A business can only survive by keeping the customer happy, but how will you know if you can satisfy your customers. Every work that you do needs to determine whether they are according to the demands of the customer.
There needs to be certain measures that determine the feedbacks and the satisfaction level of the customers. This level is measured with the help of online brand monitoring software. There are several softwares in the market that keeps an eye on customer satisfaction.
Through these softwares, the brand can monitor the feedbacks and honest opinions of the customers through various social channels. This is why brand monitoring software is also called social media monitoring tools.
As the name suggests, these tools enable an organization to access the online conversations that involve your brand name. You can directly involve in social discussions and see how your brand is being perceived in the market.
You can keep track of both the negative and the positive feedbacks and work on those for the betterment and growth of your brand.
How will you determine which brand monitoring software to choose for your company? Not all software is the same for all companies. Each software has its specifications and features.
The only way to choose the right software is to understand your business requirements and align them with the features of different software.
Here is an extensive buying guide on the brand monitoring system, which will help you make the right decision. Read until the end of the guide to determine the kind of brand monitoring system that would be suitable for your business.
How Can Brand Research Software Help Protect My Brand?
Online brand monitoring software or brand research software helps you reach your customer through online social channels. It helps you reach the happiest and also the most frustrated customers.
There are tools through which you can track different websites or social media platforms where your brand name or related keywords to your brand have been mentioned. This feedbacks help you in different business aspects such as product development, marketing strategies, PR, customer support, etc.
When you find out what the public is saying about your brand, you can reach out to those who are unhappy with your products and services. Most customers respond positively to your brand if they find out that you have personally made an effort to reach out to them.
You will also be able to solve the issues of your unhappy customers on time. Moreover, social media listening contributes to overall brand enhancement, which is essential for every business.
You can also keep your loyal customers happy by reaching out to them and appreciating their association with your brand. These activities are essential to protect your brand and help in brand growth.
No matter how big your business is, you will always need the support and loyalty of your customers to grow even bigger and sustain in the market.
Benefits of Using Brand Monitoring Software
Brand monitoring is the systematic monitoring of your brand’s reputation and growth in the industry. Using monitoring tools that investigate different online platforms and media channels, you can find reports related to your brand.
If you are unsure of why brand monitoring is important for your business, here are some benefits that are listed for you.
Understanding Customers’ Reaction to Your Brand
Customers are one of the most important factors in your brand’s existence. Without customers buying your product or services, your organization would not have been able to reach where you are now.
This is why you must pay adequate importance to the feedbacks of your customer. Online brand monitoring software informs you about your customers’ reactions towards your brand.
You will know what the public is saying about your brand. If there are customers who are not happy with your organization, then you can change their perception by doing the needful.
Address Any Negative Feedbacks
Engaging in conversation with your customers through different social media channels is also very important. Mostly you will find customers putting their grievances on your brand’s official social media account.
You need to promptly reply them back if you wish to hold on to your customer. Even if you need time to look into the matter, replying would ensure the customer that you have paid attention to their problem.
Unaddressed grievances make the customers even angrier, and you could lose a potential happy customer even if you solve their issues at a later time. Hence, through this software, you can stay updated about any negative comments made about your brand.
Helps In Forming Marketing Strategies
The success of a business is also determined by how successful your marketing strategy is. However, a proper marketing strategy cannot be formed without having a clear understanding of the current market.
The industry goes through changes every other day, and as a business, you need to constantly stay on your toes if you wish to take advantage of these changes. If you go in blind without a proper market survey, then the chances are that your market strategy may not work out properly.
Even while launching new products or services, you need to see if this is the right time and the right market to do so. When you aim your strategies the right way, you can capture the market without much effort.
Access Public Reaction after New Product Launch
Whenever you launch a new product or service, you need to check how the market has reacted to this development. The brand monitoring software would help you get complete information about customer reactions.
Through this, you will understand if your product is a success or a failure in the market. This is necessary as you can pull back your products from the market if necessary. You will also be able to find out the highlight points which differentiate your product from your competitors.
Apart from these above-mentioned benefits, brand monitoring software can help your overall business operation. This creates a strong base for future campaign strategies and product launches.
You can keep an updated report on your brand’s performance and get insights on the same. Due to the advancement of technology in current times, it has become possible for businesses to get a deeper understanding of the customers’ viewpoints.
How to Monitor My Brand Reputation?
There are certain parameters based on which the reputation of the brand can be measured. These parameters are measured with the help of the online brand monitoring software, which determines the tone of the feedback given by the customers.
Monitor with Keyword Monitoring Tool
The first thing that you can monitor with the help of these tools is keywords related to your brand. These keywords can be your brand name or the slogan used by your brand. Social media channels will use these keywords mostly in the form of hashtags.
You can access the areas where your company’s name has been used, the misspellings of your brand name, and even the iterations. In case of any marketing campaign established by your company, the keyword monitoring tool will play a big role.
You can see what the customer has shared about your brand or your product through the use of hashtags or other means. This helps you compile a report regarding the way your brand is perceived by the public.
