“Listening” isn’t just something I do on my phone receiver; it’s a standard term in social media marketing today for brand monitoring in the digital space. Listening is also cited as the first-step objective in social media in the landmark book Groundswell by Li and Bernoff. In short, companies should know what’s being said about their brand by consumers and influencers (industry experts, bloggers, trade publications, etc.). And monitoring is the way to do it. Social listening is largely what I focus on in teaching my GSU course on Social Media Marketing and SEO (search engine optimization).

So – how to go about it? Here’s the process I like to use in my own consulting practice and teach as well:

1. Pick the brand names (brand names, not actual services, categories or consumer benefits for now) you wish to focus on.
2. Take those names and run them through keyword analysis, using tools such as iSpionage, Google AdWords or SEM Rush to identify associated major keywords in heavy search.
3. From these, create a final list (including your original brand names).
4. Apply these keywords to follow in tools such as HootSuite, SocialMention and Google Alerts.
5. Likewise, search these keywords in the aforementioned keyword analysis tools for competitive websites where these words are used organically (and/or in advertising).
6. At this point, you will have a number of results for digital use of your keywords. Additionally, tools such as SocialMention will conduct sentiment analysis of usage. That is, SocialMention will analyze and prescribe the amount of positive versus negative uses.
7. All of this gives you good surface data on digital uses of your keywords. They also give you the links to dive deeper into specific uses based on concerns or questions to be addressed; basically, unanswered opinions, even negative, in the digital space present a face of brand “disinterest” or dislike of customers and their issues. Whereas a sincere attempt to resolve negative situations displays good brand-and-customer relationships and honesty. Negative reviews in social media also show a human, believable side of companies to their customers – it’s hard to believe that a company would have absolutely no negative reviews.
8. Finally, it’s also worth analyzing your brand blogs’ and websites’ inbound links. That is, who’s linking to you, and why? They aren’t always positive (as I found out in such analysis for a recent client). They also might reveal some good, future affiliate or digital link-sharing partnerships.
9. Good tools to uncover inbound links include MajesticSEO and Blekko.
10. And again, these tools allow you the ability to dive deeper assessing these source sites for their intentions, or even for your own increased PR promotion (for example if the sites linking to your own are newspapers or major blogs).

 ADDENDUM

Finally, don’t forget about geo-local channels and directories – even if you’re a national company or don’t have a brick-and-mortar retail component. You have an address, and these channels help SEO overall. So go to channels such as Google Maps/Places, Yelp and CitySearch, claim and complete your profiles, and request automatic notification for whenever anyone gives you a review. You should want to know anyway, but it’s a vital part of brand listening and responding.

 

And there it is… enjoy!

 

Have alternative approaches? Respond and comment below!

 

Jake Aull | Zen Fires | Websites, SEO, SocialMedia & Design 
email | 404.259.5550 | @jakeaull | Facebook.com/ZenFires