Social media takes place in the wink of an eye. Word travels so fast that you may go to bed feeling wonderful and awaken to a firestorm. This is definitely apt to be true if you aren’t in the practice of regularly monitoring your social media channels. Keeping track of the conversations about you and/or your brand online can be much more than a reputation management best practice. Focus on those in search of information early in the sales process can lead to a significant increase in conversions. Mainly, however, this is about creating a firewall between trouble and you. Cutting the bad news off at the pass is the objective here, and there are some very simple methods to manage this, which of course is everyone’s fear. It doesn’t have to take all day long, as shown in this HubSpot article.
How to keep track your social media conversations
- Social media monitoring tools like TweetDeck or HootSuite are invaluable on the subject of saving time, and seeing most if not all of your social media in one place. They are simple to use, have free versions, and will make it easy to get in the habit of checking on your social media daily.
- Google Reader and Google Alerts have long been very useful tools in the hands of marketers who were focused on monitoring the buzz around their products or brands. However, recently Google has decided to end Reader, and Alerts appears to be broken. Many are wondering how to find a useable alternative. Here are a couple you might want to check out: NewsBlur, AOL Reader, or Flipboard for mobile. For Google Alerts try TalkWalker or Social Mention.
- Scan for questions or comments on your blog, social networks, videos, and your Facebook pages. Answer anything pressing, particularly those that seem to be unhappy or confused about your products or services. This can head off loads of trouble!
Monitoring your social media world doesn’t need to take hours or anything special other than attentiveness. The key is getting and staying organized, and using the tools out there to make this task less burdensome. The rewards far outweigh the trouble!