The social media monitoring (Social Media Monitoring) is an important component of social media marketing, public relations (PR) work, and planning and evaluation marketing. Social networks look for information relevant to their own fame, as well as their own products or services. For the monitoring of social networks, tools are used that allow continuous work.
Context
Due to the increasing popularity of social networks in the course of the development of the Internet in Web 2.0, in which the user becomes active, the importance of social networks for online marketing and marketing in general has also increased. However, unlike the analysis of visitor flows or visitor behavior in the framework of web analysis, the monitoring of social networks is based on other aspects. There is much more data to process in the monitoring of social networks, and this data has to be processed almost in real time so that companies can react directly to trends, criticisms or activities of the competition. It is not directly about the analysis of the websites themselves, but about observation of topics and keywords on a variety of different social networks.
Social media monitoring tools
Social media monitoring tools have been developed to group the mass of different data and prepare it for analysis. These programs allow you to constantly search social networks information relevant to corporate planning.
Hootsuite
HootSuite is a social media administration panel made public by HootSuite Media Inc. The software allows you to manage and control activities on various social networks with a single tool.
Features
HootSuite describes its main function as "Social Media Administration." Specifically, this means that the user can manage and control profiles on different social networks with a single account. Along with the opportunity to post through HootSuite, users can also follow individual topics or directly contact other users.
The software is browser-based and can be used as a free basic version, as well as a paid version with additional features.
HootSuite can be used with the following social networks:
- Google Plus
- Foursquare
- WordPress - this is not technically a social network, but this CMS blog belongs to social networks in the framework of web 2.0
- Mixi
- Tumblr
- Youtube
- Flickr
Analysis
HootSuite provides hard data on the scope of individual social media campaigns. This data can be created and retrieved as reports. The HootSuite account can be linked to Google Analytics for analysis. In addition, other data sources such as Facebook Insights and Twitter statistics or the URL shortener ow.ly can be imported.
A great utility of HootSuite is that multiple users can work with a single account. This makes the Social Media Monitoring Tool perfect for teamwork. HootSuite is also suitable for use on smartphones or tablets, which means that campaigns can be managed and monitored while on the go.
Friendfeed
FriendFeed is a service that allows you to group different social networks, blogs, social networks and web content in a single account. Strictly speaking, FriendFeed is not a social media monitoring tool, but its own meta-social network. However, the tool can also be used for marketing purposes. You can register through Twitter or a Facebook account and it is free. The tool was released in 2007 and is now part of Facebook Inc.
Features
Not only does FriendFeed allow users to group accounts from different social networks into a single feed, but they can also fill this feed with news, topics, or information from social media channels. The feed can be shared with friends or partners who will be notified of any changes to the subscribed content.
The personal feed includes more than 55 different web services, such as social bookmarking, social media, or blogging services. In this way, food goes far beyond traditional social networks. The following services (with examples) can be integrated thematically.
- Blogging services (Blogger, tumblr).
- Social bookmarks.
- Books.
- News.
- Photos (Flickr, Picasa).
- Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn).
- Communication (Google Mail).
- Music.
- Videos.
- RSS-Feeds.
- Other services (Amazon, Slideshare, Yelp).
Analysis
Who uses FriendFeed should not wait for a ready-made social media monitoring tool. Rather, the combination of several highly versatile social media channels makes it possible to spot trends and read up-to-date topics. Unlike HootSuite or SocialBench, FriendFeed gathers news from an even broader range of social networks. In this way, FriendFeed is ideal for finding opinions on specific topics and products.
Social Bench
Social Bench is a web-based service that allows the monitoring and analysis of the activities of various social networks. One of the main features of the tool is the creation of social benchmarks.
The Social Networks Monitoring Tool is subject to a cost and can be used by several people at the same time, depending on the version. Prices vary between just under 50 and almost 800 euros per month.
Features
The tool offers its users a wide variety of functions. The focus is on benchmarking, within which the performance of individual social media channels can be measured and reports can be created.
Other functions include trend analysis and direct trend detection. The comparison with the competition is also interesting.
Analysis
Through the connection to Google Analytics, traffic flows from different sources can be directly compared and analyzed through Social Bench, at the same time as social interaction.
A special feature of SocialBench is reviewing users and their reactions on the Social Web. Therefore, it is feasible to track precisely in which social networks the users of their own profiles are also active.
The monitoring tool offers many starting points to examine your own activities and social media campaigns, or through the use of defined KPIs, such as the growth of the fan base in a week, the average number of own emails per day or the number of active fans who 'liked' or commented on something.
Importance for social media marketing
Currently, social media marketing is a an integral part of the marketing mix of companies. But hardly any other area is so dynamic. Opinions can change quickly, the most important issues can emerge and disappear into insignificance just as quickly. The line between liking and hitting is often very narrow. For this reason, the monitoring of social networks is increasingly important. Through continuous monitoring of target groups on social media, it is feasible identify trends, anticipate criticism or create opinions.
