How to Monitor your Brand’s Reputation On Social Media

Don't let a negative review ruin your business. Learn how to track social media mentions and keep an eye on what people are saying about your brand.
social media listening monitor brand online
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Your Online Reputation is Important, but it’s Hard to Manage.

One bad review can ruin your business. It’s hard to know what to do when faced with a negative review.

That’s why tracking social media mentions is critical!

How do you know if someone’s talking about your business online?

Monitoring for mentions of your brand on social media is so much more than just looking for negative reviews. It’s about understanding what people are saying about your brand and positively engaging with them.

This process, also known as social media listening, can be time-consuming, but it’s vital to the health of your business.

What is social media listening?

Social media listening is the process of monitoring for mentions of your brand on social media. You can do this manually by lurking in Facebook groups, Twitter hashtags, and other social media platforms, or you can do it with the help of social media monitoring tools. These tools will send you alerts whenever your brand is mentioned online.

The problem is these tools can get to be expensive.  Sure, most offer a free version, but they are so limited that they’re not really worth your time.

Isn’t your brand’s online reputation worth more than just the free version of some software where you might get a notification (or you might not)?

We think so.

That’s where we come in. We offer an affordable social media marketing, monitoring, and reporting service that will help you take control of your online reputation.

Our tools will help you track your brand’s mentions, report on negative sentiment, and positively engage with customers.

We pay a lot of money (a lot) to make sure we’re always at the forefront of social media listening so that we can offer you the best possible service, so you don’t have to.

Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help you take control of your online reputation.

Let’s keep going…

Why is social media listening critical?

Monitoring for mentions of your brand online is important for several reasons.

First, it allows you to respond to any negative reviews or comments quickly. This can help mitigate the damage of a bad review and turn a potential customer into a satisfied one.

Second, it gives you insight into what people are saying about your brand. This can be valuable feedback that you can use to improve your product or service.

Finally, it allows you to build relationships with customers and potential customers. By engaging with people talking about your brand, you can turn them into loyal fans.

What is the benefit of social listening?

The benefits of social media listening are many. As we mentioned above, it allows you to quickly respond to negative reviews, understand what people are saying about your brand, and build relationships with customers.

But there are other benefits as well. Social media listening can also help you:

Find new customers: By monitoring social media, you can find people talking about your product or service. These are people who might be interested in doing business with you.

Generate leads: If you see someone talking about their pain points, you can reach out and offer them a solution. This can turn into a sales lead.

Improve customer service: By monitoring social media, you can quickly resolve customer service issues. This can help improve your brand’s reputation.

Increase sales: By monitoring social media, you can upsell current customers and cross-sell to new ones.

Increase brand awareness: By monitoring social media, you can see what people are saying about your brand. This can help you come up with new marketing campaigns and make strategic decisions about your brand.

The bottom line is that social media listening is critical to the success of your business. If you’re not doing it, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities.

How do I start social media listening?

Here’s where it gets a little bit more technical.

In years past, to listen for mentions of your brand online, you’ll have to set up Google Alerts. 

The problem is that Google Alerts doesn’t work on social media.

So you’ll need to use a tool like Mention or Brandwatch, which are designed for social media listening.

Both of these tools have free and paid plans, so you can choose the right one for your budget.   Once you select the tool you want to use, you’ll need to:

Learn what to listen for.

Social media listening is more than just monitoring for negative reviews. You’ll want to listen for any mention of your brand, no matter how small. After all, brand awareness is key!

You’ll want to listen to things like:

  • People talking about your product or service
  • People asking questions about your product or service
  • People talking about your industry
  • People talking about your competitors

You can use these mentions as an opportunity to engage with potential customers and build relationships.

Look at things from a new perspective.

When monitoring social media, it’s important to remember that not everyone who mentions your brand will be a potential customer.

In fact, some of the people who mention your brand will be influencers.

An influencer is someone with a large following who has the ability to influence the opinion of others.

For example, if you sell skincare products, an influencer might be a beauty blogger with a large following.

If you can identify the influencers talking about your brand, you can reach out to them and ask them to promote your product or service to their followers.

This can help you reach a whole new audience of potential customers.

Keep track of the newest influencers, developments, news, and trends in your field.

The world of social media is constantly changing, which means that the way you listen for mentions of your brand needs to change as well.

For example, new social networks are constantly popping up, and existing ones are always changing how they work.

To make sure you’re keeping up with the latest changes, it’s important to follow industry news and trends. This will help you adapt your social media listening strategy as needed.

