ImpactWatch Blog

There’s lots of advice out there on monitoring social media. And frankly, there are not a lot of people running around saying it shouldn’t be done or it isn’t worth the effort. Everyone knows that you need to monitor so you can see what people are saying about your company and so you can engage consumers. But without specific goals and a data organization plan, that’s about all you’re going to be doing.

Here’s a list of ways you can use the information you glean from social media monitoring. I tried not to get too specific to keep the list reasonable and because every company will have different data to organize and apply.

If you’re unsure of how to accomplish any of these via media monitoring, just ask. It’s an open-book test, people.

1. Identify new markets.
2. See what people are saying about your employees and executives.
3. Be an industry expert – monitor and answer questions via social media.
4. Find out what customers care about – and what they don’t.
5. Measure sentiment towards your brand and products.
6. Track influencers – who is recommending your products and who is warning customers off?
7. Identify opportunities to share ideas with peers and thought-leaders.
8. Profile markets to inform your outreach efforts.
9. Find existing customers and reinforce business relationships.
10. Follow the latest industry news.
11. Track and compare your business units’ success in social media.
12. Discover opportunities to increase brand awareness.
13. Get product development feedback from customers and the community.
14. Hear when customers complain about your products :(
15. Hear when customers complain about your competitors’ products :)
16. Learn how to get the consumer’s ear – which keywords and hashtags are they watching?
17. Track brand sentiment by archiving and comparing mentions over time.
18. Identify and monitor brand threats.
19. Find expressions of need to target potential customers.
20. Stalk and outmaneuver your competitors online.
21. Identify opportunities to humanize your company (especially customer support!).
22. Find new employees.
23. Track public relations messaging – is the public hearing what you’re saying?
24. Monitor industry and technology developments.
25. Track market and consumer trends.
26. Position your employees as the first source of info on your company.
27. Audit your PR efforts.
28. Find new business partners.
29. Collect information to benchmark your brand and your competitors.
30. Monitor what industry analysts are saying about you and your competitors.
31. Monitor and correct misinformation about your brand and products.
32. Find industry case studies.
33. Get ideas for blogs, presentations and marketing copy.
34. Streamline and improve customer support processes.
35. Conduct competitive intelligence gathering.
36. Be aware of reputation issues before they escalate.
37. Keep an eye on relevant regulatory action and legislation.
38. Find keywords to use in marketing and SEO.
39. Analyze media trends for pitch targeting.
40. Give your employees a forum to be advocates for your brand.
41. Determine which forums your customers are active in – and meet them there.
42. Collect demographic and market research data.
43. Join customer and industry conversations in real-time.
44. Discover industry best practices.
45. Find customer testimonials to use in marketing.
46. Find potential brand promoters based on keywords.
47. Find local customers and industry organizations to connect with.
48. Form relationships with journalists and bloggers in your industry.
49. Track pretty much anything over time. The longer you monitor, the more informative the data will be.
50. Make your company sound cool and current. Everyone who’s anyone is on SM.
51. Make friends and influence people.

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Monitor Hannah on Twitter.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Media Monitoring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.