Social media monitoring tools zero in on consumer behaviors so brands can jump in at just the right moment to nudge consumers along the purchase path. It reveals how a consumer thinks and feels about you, your product or really anything happening in the world today. Understanding these hidden insights opens up a brands doorway into better marketing, advertising and posted content. And that’s really just scratching the surface of social media monitoring capabilities.
We are going to highlight a handful of social analytics tools that are non-negotiable “must have” tools, and you’ll want to pay attention because:
- In 2021, 9 percent of U.S. marketers in companies with 100 employees or more, were expected to use social media for marketing purposes. So, if you aren’t, you will be left behind.
- And 63% of social media marketers believe that listening in on social channels will become more important over the next year.
- Consumers are 71% more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals, so understanding what consumers are saying online is paramount to a brand’s success.
Additionally, over 3.6 billion people use social media today around the world, and that number is projected to increase to 4.41 billion by 2025. This makes social media monitoring all the more critical. With that in mind, let’s explore what social media monitoring can do for you!
Social Media Monitoring at Work
Social media monitoring tracks what is being said about a brand or product through social and online channels. Think of it like a search engine that gathers intel from all over the internet and then compiles, sorts and segments it for easy dissection. Social media monitoring tools help your business by keeping you up to date on how your brand is perceived. Being aware of this can help your company:
- Build brand authenticity
- Determine which channels are capturing the most engagement
- Track campaign performance
- Uncover audiences not yet explored
- Determine how varying audiences feel about your brand
- Locate negative sentiments, so you can confront and repair them
- Offer trackable results, making ROI reporting a reality
Some tools are better at all of this than others, naturally.
NetBase Quid
NetBase Quid offers well-rounded social media monitoring tools for every use case. From tracking and measuring followers, to keeping an eye on shifting consumer demographics and trends. Consumer sentiment towards brands shifted a lot over the past year and these shifts are expected to continue through 2022. And if the right social media monitoring tools are used, your brand can stay ahead of these shifts. This is where NetBase Quid comes in. This tool can track shifting sentiments over time and has everything your team needs to set your company up for success. Powered by next generation AI, its natural language processing (NLP) capabilities capture the chatter online and dissect it to reveal what your customers really care about. Assumptions are dangerous, after all.
For example, you may have assumed consumers wanted lower prices, when really, they care more about sustainability practices. Uncovering these nuances are key to getting your messaging right, product innovation and so much more.
And why does NLP matter? It takes into consideration the complexities of the human language, such as sarcasm.
Calis obsession with princesses ugh I love this for me 💀
— carmen (@carmenevelyn_) November 9, 2021
Obviously, a mom posting about her two-year-old’s obsession with everything princess isn’t “loving” this new phase of fashion displayed by her toddler, though many tools would classify it as such. NLP is also able to sort:
- Emojis – The phrase I love X brand’s fries takes on new meaning when followed by an eyeroll emoji.
- Slang/urban language – basic af, boi, rad, poggers and other netspeak are understood and appropriately categorized
- Regional dialects – “You guys” or “ya’ll?” Having the right wording when advertising between different states, or even countries, is critical to reaching and relating with your audience
- Passion intensity – Consumer emotion is powerful and dangerous, and so is uncovering your most passionate consumers
Language isn’t just words. The context behind those words is what is critical to understand. Having Natural Language Processing to categorize all of this text for you in real-time increases your time to actionable insight -and does so with an unmatched level of accuracy!
Rival IQ
Another well-rounded social media monitoring tool is Rival IQ. Track all of the necessary and important competitive measurements here, including followers and engagements. And one of the biggest highlights here is its competitor analysis!
The old adage to “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” is very true to marketing. And writing up a brand strategy means understanding the competitive landscape around you. By sizing up the competition, you can see when they win and follow their careful steps. Or be there when they fail and step in to rescue their unhappy, former customers!
With Rival IQ’s social media monitoring tools, you can set alerts to notify you of any move your competitors make. This tool has a valuable set of audience growth metrics, locating which social channels are seeing the most follower growth. And it gets even more detailed, offering you a look at the average activity of your competitors. You’ll get intel on post frequency, emojis used in their bios and even hashtags being utilized to drive significant traffic.
But it’s not merely about watching your competitions’ steps, as Rival IQ offers competitive benchmarking to see how your brand measures up in the industry as a whole. You can identify phrases, hashtags and topics that drive conversation within your category, keeping you current – and often even ahead in the game. And finally, with their head-to-head reports for Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, you can see where you’re gaining the most traction with your online consumers, and which channel you may want to beef up a bit.
Reputation
Consumer perception changes with the wind – what’s en vogue one day, is out the next. And that’s exactly why brands need to keep an eye on how their company and products are perceived by the public.
