One of the main and most strategic activities of your Community Manager in regard to their management of social networks is to monitor the company’s brand on social media and other digital channels. In this article, we will review: what is social monitoring, benefits of this monitoring, digital channels that the social media manager should use for monitoring and what tools or software can be used to monitor your company’s brand on social networks.
What is Monitoring of Social Networks?
When the Community Manager or other persons in charge of your social media analyzes what your community expresses in the different channels of social media to understand their preferences, desires, and needs are said to be monitoring social networks.
The information that is obtained by the person in charge of monitoring the social networks should be used by your company to adjust its value offer in such a way as to better meet the needs and desires of your current and potential customers, which will lead to building long-term relationships.
The process of monitoring the brand in social networks must be a permanent and ongoing activity to be effective. Checking sites sporadically will not be productive for you.
In many cases, companies only use social networks as an instrument to amplify the information of the company, such as general communication in an address group. This prevents the customer from listening and causes the company to miss out on huge profits. People like a more personal touch; communication that actually speaks to their needs and wants.
Another mistake, which is considered quite common, is when social media managers only listen to what they want to hear, this means they pay attention when people speak well of their brand or company, ignoring all negative comments. This attitude can lead to significant reputational problems online.
Why is it Important to Monitor Your Brand on Social Networks?
The benefits of monitoring your company’s brand on social networks are endless.
Monitoring your brand on various social networks becomes a differentiating element that is sustainable over time. Social networks are allowing companies and their social media managers to know their customers better by identifying the opinion of their brand, their business, and their competitors. It has always been considered that the knowledge of the customer constitutes a distinguishable element sustainable over time, since, unlike other differentiating features, the competition cannot buy it. This always requires following the path of listening and understanding. It is important to note that this knowledge acquired by monitoring your social networks should always be used to adjust the value of the company.
Monitoring your company’s brand throughout social media provides a pivotal opportunity for growth and improvement. When a customer dislikes a product or service and expresses it on social media outlets, it provides an excellent opportunity for the company to improve, since the social media manager listens, knows, learns, solves and understands their concerns. When an organization has a quality or service problem in the open market, monitoring their social networks will allow them to identify it quickly. This will give them the chance to take the necessary measures for coming up with a solution.
Monitoring your brand on social networks allows timely identification of possible attacks on reputation. Another great advantage that companies benefit from this monitoring is the ability to identify an issue in its primary stages before it has time to tarnish the reputation or the mark of the company. When a Community Manager identifies that your organization or brand suffers a reputational attack very late, it can cause irreversible damage to your company. We always tell our friends and business clients that reputational attacks are like fires, which when identified at the initial stage is easily turned off, but when discovered too late, it can “end” with the company.
Where Should Companies Monitor Their Brand on Social Networks?
We must monitor all social networks and online sites, but we will highlight three major platforms because of their importance and popularity:
Blogs
It is vital that your company’s social media manager monitor those bloggers that write about your brand or company, as well as comment on your current and potential clients in blogs.
Twitter is the most effective means of communication to get information in real time. The social media manager monitoring Twitter will know any attack on the reputation or problem of a product or service in the market very quickly. A timely positive reply from the company will speak volumes for its creditability.
Facebook is a very important social media platform enabling the Community Manager the opportunity to listen and monitor the company’s reputation since relevant information can appear in the Facebook account of the company, individual pages and Facebook pages of third parties or groups created.
Brand Monitoring Tools on Social Networks and Other Digital Channels
As for the tools that should be used, there are a few that are recommended:
- com is, in our opinion, one of the best free tools to monitor a brand. The way to do this is to create columns where the Twitter account (@company or @brand) and the name of the company or brand are monitored.
- com is an excellent free tool to identify what is written in social networks, blogs, microblogs and other sources of information about any brand, person, event or subject. An important feature of this tool is that it measures the feeling of the mentions.
- com is another free monitoring tool that allows you to configure the digital channels you want to monitor graphically.
- Google Alerts is a very handy free service that gives frequent updates, allowing you to know the markings of your brand in websites and blogs quickly.
Conclusion
Social media has completely the way business owners now market their brand. This is an option that businesses simply cannot ignore. As times have changed, the need for social network management has become imperative. Social media gives customers a way to express their opinions, good or bad, like never before. There is no question, your business needs to be active in these networks to engage both current and prospective customers, while keeping an eye on the competition.
Image credits to : dr.coop