Time is valuable. If you are a social media manager or marketer, you know how time consuming social media can be. It doesn't have to be though.
Why Monitoring Matters
Monitoring is important because it puts the social back in social media. It is essential to engage and interact with your followers so they feel important.
According to research done by Search Engine Watch, 70% of surveyed Twitter users expect a response from brands they reach out to and 53% expect the response in under an hour. When someone is complaining to a brand, that number increases to 72% of people who expect a response within a hour.
Who Should Monitor
Who exactly is in charge of monitoring social media? The short answer: everyone. Social media doesn't just belong to the marketing department anymore, it affects everyone including sales, support, and executives. The important thing to do is separate certain tasks among each department. For example, maybe the support team takes the customer service related questions while the sales team responds to any social posts that are directly from their clients.
Listening and Responding
If you are limited to ten minutes a day monitoring social media, you can't respond to everyone. Who should you choose to respond to? Find the influencers. Anyone who has the biggest audience or greatest reach are who you want to target because it will make the biggest difference. When responding, it is important to:
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Respond promptly and accurately.
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Show gratitude and respect. Never respond in an offensive or defensive way.
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Include facts instead of opinions and link to factual reference materials to support
your case.
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Respond in a tone/voice that reflects the company’s culture and values.
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Let the person know how you’re connected to the company.
Setting Your Goals
As with anything you do, it is essential to make goals for yourself and your business. Making sure your goals are SMART is a crucial part in the goal setting process.
Specific -- Do set real numbers with real deadlines. Don’t say, “I want more visitors.”
Measurable -- Do make sure that you can track your goal. Don’t hide behind buzzwords like “brand engagement” or “social influence.”
Attainable -- Do work toward a goal that is challenging but possible. Don’t try to take over the world in one night.
Realistic -- Do be honest with yourself, because you know what you and your team are capable of. Don’t forget any hurdles you may have to overcome.
Time-bound -- Do give yourself a deadline. Don’t keep pushing towards a goal you might hit “some day.”
Prepping Your New Routine
In order to get your monitoring down to ten minutes a day, there is some work you need to upfront. There are numerous free social media monitoring tools available including TweetDeck, Google Alerts, Topsy, and Social Mention.
It is up to you what you want to focus on but to help get you started, here are some suggestions.
For Twitter, you are going to want to look for any mentions, searches, questions, requests for support, complaints, praises, and competitor mentions. Facebook monitoring should include timeline posts, comments, private messages, and reviews. For LinkedIn, focus on your company page and group discussions. Google alert monitoring should include Quora questions, Quora topics, blog articles, comments, and links.
Your 10-Minute Checklist
Now it's time to create your own 10-Minute checklist! Make sure you are prioritizing what platforms are important to your company. Here is an example of what a checklist could look like:
4 minutes.
Check for Twitter chatter about your company and its competitors. You can do this through TweetDeck, Social Inbox, or through bookmarked or saved streams on Twitter.com.
2 minutes.
Log in to Facebook to scan for comments, private messages, and reviews. Keep your company’s Facebook page bookmarked in your web browser and stay logged in to your account to save time.
2 minutes.
Read your LinkedIn group digest and scan your Company Page for new comments.
2 minutes.
Check your email for Google Alerts for brand mentions and industry-related content via Quora, Google+, blogs, or other sources and publications.
Want More Help? Download Our Ebook
In our ebook, How to Monitor Social Media in 10 Minutes a Day, you will learn how to streamline your social media monitoring process. We cover all of the above topics in more detail.
After reading this ebook, you should be able to develop your own, solid routine that works for you.
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