Perhaps you’ve heard the term social monitoring report, or social listening report but aren’t sure what it is or why you need one. And let’s say you’ve been faithfully at work on your digital marketing and social media publicity plan. Have you ever wondered if all the effort and money you’ve been putting into your company’s social media marketing is having any impact? Last week we talked about digital marketing, which we defined as any type of promotion or marketing effort that uses electronic media. This could be related to products, services, branding, or even to the promoting of events.
Well, what a social listening report does is take an in-depth look at your digital marketing efforts, or more specifically, at social media outlets to see how your brand appears in the online conversation taking place there. A report can focus on just one outlet, such as Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or it can be comprehensive, looking at how you or your company is being talked about across all major social media applications.
Once you’ve determined which outlets your report will focus on, the next step is acquiring data. To do this, you must first choose keywords or specific hashtags on which your report will focus. Take some time to carefully consider what areas you want to know more about.
When is a good time to do a monitoring report, you ask? Well, whenever you want a snapshot of the conversation taking place about your business online is a good time to do one. For example, you might:
- Do a listening report to see how a new product line is being talked about.
- Look at how a new marketing campaign is being reflected in social media.
- Another type of monitoring report focuses on a specific event taking place in which your company is involved
- For brands new to online marketing, it might be best to do a general hashtag and keyword search centering on company name or on the industry you’re in.
These reports will give you the opportunity to see who is talking about your brand, who your competitors are, how well your advertisements are communicating your marketing message online, and even let you know if the conversation about your brand is positive, negative, or neutral.
These are just several of the many ways your company can use social listening reports to gauge the effectiveness of your overall online marketing strategy. Need more ideas of ways to use this valuable tool? Check out “100 Uses of Social Media Monitoring” by Jeffrey L. Cohen at marketingcloud.com.
BONUS READING:
Here’s a social monitoring report focused on how well one organization’s marketing efforts were at reaching their target audience for their annual Dragon Con event held in Atlanta each Labor Day weekend.
And in coming weeks, we’ll post an example of a social listening report for a mid-sized national company that has only recently begun their digital marketing efforts. We’re currently researching Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to see how successful they are so far. So check back often, or better yet, click the “follow” button on the right and never miss a post!
Digital Writing and Social Media 