Note: This is the third post in a series focused on Brand Monitoring 101
Now that we understand what brand monitoring and what business objectives if fulfills, let’s discuss next steps.
Identify Keywords
The first step in creating a brand monitoring program for your organization is to create a list of keywords and phrases of your brand. As an example for MindComet, the list could be as simple as:
- MindComet
- First in Social
- http://www.mindcomet.com/
- Mark Krupinski
- social media agency
Pick your monitoring platforms
Next, I recommend that you use a diversified approach in harnessing available online tools for brand monitoring. This involves capitalizing on the syndicated search feeds from free sites (e.g. Google Alerts, Twitter Search, etc.) in addition to a monthly commitment for a paid service such as radian6.
Please note that a combination of free sites maximizes the monitoring “net” given the varying algorithms while a paid service will ensure the ability to scrutinize any results in significant detail. Successful brand monitoring is all about the quality and quantity of search results.
Here are two paid resources I recommend:
And here are four free services I recommend:
Start Monitoring
Once the above search terms are properly set up for monitoring in any of the above resources, the next step is for your Online Community Manager to monitor these search terms and phrases in the following manner:
- At least once a day, the output from the established brand monitoring tools should be reviewed and trends identified. The time frame for this is obviously dependent upon your brand’s online visibility and resource bandwidth.
- Brand mentions that warrant a possible response should handled accordingly as per your organization’s social media strategy.
- Initially, this effort should be focused solely on your brand and the terms that revolve around it. After a predetermined amount of time, further efforts should be focused on the inclusion of competitive brand terms that will provide important competitive intelligence that increases your return on investment (ROI) for a paid brand monitoring service.
- Lastly, key metrics should be established after a predetermined amount of time. From this, a monthly report should be published to key stakeholders along with necessary examples and trends.
There you have it, that’s Brand Monitoring 101.
Any questions?