Reputation aids companies in tracking what consumers are saying about them, not just on social media but on review sites as well. With their tool, you can track, manage, and respond to reviews from all over the web in one place. Or take advantage of their review booster and get access to custom response templates to use for automatic responses to reviews. This saves you valuable time that can be better directed in other areas – like social media monitoring.
Reputation helps dissect what’s behind consumers’ posts as well. Do they really ‘love’ their new product from you – or is it more in line with the ‘love’ the mom felt for her toddler’s love of princesses? It’s critical to know the difference, so your brand can respond appropriately and in a timely fashion. And since Reputation allows you to respond to posts in its suite, you can be sure to put out any flame before it become a four-alarm fire.
Monday
Staying organized is critical with any business. Monday helps you keep all of those ducks in a row, so you don’t have any stray too far from your brand mission! You can map out social media posts and collaborate with your entire team, ensuring that you’re all in the same pond and swimming in the same direction.
Additionally, with their social media planner template, Monday helps you with ideas. For example, your posts could alternate between quotes, questions, resharing funny memes in your industry, or current world events. The template keeps you on track and prevents your social media page from becoming too repetitive. Once you have everything planned out, you can schedule your posts to be published right away or on a future date.
And then it’s time to listen in and see what consumers have to say. Mention gathers all brand mentions from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and more, even if your company isn’t specifically tagged in the post itself. If you happen upon any negative comments or posts, you can reply right away in your dashboard, saving you time finding log-in credentials and managing nuances inherent to different social media accounts.
Storyclash
It’s predicted that TikTok will reach 755 million monthly users by 2022, and that’s after a 59.8 percent growth in 2020. This once controversial social media channel is now beloved by many people all around the globe. And as such, it has become necessary for brands to monitor it. Storyclash saves the day here!
From influencer discovery to influencer reporting and everything in between, this powerful social media monitoring tool fishes out the known and unknown influencers in your industry. Their AI-powered search engine also allows you to track keywords, hashtags, account names and swipe up links in every part of influencer content. And because of their text recognition, the text in your brand logo can be tracked. This way, you can capture and measure all mentions of your brand. This is particularly helpful when running an influencer campaign. And with Storyclash’s social media monitoring tool, you can keep track of KPIs, making better data-driven decisions.
Lastly, this tool does monitor more than TikTok, it also covers Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram – so when searching for an influencer, you’re sure to find one on the channel you need.
Loomly
Consistency in posting is important, but so is being consistent in your brand voice. In fact, uniformly presented brands are 3.5x more visible to customers. When you pair this statistic with the understanding that consumers subconsciously connect words, ideas, phrases and even emotions with companies, making sure your messaging aligns across social channels will become a priority. And it should be, as it is central to your success in capturing consumer attention.
With Loomly’s social media monitoring tools, your brand can be sure that you’re offering a consistent brand voice across multiple social channels. With their platform, you have multiple tools and collaborative views at your disposal, keeping all team members on the same page, and at all times. It offers ad mockups and commenting, version logs and approval flow so everyone is speaking the same language.
Another great aspect of Loomly is their database of ideas. Posting frequently to social media is necessary for algorithm attention, which ultimately determines whether or not you’re noticed. But sometimes you run out of ideas. Here, Loomly provides inspiration for your brand to take, mutate and fit to your own messaging, and hopefully connect with consumers. Then when you’re all done, use their URL shortener to drive traffic to your website!
Upfluence
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention social media monitoring tools which are focused on influencer marketing. Ninety-two percent of consumers trust an influencer over a celebrity and over brand ads. When you combine that with 54% of social browsers using social media to research products like yours, having an influencer on your side can translate to money in the bank.
Upfluence locates possible influencers for your company and then allows you to track them, measure their performance, and see if they are the right fit for you. Not every influencer is going to reach the demographic you need, nor want. And in fact, you may have followers already that are influencers in their own right. Upfluence locates these micro influencers for you.
Take Well Plated, run by micro influencer Erin Clarke. She has 12.6K subscribers that follow her channel, seeking inspiration for healthy home-cooked meals. This is a fantastic opportunity for companies in that space to get their products in consumers hands. A jar of marinara sauce, the right storage container, or even a paired glass of wine – this is a recipe for opportunity!
And if you still think influencer marketing isn’t for you, we’d suggest you consider this stat: Fifty-nine percent of brands have a standalone budget for content marketing, and 75% of them intend to dedicate significant budget to influencer marketing in 2022. You don’t want to be left behind.
And we’ll see that you aren’t! Remember to reach out for a demo and learn we can help you with consumer trends, competitive analysis, sentiment monitoring, influencer marketing and so much more.
