Six Critical Steps to Take Before Starting Your Social Media Monitoring Initiative
Note from Lee: This guest post comes to us from Andy Beal, CEO of social media monitoring tool Trackur and coauthor of Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Administration Reputations Online. Andy and I have known each other for many years and in fact, Andy was the first “well-known” SEO blogger I had the opportunity to meet in person. He was gracious, helpful and very smart then and continues those traits today. He literally wrote the book on Online Reputation Management and I appreciate his willingness to share practical insights into the world of social media monitoring.
Social media monitoring. Reputation monitoring. Buzz monitoring. Call it what you want, but it’s all the rage. All the cool kids are doing it! But, friends don’t let friends watch social media without first teaching them the six critical steps that most companies overlook.
Don’t start any kind of online monitoring effort until you’ve worked through these vital steps. Ignore them, and you’re setting yourself up for failure.
1. Know Your Goals
Just because you can watch everything that’s being said about your brand online, doesn’t mean you should just jump in, without setting apparent goals. That’s the monitoring equivalent of hanging out at an open bar–you’ll quickly get dizzy and will end up with a major headache!
Take the time now, to write down what your goals are for your social media monitoring campaign. Are you trying to better know how Twitter users talk about your products? Are looking to measure the success of your new viral marketing campaign? Or, perhaps you suspect a rogue hand is sharing too many company secrets.
We talk a lot about “monitoring” social media, but you also need to “measure” the information you assemble. You can’t do that without first defining your goals!
2. Know Which Keywords to Watch
Now you know your goals, you need to determine your keywords. What just so do you plot to watch on the web? Your company name? That’s a agreed, right? Your CEO’s name? Check! Depending on your goals, you might also consider the following:
- Your product brands–iPhone, Machine, Windows, Fiesta, and Motrin are all buzz-worthy products.
- Well loved company employees–are they saying too much?
- Your trademarks–watch for infringement
- Super secret products–the ones you worry might leak to the web
- TV and Radio slogans–is that cute jingle resonating with your consultation?
- For more suggestions, download this PDF.
3. Start With the Free Monitoring Tools
Trackur is one of literally hundreds of social media monitoring tools you can pick from. You might reckon that the CEO of a monitoring tool would want you to immediately invest in a paid solution, but I’m not your typical CEO. As a replacement for, I want you to try all the free tools first. Google Alerts, Social Mention, Twitter Search, if it’s free, use it!
Am I insane? Maybe, but not because I want you to use free tools. I want you to use free tools for two reasons.
First, for 80% of you, the free tools will be quite sufficient for your needs. Maybe you don’t get a lot of online mentions. Maybe you are a small mom-and-pop shop. Maybe you’re a Realtor and only need to watch your name–that’s it! You won’t need the extra tools and features that come from paying for a social media monitoring instrument panel.
Second reason: you won’t know what’s value paying for, until you’ve tested the free tools. For example, maybe you need a tool that can tell you not just who’s talking about your brand on Twitter, but who’s talking about your brand on Twitter AND is influential. Or, maybe you need a way to let various employees have access to your social media monitoring intelligence. Until you use the free tools, you won’t know what features are worthy of opening up the company check book.
4. Roll-up Your Sleeves and Watch This Yourself
That leads me to tip number four: watch your reputation yourself, before outsourcing it.
Just as I don’t recommend you pay for a monitoring solution until you’ve tested the free tools, I also don’t recommend you outsource your reputation monitoring until you’ve attempted it “in-house.” Why? Because, until you’ve attempted this internally, you won’t know what your needs are. Go straight to a marketing, PR, or specialist online reputation monitoring firm, and you’ll likely be taken for a ride. You won’t know what questions to question, you won’t know what intelligence you need. You’ll simply hand over lots of money and hope for the best.
Monitoring social media in-house gives you the opportunity to learn frankly from your clients. React in realtime and learn first hand what your weaknesses are. The moment you outsource that, you add an extra layer between you and your customers. If you’re going to add that extra layer of insulation, you’d better have apparent goals and set apparent expectations. It’s hard to do that, when you’ve not been in the trenches yourself.
5. Don’t Silo the Information Composed
OK, so you’re monitoring in-house with either free or paid monitoring tools, or you’ve outsourced the entire task. Next, you need to choose where this composed information is routed. Who in your company is alerted when a customer complains on Facebook that his laptop battery just exploded? Whose responsibility is it to ensure that your cars’ gas pedals doesn’t stick in the 2011 models?
I’m seeing more companies tackle this “chain of command” question by appointing a social media quarterback–aka a Community Manager. Call them what you want, but their job function is to assemble and collate the data that comes in from your social media monitoring efforts and ensure critical information is passed on to the most appropriate person, or department in your company. They’re the social media silo buster! They ensure there are no bottlenecks or silos of data.
6. Commit to Act on the Information Composed
The data is flowing in to your company. Your Community Manager is making sure that same data is flowing to the most relevant person in your company. OK, so now what? What’s really happening to that data?
The last step is to make sure you have a process for ensuring you take action on the vital information gleaned from social media. Are you really improving your products? Are you really training your employees to provide better customer service? Are you really ensuring your deep sea oil wells don’t leak in the future?
Commit now that you will not just pay lip-service to your customers. Get commitment from your executive team that they will actively listen to what’s being said about your company. Or as Dell puts it:
“We want the customer is walking the hallways…this is not a communication exercise, this is not a feel-excellent business, this is part of the DNA of Dell!”
Are you ready to make social media monitoring part of your company’s DNA?
You can find Andy blogging at Marketing Pilgrim and on Twitter.
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