The Importance of Monitoring Your Brand
by Rachael Guia
December 13, 2010
Consider this: People all over the world spend 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. They are updating their statuses and looking through their friends' photos, but most importantly they are exchanging opinions. Opinions that could inevitably be about your brand.
Jason Shurbring, a writer for Six Revisions, said it best -- “Either you can fill the vacuum with your perspective, or your customers and competitors will fill it for you.” What he means is even if you’ve decided not to actively participate in social media networks, it’s not really a choice anymore. The key, however, is taking control of the conversation by way of knowing what is out there.
Today more than ever, the importance of monitoring your brand among the social media networks is vastly important. Not only do you want to be aware of positive and negative things that are being said about your brand, but you also want to be aware of opportunities on which you can capitalize. This will help you figure out what your specific market actually needs and then help you create it.
What’s in a word?
To begin successfully monitoring social media for your brand, begin by developing a list of key words about your company and about your industry. You should track your company name, its affiliates, sister companies, competitors, key influencers, industry terms and market terminology. Doing this not only gives you perspective on what is being said about your brand/product/company, but also what is being said about your industry. It helps you monitor your competitors and understand where your brand lies in the grand scheme of things.
Keep an eye out.
Next, decide where you want to monitor. There are numerous social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and Flickr. The most effective way to track them is with a social media monitoring software. These software programs use complex algorithms to determine where, who and when people are talking about your brand. Although it’s impossible to capture everything, these programs provide you with a thorough look at your company among these networks.
As you monitor the social media landscape, you’ll be able to identify a specific group of influencers (bloggers, writers, and Facebook users, for example). With this knowledge in hand, you can begin formulating relationships with them based on common interests and their interest in your brand. Nurture these relationships by commenting on their blogs and posts and establish yourself as a thought leader on the given topic. This takes patience and time, but the goal is to become a driver of the conversation, thereby giving yourself an advantage over your competitors.
Social media networks have presented companies and PR professionals a challenge because the dynamics of what is appropriate to say in an online forum change daily. No longer are companies only communicating via traditional mediums such as print or broadcast outlets. Instead, they are trying to convince their audiences to take 2 minutes, out of the 700 billion they spend on Facebook, to listen to them and talk about them.