Social Media Monitoring is not just for Big Brands
Quick answer: Social media monitoring is valuable for businesses of every size, not just big brands. With so much content competing for attention, monitoring reveals how your audience interacts with your brand and helps you look beyond likes and comments to measure conversions and revenue. A monitoring tool helps you understand sentiment and improve your social media strategy.
We all know that the internet is a noisy place. But just how noisy is it really?
According to statistics (garnered by CMW)1, there are:
- 4.6 billion pieces of content are being produced daily
- 500 hours of videos are being uploaded to YouTube every minute
- 24 million articles are being posted every day
If you’re feeling overwhelmed just by reading these statistics, imagine how your customers feel when they are constantly being bombarded with content in the social media space. Customers are inundated with more information than before, which makes standing out even more challenging. When faced with content fatigue, an irritate subscriber may inadvertently unfollow or even hide all future posts from your brand.
According to MDG Advertising2, businesses also find it difficult to quantify the success of their social media campaigns. Although 73% track their social media efforts, marketers tend to look more at likes, comments and other engagement statistics instead of overall sales. Only 21% measures conversions – which includes revenue and goal conversions. More surprisingly, firms that invest in paid campaigns pay more attention to metrics that are not related to sales. Those using paid campaigns focus more on audience reach and growth, clicks to website and engagement. The conversion rate takes last priority despite the firms’ financial investment.
Social media postings need to be more than just transactional – an insightful and targeted approach is required. 90% of people surveyed have used social media to communicate directly with a brand3. Businesses use social media more as a promotional mechanism instead of a two-way communication channel. Case in point: Brands send 23 messages for every 1 consumer response. There is obviously a disconnect between customer expectations and brand realities. It is worth pondering what role that gap plays in terms of customer loyalty, retention and publicity. With more than 3 billion people using social networks, how do you keep track of what they say? This is where Social Media Monitoring tools come in.
Monitoring brings valuable insights into how your audience interacts with your brand or competitors. Listening analyzes what customers say when they talk about your brand.
Why should you invest in a Social Media Monitoring tool?
Never Miss a Brand Relevant Message
One of the benefits of social media monitoring includes discovering more opportunities to engage with customers. Directly answering a product question could steer the course into a purchase instead of an abandoned cart. You can analyze hashtag performance and see how users interact with your content on social media platforms. Help you to identify brand keywords and topics that truly engages your target audience.
Help Brand Prioritize Customer Care
Majority of consumers buy from brands that are honest (86%), helpful (78%) and friendly (83%)4. Consumers want brands to use social platforms as a customer care channel. By giving people what they want: helpful answers to their questions about your product, service or brand – you can convert customers into vocal brand advocates.
Interact with your top Brand Advocates and Key Customers
Word-of-mouth has shown to influence 74% of buyers in their purchase decisions5. Brand advocates are essential to promote your products and contribute more engagement in smaller pockets of the market. Engage with your biggest advocates to grow social presence with positive customer experiences.
Understand what’s working (and not working) for Competitors
Social Media Monitoring helps you understand what your competitors are up to and how they engage with their own fans.
You might also like: B2B Marketing on Social Media
There are a variety of Social Media Monitoring tools that your company can explore such as Brandwatch, Meltwater, Talkwalker or Hootsuite amongst others. As a starter, you can also try the free tools that are readily available in the market (which is awesome for smaller businesses!) These tools allow you to extract metadata about sites and authors, sentiment analysis, categorization and topic analysis. By leveraging on these data, you can uncover consumer insights and apply them to your brand strategy.
Shop for your social media template at the 90 Degrees Asia store
References:
1. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/micromoments-guide-pdf-download/
2. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2017/marketing-sales-digital-go-to-market-transformation-mobile-marketing-new-b2b-buyer.aspx
3. & 5.: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-monitoring/
4. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/data/q2-2017/
6. Image Credit – Photo by from Canva
Key takeaways
- Monitoring is valuable for businesses of every size.
- It reveals how audiences interact with your brand.
- Measure conversions and revenue, not just engagement.
- A monitoring tool supports smarter social strategy.
Frequently asked questions
What is social media monitoring?
Social media monitoring is tracking mentions of your brand, competitors and relevant topics across social platforms. It shows how audiences talk about and interact with your business.
Why do small businesses need social media monitoring?
Customers face content fatigue and may unfollow brands that are not relevant. Monitoring helps smaller businesses understand their audience, respond quickly and focus effort on what works.
What should businesses measure on social media?
Beyond likes and comments, measure conversions, revenue and goal completions. The article cited MDG Advertising data that while 73% track social efforts, only 21% measure conversions.
How can 90 Degrees Asia help with social media monitoring?
90 Degrees Asia is a Singapore-based B2B digital marketing agency that helps companies across APAC with LinkedIn marketing, content and lead generation. Its team can plan, run and measure campaigns tailored to your market and audience.
Want help applying this in your market? Talk to 90 Degrees Asia about B2B marketing across APAC.
