BRAND MONITORING

WHAT IS BRAND MONITORING?

It’s easier than ever for information to be posted about your business or your personal brands in public forums. Social media networks, business directories, review sites, personal blogs, business blogs, youtube videos, traditional websites, the list goes on and you can also use all of those to your advantage when it comes to digital marketing. It’s more important than ever to control and understand and how people get introduced to and engage with your brand. It’s also harder than ever to monitor chatter about you and your brand through all the noise on the internet. Brand monitoring is the process of using tools and processes to track as much of the talk about you and your brand as possible so that you can address it in a constructive manner.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO ACTIVELY MONITOR MY BRAND ONLINE?

A BRAND’S ONLINE REPUTATION IS FREQUENTLY THE FIRST THING A POTENTIAL CUSTOMER SEES.

According to Statista (as of March 2018), 46.1% of people between the ages of 18 and 60 research products online before going to the store to purchase them.(read more about active reputation management here) Most social media network and search engine algorithms favor the newest information, so it’s important to track the most recent comments. In many cases the most recent reviews and commentary on your business is what potential customers will see first. It’s great when that’s something great about your business, but what about when it’s not?

Even worse what about when that commentary gets comments like “glad I found this, saved me a big mistake”, getting engagement that continues to push it to the top of results, and you have no idea it even exists?

READY TO TAKE YOUR BRAND TO THE NEXT LEVEL ONLINE? SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULTATION HERE

BRAND MONITORING IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR ALMOST ANY TYPE OF COMPANY OUT THERE.

Brand monitoring isn’t only useful for making sure there aren’t negative comments floating around the inter-webs about your business. Online commentary gives you powerful insight into your business and products and offers valuable insight into how to improve. Comments that a customer didn’t expect you to see are particularly powerful as they are more raw and honest, and offer an opportunity to address the issue in a way the disgruntled customer never expected. Of course there will also be feedback floating around out there that isn’t constructive at all and in some cases is completely fake, but wouldn’t you rather know about that too so you can create a reputation management strategy to address it?

BRAND MONITORING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media networks are undoubtedly one of the strongest communication channels available to any brand. Through these platforms, customers voice out their opinion of your products/services, concerns and complaints. The good news is that at their base level these platforms also offer a voice to you and your brand for free. The bad side of that is that they also offer an open and free platform for anyone else to represent your brand. So who would you rather have deciding how your brand is presented online? The best strategy is to stay aware, and then be honest, understand the opinions presented by other people and be generous towards your customers. Their constructive feedback will prove valuable to make things better.

INTERACTIONS WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL FOSTER A GOOD AND POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF YOUR BRAND.

Remember that no response is still a response. So even if you don’t monitor your brand and everything is positive, how do you like giving compliments to people that completely ignore you? Marketing is relationship building. People won’t keep engaging with you if they are ignored. And people that don’t engage with you, won’t buy from you.

Monitoring your social media presence is also important because SM networks are gathering places filled with people’s thoughts, opinions and concerns about you, your competitors and your field of operation. Some of these people may express disappointment about your services, while some others may be looking for a product like yours (marketing leads). By reacting fast, both situations can have a positive income for your business. However, you wouldn’t know any of these without monitoring.

BRAND MONITORING CAN REVEAL TRENDS

One more great benefit of a proper brand monitoring program is that you can monitor more than just your brand name. You can monitor topics, competitor brands, and product names to see the latest developments in market trends, see what mistakes your competitors are making and capitalize on them, and get ideas for new and exciting things to offer to your customer. A good brand monitoring strategy will keep your customers and your competitors wondering how you constantly stay ahead of the curve. Don’t worry, we will keep your secret.