According to any social media PR agency, social media has had a huge impact on public relations in recent times.
Communication with your customers is faster through social media because it works in real-time, says noted Business Astrologer cum Astro Strategist Hirav Shah.
What is Social Media Monitoring?
Hirav Shah defines Social media monitoring as the process of identifying and determining what is being said about an individual, brand, or product through different online and social channels.
Hirav Shah says, “PR-related content which is passed through social media has a longer shelf life, is spread faster, and reaches a wider audience.
Social media has been instrumental in creating more innovative PR strategies such as Relationship Marketing.”
So, we know the impact that social media has on PR and PR strategy, so what is meant by Social Media Monitoring?
Hirav Shah explains, “Similar to media monitoring, social media monitoring involves keeping a track of any and all mentions about your brand or business, on social media platforms, and being able to respond to any engagement that it has created, efficiently and effectively. With social media monitoring, you can even keep a track of those posts and comments about you, where you have not even been tagged, because they use highly innovative tools for this strategy.”
Partnering with an experienced social media PR agency can reap many benefits for your business. So, how do these agencies conduct effective social media monitoring?
a) Know what to monitor – Research on what type of searches will get the best results. Two areas that are commonly used are brand name monitoring and industry monitoring.
b) Choose your monitoring tools – Manual social media monitoring is difficult and very time-consuming, hence once you have an idea of what you want to monitor, it is best to use a tool to do it, which is very fast and efficient. All you need to do is feed the right search criteria into it and the tool will do the rest. Selecting the ideal tool will depend on what the Agency is more familiar and comfortable with.
c) Get insights – You cannot say for sure what you will find when you carry out social media monitoring, but you can certainly find many surprises, such as opportunities for product development, build relationships, etc.
d) Refining and communicating – Once the results start flowing in, you will need to refine your search criteria a little more, to get more refined results.
What benefits are there for a company from social media monitoring?
1. Provide better customer service – The level of customer service you provide could be a deciding factor when it comes to the buying decision of your customers, as well as being a reason for increased reputation. With social media and new technologies being introduced on these platforms on a regular basis, the relationship between brands and their customers has got stronger, and businesses are able to offer a much better and more efficient level of customer service. Customers want to be heard, and nothing satisfies a customer more and builds trust with a brand than when a business responds to them immediately. With social media monitoring, you can be sure that you will not miss any messages or reviews or comments from a customer, ever, and you can respond to them in an instant.
2. Learn new things – There are times when customers may not directly tell you something about your brand or business or products, but they will certainly talk about it with their friends and family. So how do you know what they are talking about you? Through social media monitoring activities. You can know how they feel and think about your brand and products, without actually having to ask them about it.
3. Sort out issues before they become big – Getting comments and reviews that impact a brand or business in a negative manner is inevitable as a business starts to grow, but with social media monitoring tools you can keep a track of such situations and put out the fire before it turns into something bigger and nastier.
4. Know what your competitors are up to – Get insights into what your competitors are doing and how they are doing it through social media monitoring techniques so that you are aware of what to expect in terms of competition and you can plan ahead on how you will counter such actions to regain or keep the competitive edge that you have.
Hirav Shah concludes by saying, “Social media monitoring can give you a brief look into the thing’s being said about your brand in real-time, assembling openly available data and sorting it out such that it works for your potential benefit. Social monitoring tools can likewise assist you with developing your online awareness for your eCommerce store. You can follow up on the thing’s being said about your company and thus, reconnect with forthcoming customers utilizing similar social channels.“
