4 reasons not to forget to monitor social networks

We have never spent as much time online as we do now. We shop, negotiate and even participate in conferences over the internet and workshops. Brands are also responding to this, moving their communication to a purely digital world, and social networks are an integral part of it. But do you have an overview of what is being said about your brand.

This year, companies spent 27% more on ads on social networks than in the same period last year. No wonder – almost 200,000 tweets are added every minute and we send almost 60 million messages on Messenger and WhatsApp. With the growing presence on social networks, there was a need to monitor, analyze and actually listen to people on them (so-called social monitoring and social listening). The issue is extensive, so we bring you this article, in which we summarized the main benefits of monitoring social networks and working with it.

1. Find out what you really are up to

The most obvious reason for monitoring social networks, and therefore tracking conversations and opinions about your brand, is to let you know what your customers really think of you, what you can improve on, and what you can’t change. It is an authentic and inexpensive tool for continuous feedback monitoring. Many marketers have even started using social networks instead of traditional feedback tools, such as guided discussions. To approve a new product design, they only delete the visual and then just collect opinions and comments.

Another great way to work with social monitoring applications is to monitor the competition. Through the competition, you can find out what your clients like and don’t like, you can be inspired by their successful campaigns and, conversely, avoid the unsuccessful ones. And last but not least, you will find out who is talking about your competition and in what light – whether they are journalists or customers. This brings us to the second point:

2. Discover influencers and new audiences

The word influencer has been used so often in recent years that it has acquired a negative connotation. However, for many brands, this strategy works and the numbers prove it – influencer marketing grows by tens of percent every year! With social network analytics, you’ll learn not only who’s talking about your brand, but also who people trust and listen to within your industry. You can start tracking them and possibly start working with them.

Monitoring social networks will also help you identify your enthusiastic customers who can become ambassadors for your brand. Reach out to them and offer them rewards for talking about your products. Social listening applications will help you find suitable influencers and ambassadors, and then it is up to you to develop cooperation.

3. Find topics that really interest your customers

By listening to your current and potential clients, you will find out what interests them and what is important to them. If you create content that solves their problem or makes their work easier, they will certainly appreciate it. You can easily mark the influencers in the post and call it a home run.

The analysis of current trends and the complaints of your clients will certainly be of interest to colleagues from other departments. Don’t be afraid to share information and show that social networks are not just about so-called flower posts (puppies, kittens, etc. are relevant perhaps for a brand of pet food).

4. Improve your customer support

Companies have been using social networks for their customer support for a long time. But there is a difference between simply answering customer questions and requests in Messenger and using social networks to listen to and understand what people really want. 67% of customers use social networks as a channel of support – they complain, ask questions, share their opinions and ratings. Thanks to modern applications, you can monitor not only the classic social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube, but also a wide range of discussions and blogs. Solve your customers’ problems before they come to you. They and all others will certainly appreciate it.

And finally: 4 + 1 steps for effective work

In general, four steps are recommended when working with social networks: look for, listen, understand, act. The first phase of the search is mainly about monitoring and finding the right places and relevant mentions of your brand. In the second step, you need to constantly monitor what is being said about you. The understanding phase consists in the analysis of the content and thus of the individual situations. Finally, you need to find solutions to problems and work to make your customers happier.

In order for everything to work well, it is also necessary to set keywords according to which the application will search for individual mentions. This is not as easy as it may seem at first glance. You need to know all the names under which you will find your brand online. For Česká spořitelna, it is therefore necessary to take into account the name “savings” and for Coca Cola, for example, “cola”. What you don’t have to worry about is declension – the best tools for social monitoring on the Czech market are well prepared for that.

And if you do not wish to enter keywords yourself, not all is lost: “As with traditional media monitoring, we are happy to help customers with the set-up and subsequent optimization of keywords. We want our clients to use our tools as efficiently as possible and to make a real difference from them,” says Lenka Šafránková, Customer Success Manager.