Social media monitoring is an essential tool for the collection of information, planning, and marketing. According to the Statista, there were an estimated 0.97 billion social media users in 2010, with the figure rising to 2.82 billion in 2019, and they are projected to hit 2.96 billion in 2020. The exponential growth in the number of users has resulted in many businesses ditching traditional marketing methods for social media.
Today, businesses have accounts in various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and G-chat. Each has its strengths, which organizations seek to get maximum benefits. However, many businesses lack the capability to collect and analyze relevant data.
Building Good Profiles
If you were wondering why the number of followers is not growing as expected, your profile might be the problem. Building an excellent profile is one of the tricks of attracting more people. A look at the accounts of personalities or businesses with huge followers can help you make an attractive page. Likewise, you can hire an expert to do it for you and train the account administrator.
Importance of Social Media Monitoring
Having a social media account and failing to follow up on the upcoming issues beats the logic of being a member. An organization should update its account regularly to keep potential consumers streaming in. The conversation with the followers should also be two way.
Furthermore, the business requires a person to monitor brand mentions, industry trends, hashtags, and competitors’ mentions. This helps in testing social campaigns, collecting key social metrics, and tracking ROI. As such, businesses need to have personnel for the purpose or outsource the job to a reputable analytics company.
The assessment helps you to know who is saying what and the location of that individual to give an appropriate answer. When launching a good or a service, you can easily determine the audience’s response. If the product is already in the market, you can know whether it is performing well or not, and respond to consumer concerns.
Social Media Monitoring Tools
Thanks to technology, there are useful tools for monitoring online social space. While some are paid for, others are free. Before you start using the tools, you have to understand common terms such as influence, sentiment, workflow, and volume. The monitoring devices can distinguish between negative and positive views, among other important issues.
The first step in the exercise is determining what you need to check. For instance, brand, products, influencers, competitors, slogan, unbranded, and branded hashtags. Then you create streams for the topics.
The most popular assessment tools are Google Alerts, Twitter Advanced Search, HootSuite, Twazzup, Seesmic, Boardtracker, Reputology, MentionLytics, and NetBase. Each of them has different features, and understanding them in advance is vital.
Google Alerts is very popular for its simplicity and costs you nothing. You only need to search the keyword on Google, and you receive the results immediately through RSS or inbox. Twitter’s advanced search tool permits you to collect information and save it in the RSS feed to get current data. The time-consuming nature of the tools discourages their use.
Businesses also rely on paid analytics platforms. HootSuite allows you to manage all your social accounts together and post at once. They have different plans, and you can choose the best. Boardtracker captures buzz in message boards and forums. You obtain the topic cloud and influencer list. Purchasing the premium version is essential in getting rid of irrelevant information that appears in the free Broadtracker.
NetBase
Netbase is a social media tool that enables brands and agencies to grow their business and interact with their customers. The company depends on artificial intelligence to provide actionable data for research, marketing, product innovation, PR, sales, and customer service. They offer technology and product applications, and provide use cases and industries solutions. NetBase has received recognition from Forrester, G2 Crowd, and TrustRadius for its exemplary performance.
Social Media Listening
Some individuals interchange social media monitoring and social media listening in conversations. While monitoring consists of the data search and collection, listening involves information analysis, strategizing, and implementation of plans.
