So you’ve tipped our toe in the world of social media to raise the online profile of your brand and now as a proficient blogger, Tweeter and Facebooker, it’s time to think about monitoring these channels.
Social media monitoring involves using a tool or tools (more about these later) to monitor what is being said about your organisation, industry or sector on the internet. Most monitoring tools work by indexing then searching sites in real time or at certain intervals depending on their importance.
The monitoring tool searches on specific words or phrases mentioned on web page and then it brings these mentions back into the tool’s interface so you can see what is being discussed in one place. Most tools work by the user telling the tool what they are interested in e.g. a particular brand, a product or a topic.
By monitoring the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other forums, blogs and news sites it allows you to make the most of your social media efforts and see where your organisation is being talked about – and then once you can see the big picture, you can engage in a variety of conversations with customers, similar businesses or other organisations which operate in your particular sector.
In part two of this blog we look at the types of monitoring tools available and what they can do for you.
