One of the greatest strengths of social media marketing is that it’s where interaction takes place. Communities exchange ideas – about their opinions, experiences, and questions about your products and services. And best of all, you can talk to them.
One of the biggest challenges of social media marketing is that it’s virtually impossible to keep up with everything being said about your brand in the vast world of the social web. This means you have little control over how people perceive your brand and how it might change.
Of course, you’ll be notified about mentions of your accounts on many social networks. But what if users don’t specifically tag you? This is precisely where the principle of social media monitoring comes in. It involves keeping an eye on the discussions and comments about your brand in user-generated content. This way, you can react where necessary, but also learn from your stakeholders (fans, customers, critics, competitors, etc.).
What is Social Media Monitoring: Definition
Social media monitoring is the observation, recording, and analysis of conversations, discussions, and opinions about a brand, product, service, or even an entire industry on the social web. This involves measuring both brand awareness and the interaction rate surrounding your brand, as well as the number of mentions beyond mentions. In reality, social media monitoring is less about KPIs and key performance indicators than about analyzing the content of posts: sentiment analysis is the essential part of social media monitoring!
How is your brand perceived? What points of criticism are there, where are questions left unanswered, what is particularly praised? Social media monitoring should answer all of these questions – always with the goal of gaining relevant insights into your target audience and your brand perception, and uncovering potential for optimization of your marketing strategies.
Please note: For a long time, the term “social media monitoring” was mistakenly used synonymously with “social media analytics!” Performance analysis involves collecting the success of one’s own social media activities in the form of key performance indicators, making them measurable, and recording them in KPIs in order to adapt one’s own social media strategy based on them. Of course, the two areas are closely related, but while performance analysis focuses on numbers, monitoring focuses on moods, opinions, and content.
Of course, you could manually monitor social media and constantly search the entire social web for your brand name. But that would be inefficient—and, quite frankly, a bottomless pit. It makes much more sense to use targeted social media monitoring tools. Below, we’ll introduce you to some of the most important tools that can help you make your social media marketing even more holistic and successful.
But first, let’s take a closer look:
Why is social media monitoring worthwhile?
Social media monitoring offers you many advantages. We’ve already mentioned the most important one above: You’re informed about what’s being said about your brand, can answer open questions, and proactively participate in discussions. This allows you to positively influence the course of conversations and, above all, to make your presence felt. Incidentally, it’s also a good way to prevent shitstorms in critical situations and times of crisis!
Another opportunity social media monitoring offers you is a broader competitor analysis! You can (and should) use monitoring not only to keep an eye on and influence your own brand perception, but also to stay informed about industry-relevant discussions. This also allows you to observe how your competitors are being talked about and with, and learn a lot from this for your own social media marketing strategy.
Social media monitoring also allows you to identify relevant influencers for your influencer marketing strategy! Instagrammers, YouTubers, or TikTokers who are already engaged with your brand, industry, or similar products could be the perfect partners for your influencer marketing.
Social media monitoring for companies
Social media monitoring is fundamentally relevant for anyone who uses social media for their communication: Media outlets, influencers, and organizations of all kinds should take full advantage of this opportunity to stay connected with their stakeholders! However, it’s especially essential for B2C companies to engage with their target audience to find out what’s being said behind their backs.
Open criticism is one thing – you can and should always respond to it promptly, on equal terms, and in a binding manner. However, it becomes more difficult when you are not the recipient of criticism, but rather it is expressed in public or by a segment of the public without your knowledge. As long as you only use and manage your own channels and respond to user-generated content in which you are actively linked, you won’t notice any of it.
Instead, companies should use social media monitoring to detect even hidden conversations and proactively participate. This allows them to influence the discussion about their own brand, capture criticism, and respond to praise. This presence in the discussion can develop into a real upward spiral: We know of many cases in which an unexpected, sympathetic response to a comment or social media post has demonstrably contributed to customer loyalty or at least to a positive brand perception.
Social Media Monitoring Providers: What the Tools should Offer
You’ve probably now understood why manual social media monitoring isn’t enough. Fortunately, there are various tools that can help you make this process much more efficient. These automatically search the social web for search terms you specify, such as your company or brand name (or those of competitors), industry terms you specify, and product names you specify, and filter out the relevant results for you.
All of these tools are suitable for companies that want to be part of the conversation surrounding their brand. We at hi! by medialabel can also support you with your social media monitoring. Our dashboard features include:
- Real-time tracking
- Measure all KPIs and ROI
- Reporting Exports
You can find further information on our landing page for brands.
Costs: Social Media Monitoring as part of social media marketing
It’s difficult to say in general terms what the costs of social media monitoring are. Of course, there are individual tools – especially within individual platforms – that offer free monitoring. However, their features are always limited, just like the free versions of the providers mentioned above. It makes more sense to invest in a comprehensive tool that combines as many different services as possible for a single price (so-called social media suites).
Most providers’ plans start at €50 to €100 per month, depending on how many channels, accounts, and keywords you want to monitor. Larger companies and agencies should expect prices around €500–€1,000 per month. Alternatively, you can invest your social media monitoring budget in a contract with an agency that offers social media monitoring among its other services. We know of one such agency.
FAQ
1. What is social media monitoring?
Social media monitoring is the comprehensive observation of conversations, discussions and opinions about a brand, which makes it possible to analyze the mood around the brand and interact with stakeholders.
2. Why is social media monitoring worthwhile?
Social media monitoring allows you to demonstrate your presence and respond promptly to criticism and praise, even if you haven’t been actively tagged in the relevant posts. You have the opportunity to identify important optimization potential for your social media marketing, discover relevant accounts for your next influencer collaboration, and become aware of relevant discussions surrounding your industry and competitors.
3. What are the most important KPIs?
Social media monitoring is less about collecting metrics than about understanding what concerns your stakeholders. Nevertheless, it can be useful to measure KPIs such as interaction rate or the number of mentions.
4. Why is social media monitoring important?
Social media monitoring is essential for being part of the conversation surrounding your brand and industry. It allows you to respond to criticism and praise, influence the discussion around your brand, and gain insight into the needs of your target audience.