Is lackluster monitoring killing your social media brand?

Social media has revolutionized the consumer-brand relationship by giving both parties the power to communicate.

Consumers have the power to research brands, express their opinions, and ask questions via social media platforms.

Brands, on the other hand, have the power to maintain a positive reputation and image, engage with consumers, improve customer experiences, and ultimately improve their marketing strategy.

How many brands are using social media to improve their marketing strategy?

According to Upfront Analytics only “24% of brands say they do “social listening.”

Furthermore, Hootsuite says that 48% of Americans interact with brands via social media.

There’s no doubt that consumers are engaging with your brand on social media, but are you listening to what they have to say?

What is Social Media Monitoring and Social Media Listening?

Social media listening is the process of carefully monitoring your social media channels with the goal of collecting enough data to create marketing strategies that help improve your customers’ experiences.

Social media monitoring is when a company searches relevant phrases, keywords or brands to gather valuable data about consumers.

For example, the network provider Bell might search keywords such as “My Bell,” “Bell phones,” or “Bell customer service.”

5 Benefits of Social Media Monitoring

Monitoring your social media channels will have a largely positive impact on your brand.

1. Improve The Management of Customer Concerns: Social media monitoring brings to light the common questions, concerns, and feelings customers have about a brand.

2. Protect Your Brand Image: Customers prefer engaging with brands via social media over the phone or in-store. What they read and hear shapes their opinions and expectations about what they know about you. Social media monitoring hands over the control of what consumers are saying about your brand.

3. Increase Customer Engagement: According to Sprout Social, over 89% of messages sent to brands go unanswered. Social media monitoring can aid in the effective and efficient management of customer questions, requests, and concerns.

4. Increase Your Crisis Management Ability: Customers rely on a brand’s social media to find information when a crisis occurs. According to Hootsuite, “59% of Americans who have a social media account agree that customer service via social media has made it easier to get questions and concerns resolved.”

5. Increase Your Brand Authority: Answering customer questions and concerns quickly and effectively helps consumers see your brand as trustworthy and reliable.

Social Media Monitoring Case Studies

The Problem: Barclays most recent application, PingIt, was run through a social media analysis to determine the impact it had on their customers. Barclay’s team discovered that the comments from customers under the age of 18 were mostly negative. This was because Barclay’s younger users weren’t granted access to send or receive money via e-transfer. The app also made the parents of these customers upset because they couldn’t send payments to their children.

The Solution: A week after the discovery, Barclay’s granted access to the application for users 16 and older. Barclay’s social media monitoring allowed their team to find a solution quickly and avoid a potential PR disaster.

The Lesson: Brand’s can use social media monitoring to find customer problems and provide a quick solution.

The Problem: H&M ran four marketing campaigns, each featuring a different celebrity spokesperson. The brand was unsure of why all four campaigns didn’t receive the same results.

The Solution: H&M monitored the online conversations happening about the campaign. After analyzing the data, the brand revealed that the geographic location impacted the success of each campaign. H&M realized that people with different cultures and customs received the campaign differently, depending on the value they place on the featured celebrity.

The Lesson: Social media monitoring brings brand’s more insight on their customer’s thoughts and preferences.

The Problem: This past February, Gitlab went through a major crisis when one of their engineers accidentally deleted their primary database.

The Solution: Although the situation was serious, Gitlab didn’t panic. The company used social media monitoring to track mentions, tags, etc. on blogs and other media. GitLab was able to find the consumers talking about the crisis, answer their questions or concerns, diffuse rumors, and maintain a reputable image.

The Lesson: Even when a crisis occurs, social media monitoring can help your brand maintain a healthy relationship with your customers and upkeep your reputation.

Bonus Lesson: Don’t be afraid of negative comments, mentions, and situations. They are an excellent opportunity to show your customers that your brand is all about solving problems and making customers happy.

The Problem: Through social media monitoring, Dannon saw that their customers were dissatisfied with the brand’s lack of transparency when it comes to the types of ingredients they use.

The Solution: Dannon listened carefully to their audience and saw that people were yearning for a GMO-free yogurt. That’s when Dannon launched their line of GMO-free Greek yogurts.

A quote from the Dannon website:

“Because consumer preferences are continuing to evolve and Dannon puts consumers at the center of every decision it makes, today the nation’s leading yogurt maker is implementing the first of many major changes to provide more choice to consumers. Beginning today, new yogurts with non-GMO.”

The Lesson: Monitoring your social media and listening to customer opinions will give light to hidden trends that your customers are hoping to see.

Conclusion

The truth is, people are talking about your brand via social media.

If you’re not taking the time to listen to what consumers have to say, then you’re missing out on valuable opportunities to improve your business.

How has social media helped your business improve customer relationships?