The world is rapidly changing and conversations that may have been previously offline have shifted online. It has become difficult for businesses to survive without an online presence. This means that user engagement with brands online has also increased.
Customers are quick to try connecting with their favorite and not-so-favorite brands online. A quick tweet tagging the brand takes less than a minute, Reddit forums are people’s go-to source for information, Facebook has completely changed how business is done today and the list goes on.
People are talking about many things online including problems that your product can solve. The question is are you listening?
What is Social Media Monitoring?
Social media monitoring gives you the opportunity to find out everything that’s being said about your brand and industry online. It does not just allow you to track your mentions, but it also allows you to track other conversations related to your brand and industry.
If you’re only focusing on the notifications, you may be missing out on important mentions and conversations happening online. Social media monitoring through a dedicated tool allows you to track everything across different platforms in one place.
Social media monitoring allows brands to create positive online experiences. You can interact with customers to create awareness and win them over. It could be through replying to a query, chiming in with an intelligent insight on a post you’re not tagged in but it’s related to your industry, or simply acknowledging good feedback.
When your customers tag you online they expect a response but when they don’t tag you and you still show up, that shows you care and that’s only possible through social media monitoring.
Why is Social Media Monitoring Important?
Social media monitoring is important for several reasons. Think about all the times you make conversation with someone and the ideas that it sparks. Similarly, when you hear conversations from your customers and competitors and those happening around your brand and industry online, it can give you valuable insights about the needs of consumers, the direction of the industry and improvements needed.
Here are all the reasons social media monitoring is important:
Generating Leads
Social media monitoring helps generate leads. It is common practice today for consumers to search for things online. They ask for reviews on Reddit, go to Quora with their questions, and search Twitter for suggestions.
If your brand is not monitoring mentions, hashtags, location-specific tags, and industry terms on all these platforms, then they are missing the opportunity of finding leads and converting them. Social media monitoring will help you identify where your target customers are gathering online, what they’re talking about, and give you ideas on how best you can serve them.
Opportunity for Improved Customer Service
Customers find it easier to tag brands in their feedback or complaints online. They may or may not tag you, but they are talking about you.
Responding to your customers goes to show that you care about them. Responding to customer mentions also leaves a positive image and they are more likely to purchase from you in the future based on a good customer experience online.
Listening to your customer mentions online also gives you the opportunity of improving your customer service. It helps identify areas where you may be lacking and take corrective measures.
Market Research
Another important benefit of social media monitoring for brands is market research. It is important to understand your customer’s buying behavior and what influences their purchases. With the increase in social media usage, answers to these questions can be found online with some effort.
When you track relevant keywords and hashtags you can find answers to your customer’s pain points and how best you can target them. It helps to strengthen your position in the market, understand buyer behavior and find the threats and opportunities that exist for you within the industry.
Getting Feedback
Building a relationship with your customers is a two-way street. That means you should listen to them as much as you expect them to listen to your marketing messages. When you have a social media monitoring strategy in place you can get feedback from your customers that can help you improve your services and products. After all, who is it that you’re serving?
As a brand, you should be listening and responding to feedback. It makes customers feel heard and acknowledged which helps build positive relationships. Customers have many suggestions, and it’s on you to find and implement the best ones.
Media monitoring also helps you to track the results of marketing campaigns and communications. When customers resonate with a brand message they talk about it online. It is important to know your customer’s sentiments about your marketing messages to devise better campaigns in the future.
Competitor Analysis
Keeping an eye out on your competitors through social media monitoring can help you uncover insights that can help you in your marketing strategy. You can find out how they are perceived online and their strengths and weaknesses.
It can reveal to you the areas your competitors may be lacking in and how you can make a move to gain market share. It’s also important for knowing your competitor pricing which can help you set your own to stay competitive.
A lot of knowledge can be uncovered by tracking your competitors which can help you in your own marketing and business decisions.
Industry Trends
When you set up searchers for industry terms and most used keywords surrounding your industry, it helps you to stay on top of industry news and trends. This is very important to revise your business decisions and time your next move.
Tracking industry trends can reveal to you the gaps and opportunities that you can fill in the market and change direction where needed. It is better to be proactive than to be reactive. Businesses that stay on top of industry trends and are quick in decision-making are also quick to implement changes and move forward.
Social media monitoring has become the need of time for businesses and if your brand does not have an effective social media monitoring strategy in place, you could be losing out on potential customers and sales. Make sure you are tracking the relevant keywords along with your brand mentions through a tool like Notifier that simplifies the process.