Social Media Monitoring Tools — How to Select the Right One
Since 2004, social media has been growing exponentially and it hasn’t reached the height of its quality yet. There’s no denying that social media platforms are currently a significant source of news and knowledge. However, that’s not all. Social media platforms are distinctive within the way they interact with customers.
But the question is, investing in social media is worth something for the business?
Over 42% of the world’s population is using social media network and spending over 2 hours and 22 minutes. Still, the question is the same? Wait is more data to show, according to Globalwebindex, 2018 report, over 54% of the social browsers use social media to research the products and according to Forbes, 2018 over 71% of customers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family.
The answer depends on you, but the power of social media marketing can not be ignored. even 73% of marketers believe that social media marketing is very effective for their business (Buffer, 2019). Let say you start using social media platform to get more leads, but still, you are not performing that way you are expecting. For any business, it is very difficult to track down the data from all the social media platforms.
Today I’m going to talk about 4 features every business should note before selecting any social media monitoring tool considering a company with potential and lots to offer “Rank ME Online”.
All these points will be discussed based on a hypothetical case.
Case: Let say, Nike wants to know that how its new shoe collection Zoom Pegasus Turbo 2 is performing in the Indian Market. And wants to understand how they are performing in a different country’s market.
Sentiment Analysis (the most important one). It is very important to understand what is sentiment behind the post on social media and to analyze it one by one will take months to complete, so the tool must be AI-enabled because for AI it will take just a matter of seconds to give the exact sentiment analysis of the brand or product. The sentiment can be divided into three parts Positive, negative, and neutral. If the sentiments are more than three than it will be difficult for the company to handle the data.
Case: Now Nike wants to know how their present and future potential customers are feeling about the brand or the product. Here the sentiment analysis feature will help the brand to understand the emotions for them and their product which will be shown in three different categories positive, negative & neutral. If the sentiment is positive then, Hurray. because that is the appreciation for the company or its product. If the sentiment is negative, which will be one of the greatest fears for any company because, the negative sentiment social handler can damage company profile by using social media posts, articles, and word of mouth. So, here Nike can take necessary actions on them by converting them into a happy customer, which can be possible through different marketing and sales strategies. Last, if the sentiment is neutral, then this is not a happy time for Nike again because, the customers fall into this category, are satisfied with the brand or product, but they are not their loyal customers, means they can shift from Nike to any other company, if another competitor’s product is more appealing to the customer. The marketing team of Nike have a chance to convert them into a loyal one by applying different sales strategies.
Influencer Marketing. An influencer is the people who are very popular on social media and have a very good amount of audience, who admire them. Nowadays companies are hiring Influencers for the promotion because influencer uses the brand’s product, they are not like any big celebrity who do not use the product which generates the trust factor in the audience mind. One of the main reasons for using Influencer Marketing is that the audience follows their influencers very frequently. Now for this, the Social Media Monitoring tool should provide the list of the top influencers of your company on Social Media.
Case: Nike can use this tactic to increase the reachability (lead generation) of Zoom Pegasus Turbo2 as well as their brand name. So, suppose Mr A is an influencer who frequently post something about Nike or its products. Now the marketing department of Nike targeted this influencer and ask him to do a promotional video on Zoom Pegasus Turbo2, here Nike is targeting indirectly to the Mr A audience and Boom Nike got the sales leads not all the audience of Mr A but some of them, it is a great saying that “something is better than nothing”.
Competitive Analysis: The tool must provide a competitive analysis which identifies your competitors and lets you evaluate their strategies and market position to discover strengths and flaws relative to your brand. It is very helpful in understanding the competitive advantages or disadvantages of the competitors.
Case: Nike wants to understand their competitor’s strategies over web listening so that they can target the non-potential customers which are negative and neutral sentiment one because they are one who can easily switch to your company if your strategies are enough.
Hashtags. Companies can check the popular hashtags in their industry, which they can use to reach the maximum number of the target audience who are interested in any product or service that the business is providing. Case: Nike falls under the fashion industry and they are targeting only Zoom Pegasus Turbo2 for the customer reviews over social media, and let’s say the popular hashtags for this are #nike #nikeshoes #zoompegasus #nikeshoecollection. So now Nike can use these hashtags and reach the maximum number of the target audience who are interested in the product.
And that’s how I decide the right social media monitoring tool for the duty. What about you? Any factors you look for or service you use that I didn’t mention? Leave your additions, and any questions, in the comments!