A few reputable sources of industry news and trends include:

  • The Social Media Examiner
  • Mashable
  • TechCrunch
  • Buffer Blog
  • Hootsuite Blog

By staying up-to-date on industry news, you can be sure that you’re using the best social media listening strategy for your business.

Empathize with your audience’s sentiments.

It’s not enough to just listen for mentions of your brand online. You also need to understand the sentiment behind those mentions.

Are people talking about your brand because they’re happy with your product? Or are they talking about you because they’re unhappy?

The sentiment of a mention can give you valuable insight into how people feel about your brand.

social media sentiment analysis
social media sentiment analysis

If you find that people are generally unhappy with your product, you can use that information to make changes to improve the customer experience.

On the other hand, if people are talking about your product because they’re happy with it, you can use that information to create marketing campaigns that focus on the positive aspects of your product.

In either case, understanding the sentiment behind social media mentions can help you make better decisions for your business.

Study your competition.

There’s no sense in listening for mentions of your brand if you’re not also listening for mentions of your competition.

Business intelligence is key, and social media is a great place to find it.

By listening for mentions of your competition, you can learn a lot about their business.

For example, you might learn about:

  • New products or services they’re offering
  • Changes they’ve made to their product or service
  • Promotions they’re running
  • How they’re positioning themselves in the market

By studying the way your competition is being talked about online, you can better understand what people like and don’t like about their products.

You can also learn from their mistakes and avoid making the same ones yourself.

Respond quickly.

When someone mentions your brand on social media, responding quickly is important.

  • If they are throwing shade on your product, you need to be there to defend it.
  • If they are asking a question about your product, you need to be there to answer it.

The sooner you can respond to a mention, the better.

This shows potential customers that you’re responsive and care about what people are saying about your brand.

It also shows that you’re willing to engage with people talking about your brand, even if they’re not happy with what you have to offer.

This can go a long way in building customer trust and loyalty.

Be human.

When you’re responding to mentions of your brand, it’s important to remember that you’re talking to real people.

This means that you need to be human in your responses.

Don’t use automated responses or copy and paste the same response to every mention.

Instead, take the time to read each mention and craft a unique response that shows that you care about the person you’re talking to.

This will make your responses more genuine and more likely to build customer trust.

Make sure you’re using the right tools.

The tool you use to listen for mentions of your brand can make a big difference in how effective your social media listening strategy is.

There are a lot of different social media listening tools out there, so it’s essential to choose one that will work best for your business.

A few factors you should consider when choosing a social media listening tool include:

  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Pricing
  • Reputation

Social media listening may sound like a lot because it Is.  It’s time-consuming, and if you’re not using the right tools, it can be challenging to keep track of everything.

But social media listening is a vital part of any social media marketing strategy.

By understanding what people are saying about your brand online, you can make better decisions for your business, leading to more customers and more sales.

Social media monitoring is a vital part of any social media marketing strategy, but not all agencies are created equal.

Many agencies offer social media monitoring services, but few have the knowledge, experience, and tools to ensure you’re getting the most from your investment.

Shock right?  An agency that sells something that they’re not even good at?

Yeah, they’ll tell you that they’re experienced social media managers and can track mentions of your brand across all social media platforms, but what they don’t tell you is that they’re using free or low-cost tools that only track a fraction of the mentions out there.

This means you’re not getting the full picture of what’s being said about your brand online.

At BlakSheep Creative, we’re different. We offer social media monitoring services that are second to none. Our experts have the knowledge and experience to help you get the most from your social media marketing budget.

We also have the right tools to ensure you’re getting the most from your social media monitoring.

We pay a lot for our SaaS tools so that you don’t have to.

This allows us to offer social media monitoring services that are more effective and more affordable than anything else on the market.

We will:

  • Create a social media listening strategy that works for your business
  • Monitor your social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) 24/7 and in real-time to ensure you’re getting the most from your investment.
  • Alert you to any negative mentions of your brand so you can address them quickly.
  • Provide detailed reports on what’s working and what’s not.
  • Offer advice and recommendations on how to improve your social media presence.

At BlakSheep Creative, we’re passionate about social media marketing and we want to help you get the most from your investment.

If you’re looking for social media monitoring services that are second to none, contact us today. We’ll be happy to show you what we can do.

Give us a call at 225.505.3834 to learn why we’re the best around.

Tonya Sanchez

Tonya Sanchez

Tonya has always been a creative soul. Her passion for creativity and an endless supply of patience (she’s married to Clint) make her an incredible art director. Prior to co-launching BlakSheep Creative, Tonya co-established a parent’s day out program at a local church, which through her marketing direction, is now one of the leading programs in Livingston Parish.
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