The Value of Social Media Monitoring

We post. We tweet. We pin. Repeatedly. Therefore we are doing a great job on social media, right?

If that’s your view of social media, you’re missing out on relationship-building and advocacy-building opportunities online. Monitor social media, too. Not only your accounts, but those of your competitors, buyers, industry, and more.

There are hundreds of social media monitoring software applications available today enabling companies to aggregate, analyze, monitor and possibly engage in online conversations about companies, brands, products, competitors and industry topics of industry.

By 2018, 2.44 billion people will be using social networks, up from 970,000 in 2010. — Statista, 2016

Social media monitoring is a little like online eavesdropping. Monitoring helps you gauge:

• Brand strength by tracking how often you are discussed.
• Positive or negative sentiment among users
• Reach and measure of influence

Find Influencers. Social media monitoring can also help identify key influencers in your industry. These are people whose endorsement could give your new product release a big boost. Or you might come across someone who would make a good partner for a guest blog.

Engage More. Being a good social listener helps you find opportunities to participate with and engage customers and prospects. This might mean responding quickly to a consumer’s angry complaint @annoyingairline about their #crappyflight. Or, a Facebook user might seek advice about purchasing a video game console, and as a gaming manufacturer you could link to educational content on your site weighing the pros and cons of different options.

Gain Valuable Insights. You might also find blog and product ideas amidst the mentions and social conversations you track. You can use social listening to identify and create new partnerships while reducing marketing, market research, research and development, recruitment and other operating costs.

Stay Competitive, Current. Tracking what the competition is doing, and how the media is covering your industry, can also be useful.

Around the world, billions use social media daily, and that number just keeps growing. Don’t miss the opportunities for your enterprise marketing by settling for simple thumbs up sign on your social media posts. Keep an eye out for our next post on this theme — best practices in social listening.