More and more companies are taking interest in the business opportunities that social media monitoring and social media analytics has to offer. As a leading vendor in the social media intelligence space we thought it would make sense to post a blog with answers to the questions that our customers and partners ongoingly ask us.

What is Social Media Monitoring?

Social media monitoring is basically the process of tracking online conversations that occur about topics of interest within the social mediaspace. Social media monitoring addresses the challenge that there are hundreds of millions of pages and conversations on websites, forums, wikis, blogs, podcasts, videos, social networks etc and tracking relevant updates across all these channels is a really time consuming task.

Can't i use Google to monitor Social Media?

Well, yes and no. Google does provide great features to research what people are saying about a particular topic. But it has some limitations.
  • Google only has 1,000 displayable results for any given search phrase
  • Google doesn't allow you easily track changes (other than google alerts)
  • Google doesn't show you the context and influence of a given result.
  • Google only updates its results sporatically, and you cant be sure than something of interest will make it into the top 10 or even the top 1000
  • Google doesn't allow you to track activity on a time based chart
  • Google doesn't show any trends or deep insight into activity
We all love google and use it everyday to research conversations and issues. Social Media Monitoring tools provide a level of insight, tracking, notification, analytics and reporting features that google just doesn't cover.

What business value does Social Media Monitoring actually deliver?

Social media monitoring delivers value for many parts of an organisation. In particular Marketing & Advertising Departments, Communications Departments, Public Relations, Investor Relations, Internal Communications, Market Research, Consumer Insights, Innovation / R&D / Product Development etc will use Social Media Monitoring.

For example.
  • A marketing department may use social media monitoring to research consumer issues about a product, and use that insight to create marketing campaigns that address the concerns of their customers.
  • A market research / R&D team may use social media monitoring to research customers discussing shortfallings in their product or new features that they may be hoping for to drive product development.
  • PR departments may use social media monitoring to track bloggers and other influencers conversations so they can quickly manage any negative publicity
  • Communications departments may track their suppliers and distributors discussions about them to ensure they are addequately supplying them with the correct and up to date information they need
  • Advertisers and Digital Marketers may use social media monitoring to track the impact their online campaigns are having with consumers and to measure the effectiveness of their activities.
Who is using Social Media Monitoring?

Everyone. From SME's and Startups to Global FMCGs and Fortune 500 Companies.

Do you have a question about Social Media Monitoring?

Feel free to leave us a comment, or drop us a suggestion in the sidebar, or to contact us directly by phone or email. We would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

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