Online Reputation Management

Social Media Monitoring Software

The exponential growth of social media has created an online reputation management nightmare for many small business owners. Social media monitoring software offers an effective solution -- but you'll need to follow these guidelines to decide which solution is right for your business.

Social media monitoring is a critical aspect of online reputation management.

With the advent of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, consumers have moved their conversations and comments to the online arena. As a result, businesses have scrambled to identify new ways to navigate the social media landscape.

One of the most successful small business tools is social media monitoring software. High quality social media monitoring applications give web-conscious companies a vast array of social media management resources, including the following must-have features:

• Searchability. Your social media monitoring software application has to have the ability to perform both simple and complex search tasks. The more search options your solution offers, the better equipped you will be to identify and manage targeted brand topics on social media sites.
• Data warehousing. It's also important to find a solution with the ability to not only monitor what's happening today, but to monitor what happened yesterday, as well. Without a searchable backlog of social media comments, it will be difficult to map trends and understand changes in consumer attitudes.
• Reporting features. The best social media monitoring solutions offer users a range of reporting and analysis functions. Ideally, you're looking for easy-to-navigate reporting with drill down capabilities and the ability to analyze factors like daily volume, demographics, location, positive or negative content tone, themes, and trending topics.
• Sentiment monitoring. Want to know exactly how people feel about your brand? Of course you do, but you'll only be achieve it if your solution has sentiment monitoring - a semi-complicated process that accurately gauges the public's mood. Good social media monitoring solutions generate tone analysis and content emotion reports that can be used to analyze consumer sentiment about your business.
• Multilingual capabilities. As a business owner, you're sensitive to the fact that non-English speaking consumers purchase your products both at home and abroad. Your social media monitoring solution should be sensitive to that fact, too, and have the ability to survey social media in multiple languages and cultural contexts.

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