Social media monitoring and social media listening are many times used as synonyms. Even though social media monitoring is often considered as a basic starting point, with the right product, it can offer so much more than that.

It’s easy to get lost in terms when it comes to social media monitoring and social media listening. Because when people talk about social media monitoring, they often refer to keeping track of the social channels on a very basic level. The main reason to this “understatement” is this: Most social media monitoring tools offer very simple features that are focused on collecting information from social media and they are done. However, with a professional and complex enough social media monitoring tool, you can do so much more than this. Before digging into the details, let’s clarify the terms.

What is social media monitoring?

The very basic definition of social media monitoring a.k.a. social media measurement is to constantly compute the popularity and reputation of your brand/company etc. by extracting information posted on social media platforms.

What is social media listening?

Social media listening is often defined as a two-step process. The first step is social media monitoring. You track as many social media channels as possible and see what people are saying about your brand. The second step is the crucial one: It’s to analyze. On this level, you make something out of the data you’ve collected. You build a solid strategy.

Is social media monitoring enough?

Does this mean that a social media monitoring tool won’t be enough? It depends. Most of the social media monitoring tools today are only focused on collecting the data and they don’t really tell you what to do with it. However, if you use a more advanced social media monitoring tool, it can turn into a secret weapon.

What makes a good social media monitoring tool?

A good social media monitoring tool gives you all the benefits of social listening. It doesn’t only allow you to monitor the trends and conversations on social media but helps you understand why they are happening. By doing so, a good social media monitoring tool helps to get a high return of investment (ROI).

How to get high ROI with a good social monitoring tool?

Companies invest money to make money. When it comes to obtain a higher ROI, the risk factor becomes crucial. In general, higher risks are believed to lead to higher ROI. When evaluating the risks, one of the most important variables in the equation is information. Better informed companies can make better investment decisions.

In digital age, a good social media monitoring tool that allows a healthy social listening helps companies to make these better investment decisions by giving answers to the following questions:

1. How much people like your products?

Social listening tells you what people think about your products and services. Having this valuable information, you can decide whether to shut down a product or investing more on it. You can make adjustments that would lead to better sales, therefore better profit and ROI.

2. Who loves your products, who don’t?

Through social listening, you can learn the demographics of the people who are happy about your products and who are not. This information allows you to adjust your strategies and investments regarding your target market.

3. What people think about your customer service?

Your relationship with a customer does not end when they buy your product. It’s crucial to keep them happy afterwards. Not having a good customer service is as bad as not having a good product. It’s a waste of investment. So, you need to use social listening to see how well your customer service is perceived.

4. Who are your potential customers?

When you use a good social monitoring tool, you can easily grow your market by identifying the people who might benefit from your product. By listening to the right keywords, you can reach them on social media and increase your ROI by targeted advertising.

5. How good is your influencer strategy?

A good social media monitoring tool allows you to keep track of your investments you made in influencers. A particular influencer may have more followers than another but his or her followers may not be really interested in your products. The information you collect through social listening helps you to make have influencer partnerships and reach better ROI.

6. How to find better employees?

Hiring a new employee can be also seen as a form of investment. During your recruitment process, you can use social listening to evaluate the candidates and see which one is better for your company in the long run. This way, you can also decrease your HR costs.

7. How to find new areas to invest in?

Another good use of social listening is to be aware of new investment opportunities. By knowing what other interests or needs your current customers have, you can expand to those territories that may eventually allow you to make more profit.

Monitera’s social media monitoring and listening solutions

One of the best available tools for social media monitoring and social listening is Monitera. Having a 10-year experience, Monitera monitors, analyzes in depth and reports on more than 10 million digital channels including online news portals, blogs, social dictionaries, complaint portals and forums in addition to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

You can request a demo and see if Monitera is the right social listening tool for you and your company.