When you are monitoring
your brand on social media, you are hunting for brand mentions on different
social networking, business, forum and chat sites. You come up with an idea
what internet users are saying about your brand.
Photo Credit: Traffic
PRM
Admit it, you are
asking a big question on your mind: “why should I do that?” Always remember
that the greatest brand that won just because of social media is called “Barack
Obama for President”.
Always remember that
when you like to know more about a certain brand, you go to Google or Bing ands
key in the brand name on the search bar. You read what the internet tells you
and believe in them. Same to your brand, users key in your brand name and will
read whatever the social media says.
To start with social
media monitoring, sign up an account on the following: Google Alerts, Yahoo
Alerts, Google Blog Search, Yahoo Pipes, BlogPulse, Google Trends, Compete, Serph,
Keotag, Tweetscan, Particls, Commentful, coComment, Big Boards, Board Reader, Boardtracker,
Twing and Yuku Find.
1.
With the
suggested tools above, you start monitoring your brand on blog mentions. Use
Google Alerts and Google Blogs. Conducting searches using the two tools. You do
the search on a regular basis. You can also use IceRocker.
2.
Next to check are social mentions. You can use
SocialMention, Sentiment Analysis, UberVU to see how Facebook, Twitter and
other site users treat your brand.
3.
Social
shares are very crucial. PostRank is excellent in tracking social shares. You
get to know the number of accounts that shared the link of your brand and the
number of computers that bookmarked your business website.
4.
Since
social media allows users to throw comments about anything under the sun, you
monitor comments associated with your brand. Remember, almost all sites allow
users to give comments. Backtype can help you do this.
Monitoring is as easy
as just collecting the mentions. Yes, it is like eating a piece of apple pie.
After collecting all the mentions, analyze each mention and categorize them
into these classifications.
1.
Pure
Complaints- list of serious concerns that may lead to crises
2.
Compliment-appreciations
and good reviews
3.
Expressions-short
tag lines given to your business that went viral
4.
From
rivals- notes from competitors
5.
From the
crowd- what institutions and groups say about your brand
6.
From icons-
mentions from famous celebrities, influential businessmen and top politicians
7.
Figures-
ratings given by reviewers
Probably, the set of
people that you need to follow on social media are customers, prospect
customers and influential reviewers. Social media monitoring helps you in
protecting your brand reputation, opening to more marketing opportunities,
avoiding future troubles and discovering public opinion.
