Social media monitoring

Social media monitoring Social Media Monitoring has become a hot topic of discussion over recent times. A brand makes or breaks its name by its users.

With the huge outbreak in the online media and platforms like, blogs, forums, microblogs and different types of social networking sites people have an effective place to express their opinions and influence others. In the online world people own the brand. Social Media Monitoring is to keep track of all the conversations happening in the online world.

Social Media Monitoring is all about figuring on what the objectives are, listening, refining the talks, analyzing and taking action.

Social Media Monitoring and analysis can be used by a brand to improve a product, get feedbacks, customer service, market research or any marketing and communication.

Listen: It is very important to “listen” to what people are talking about your brand, your competitors and the industry as a whole. People and their opinions influence your customers. Watch out for any complaints against you or your competitors, as it is the best opportunity to showcase your customer service to them and show that you care and value customers.

Potential customers also look for others opinions before they make the purchase decision.

Participate: It not about just listening, you need to get engaged and converse with people. If you respond timely to any of the questions it reassures the faith in your brand among the people. Even if your brand is not talked about its essential to know the key influencers and what are they talking about. Make a plan and start conversation at relevant places and establish your footprint so that you are equipped for any future talks of your brand.

Respond: When you are monitoring the conversations you know the happenings and can implement relevant responses. A proper response goes a long way in spreading the good about your brand in these times of the ripple effect like Twitter.

Tools: There are many paid and free tools to keep a tab on the conversations. It could be as simple as setting an alert through Google, Yahoo etc, searching for your brand name or the relevant keywords on Twitter, Social Media aggregators like Social Mention, Same Point, Backtype.

There are paid social media monitoring tools, which help in monitoring and analyzing the brand such as radian6, Collective intellect, TechrigySM2 to name a few.