If you receive a customer compliment or complaint via telephone or email, you probably respond immediately. But what do you do if somebody mentions your product or business on Facebook or Twitter? What if they mention you on one of the social networks where you don’t even have a profile? Are you even aware that they made a comment?

You would  — if you had a social media monitoring system in place.

Social media monitoring is a smart investment for any business, especially because its applications are not just limited to gathering information and generating reports. It can help you understand what you should do with this new market research, so that you can turn your investment into a profit. Effective social media monitoring can help you take action in several different ways:

• Create or hone your social media strategy. If you don’t already use social media, monitoring is a good first step toward understanding how your audience behaves. Paying attention to how your existing audience responds to your current strategy can help you maximize your efforts.
• Use consumer research to refine your brand identity. People are already sharing their opinions; all you have to do is tap into the conversation. Use this information to direct new product development, stay one step ahead of your competitors and understand the direction of industry trends.
• Manage your company’s reputation. If an unsatisfied customer makes a comment to a few friends on the phone, the damage to your reputation is relatively limited. If that same customer makes a comment to 500 Facebook friends, that information is not only much more widely disseminated, but it is also online, in writing, potentially forever.

Of course, you can’t fully take advantage of social media monitoring if you don’t understand the information being gathered. An effective social media monitoring system will provide not only high-quality data, but also intuitive categorization and analysis tools. Monitoring and responding to the following types of communications will give you a clear view of your company’s social presence:

• Negative comments and complaints - Address them quickly and try to solve problems.
• Positive comments and compliments - Thank customers and reward them.
• Comments by influencers - Engage users with large audiences.
• Mentions of certain keywords - Track trends and find out where your target audience is.
• Requests for help or more information - Identify gaps and fill them.
• Responses to blog posts - Identify and target blogs with high reader participation.

If you are ready to implement a social media monitoring program for your business, contact us at Social Strategy1 to request a demo today. We’ve got scalable monitoring tools for businesses of all sizes, and our experts will help you minimize risk and maximize lead generation so that you can get the most from your investment. And look out for an upcoming release from Social Strategy1 that will transform the way that small businesses monitor and engage social media.