The 8 Most Important Criteria for Your Online Monitoring and Listening Needs
Social media creates an environment for us to discover things and meet people that we might not even be aware of under normal conditions. In these digital environments, people talk about you personally or your brand every day, and tons of correspondence, articles and content are waiting to be discovered.
As one of the founders of Decathlon Buzz (as you know, it became Altavia Decathlon after the acquisition), which implemented one of Turkey's first social media monitoring software, we offered social media monitoring and online listening services to the most valuable and big brands of the world and Turkey for many years. and our agency's solutions are still going on. I have experienced many global and local online monitoring tools in line with the developments I have learned and followed from the sector in this process, and I have evaluated their pros and cons. In this article, I would like to share the important topics that you should pay attention to when choosing an online monitoring agency or tool.
First of all, let's remember;
Social media creates an environment for us to discover things and meet people that we might not even be aware of under normal conditions. In these digital environments, people talk about you personally or your brand every day, and tons of correspondence, articles and content are waiting to be discovered. You can eliminate the information that is most important to you from this world of intense content, and keep it usable, thanks to online monitoring.
Social listening tools scan the internet for your brand, product, name or any other keyword and make it available to you. By determining the right strategies, you can not only reveal the conversations, but also create insights by deeply analyzing all the collected data. By capturing what people are talking about about you and your brand, you know how to make the most of the information you gain.
There are numerous social media monitoring tools to help you keep track of more data and identify the most important information. Today, 49% of the world's population uses social media, in order to make this choice as easy as possible, I will share with you the most important criteria you need to pay attention to.
8 MOST IMPORTANT CRITERIA
1- Determine Your Priority Goals
You may have many reasons to use online monitoring tools. You can use the online listening and monitoring method for many different reasons such as creating the right content for your target audience, improving customer service, managing your reputation, determining your social media strategy, researching products and trends, increasing brand awareness, and improving yourself. Your goal may be both to detect negative comments and complaints at an early stage and to measure the success of a campaign you have launched at the same time. But first, you should determine the factors that best suit your needs. Depending on the goals you set, the data you obtain can reveal invaluable insights that can get you to the right spot.
2- Know the Scopes of the Tools Well
Social listening tools come in many different levels of coverage. For this very reason, determine the social channels you need to monitor for your brand. If you are aiming to manage your brand's reputation on social media or improve customer service, make sure that the monitoring tool you choose covers all major social media platforms, news, blogs and forums. Also check the languages and locations these tools scan. Because in the digital world there are too many sources, too many customers, and many different voices with the same intensity. When you miss any sound, it can be very costly for your brand financially and morally.
3- Pay Attention to Mood Analysis
The mood analysis separates all comments made on social media into positive, negative and neutral so you can analyze your overall brand reputation. This feature is one of the most useful and easy-to-use features of social media monitoring tools. In this way, you can find out what your target audience thinks, and you can draw your social media strategies according to the sentiment analysis you have obtained. By analyzing the reason for positive comments about you, you can increase these comments and create opportunities where you can turn negative comments into positive ones.
4- Ask for Meaningful Reports
Online monitoring and listening tools provide you with a lot of data. However, it is very important that this data is understandable and usable. These reports should show you at a glance if there's anything you need to watch out for, and they should be meaningful. Otherwise, it may not do anything but waste your time. Before choosing a tool for this, you should examine the sample reporting systems and have knowledge about it.
5- Question Speed
Of course, obtaining all this data can benefit you and your brand a lot. However, you should definitely consider the speed factor, which is the most important factor. It is one of the most important factors to catch negative comments about your brand as quickly as possible and to intervene.
6- Investigate Customer Support
The success of your social media monitoring does not end with purchasing the monitoring tool. At the same time, the training and consultancy provided by the customer team is very important for this success to be sustainable. For this, research support teams and service scopes beforehand. You can use two methods for this purpose:
Obtaining monitoring support completely from the agency
Just buy the software and decode the tracking and listening in-house.
7- Learn Your Obligations
When choosing a vehicle, know your obligations well and be mindful of contract lengths. Try not to choose vehicles that have contractual terms that may put you in a difficult position.
8- Determine Your Budget
Definitely consider the costs before purchasing any monitoring tool. Evaluate whether the budget you will pay is directly proportional to the needs of your brand and the services you expect from the monitoring tool. Also take advantage of free trials to get a better idea of the different tools.