Protecting Brand Identity with Social Media Monitoring

By Amanda Eggert

If you’re not controlling your brand online, someone else is. This simple concept is the backbone for social media monitoring.

Social media monitoring involves mining online content (blogs, forums, social media sites, etc.) for complaints, compliments, competitors, and general customer touch points. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of comments on any given topic at any given time makes monitoring a daunting task. Luckily, the increasing popularity of social media spurred the creation of several monitoring services, both free and professional.

I’ve been fortunate enough during my time at Laughlin to use Cision’s Social Media Dashboard (powered by Radian6). Cision’s platform aggregates content around brand related keywords from a variety of source. This content can then be analyzed visually and numerically to demonstrate ROI, intercept customer comments, or prevent potential PR crises. While the tool hones in on a keyword, a degree of sorting comments (especially for sentiment) is still necessary.

Now, not every brand can afford professional social media monitoring services. For those brands, it’s best to experiment with the free tools out there. To get started, develop a list of key terms including competitors, high level employees, and product or service lines. Next, enter these terms into Google Alerts, Twitter Search, Social Mention, Back Type or a Google Blog Search. From there, it’s as simple as sorting through the results.

Social media monitoring is quickly becoming a must for brands. People are out there, and they’re talking.

Amanda Eggert is a senior studying advertising and communication at Marquette. She currently interns for Milwaukee advertising agency Laughlin Constable in the company’s online and digital department. Amanda will share her experience interning in the advertising world throughout the course of the semester.