools extend beyond just social media and into all media as well as social media intelligence.
  • SocialMention is another tool that monitors social media sites and the web as well. It lets you know about sentiment in addition to specific keyword mentions.

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