Market Trends
Another very important thing to search for is the market trends that emerge or evolve from time to time. Whether you are a small business or a large one, you need to find out these recent trends to keep yourselves updated.
You need to see what your competitors are getting them involved in and also their position in the market. You also need to find out the areas that you need to grow in so that you can increase your market reach.
Monitor the Success of Your Business Executives
Based on the size of your business, one interesting parameter to measure is the success of your in-house executives. It can be the CEO of your company or any other executive who is active on their personal social media channels.
If you have someone from the higher management who has quite a high social media presence, then this can work well for your business. People may be using the management figures’ names to associate them with your brand.
The executive can also engage in conversations with the customers on behalf of your brand. This will also help customers to get a sense of personal touch, which will be beneficial for your brand’s growth.
Influencers
Influencers play a very critical role in uplifting your brand reputation. They have taken over the social media world in current times. Even micro-influencers who have less than 10,000 followers are very important for your brand.
Both micro-influencers and influencers help in spreading your brand’s name to hundreds of people through their vlogs or posts. You can associate your business with a group of influencers who will represent your brand.
This way, you can monitor if this method is helping you reach more people and how successful your business strategy is.
How to Choose the Right Monitoring Software for Your Organization?
Once you have an understanding of how brand monitoring can help in the growth of your business, you will have to focus on buying the right software. You can find different kinds of online brand monitoring software products in the market.
Here are a few steps that you should follow in choosing the perfect social media monitoring tool for your business.
Business Objectives
The first criterion to choose the right kind of monitoring software is to understand your needs and objectives. You need to decide why you need the monitoring tools. Do you need to track the customer’s feedback, or are you more interested in managing your social media platforms?
Whatever your objective, you need to find the right monitoring tool which will help you in this process. When you are choosing the software, keep your objective in mind and check if the tool can give what you require.
If you are unable to do so yourself, take the help of a professional to make the right choice. This is the first place to start searching for your perfect brand monitoring tool.
Determine Your Budget
Your budget would be the second factor in helping you choose the monitoring tool. There are many different price ranges for these tools. You can check your finances and see the budget that you can spend on the monitoring tool.
This way, you have narrowed down your search criteria and would only look into the tools that fall under this budget. However, make sure not to keep your budget too low even if you are a small business.
Your budget should be able to keep in line with your business objectives.
Customer Support Provided By Each Tool
The only way that you can successfully use your monitoring tool is by getting the proper guidance from the support team. If your tool does not come with proper instructions and training manuals, then it may be a problem for you.
You need to train your team regarding the usage of the tools, and this can be done only through the proper help of customer support. Even if you have any issues, the support team should be readily available to help you out.
When you are checking out your options, do not forget to communicate with the support team and make out their level of engagement. Always remember that even if they seem eager to help you at first, this eagerness can decrease after you have purchased the product.
Hence, you need to check for reviews and previous customer feedback on each of these tools before you make your final choice.
Discover the Brand Reputation Monitoring Software USP
Each online brand monitoring software would have its USP, which makes them different from each other. You need to analyze what the USP of each tool is and see if they are compatible with your business needs.
Even if there are certain additional functions that you need to invest in for the betterment of your brand, you can do so. However, make sure that they are worth the investment.
Check the Services Offered By the Tools
Different features are offered by the software products that you have chosen. You need to get a complete understanding of these features to make the most use of it. Check the platforms that the tools analyze, the approaches it takes to give you the desired reports, etc.
Knowing the extent of these features is essential to help you decide the kind of tool that you would choose for your business.
Length of the Contract
There are different subscriptions or contract lengths for the monitoring tools. You need to be aware that you do not get into lengthy contracts with any monitoring tool brands. If you need to change your monitoring tool at any later period, you will be unable to do so if you are still under the contract.
Hence, it is always advisable to stick to the basic one-year plan so that you can change if required or if the tool does not satisfy your business needs.
Compare the Tools
Make sure you conduct a free trial or demo of your short-listed tools. You will be able to understand if the features and the functions are right for you through this process. If you are satisfied with the performance of a particular tool, then you can make your choice.
By following these above-mentioned steps, you can finally choose the right brand monitoring software that would be suitable for your business.
Features To Look For In Your Brand Monitoring Software
If you are new to social monitoring, then it might be hard for you to choose the right tool for yourself. Even if you follow the steps given above, you may not find the right brand monitoring software.
To make the decision easier for you, here are certain must-have features that you should look for in a social monitoring tool. These features are essential for the proper use of the tool and your brand.
Specific Tracking of Terms
The software should be able to track all possible terms that are associated with your brand. The term may be a hashtag, an URL, or any word related to the business. This would not be possible without the help of an updated social media monitoring tool.
Through this search, you will be able to attract new customers towards your brand or engage in leads that may become potential customers in the future. You can also better your customer relationship by knowing what your customers are talking about your brand.
Tools with LSA or NPA Features
NPA or Natural Language Processing is an important feature that should be present in the tool that you use. This feature helps in deriving better results since they can convert human language through the use of machine algorithms.
This means they can understand the human sentiments that are present in the tweets or statements of the customer.
On the other hand, LSA or Latent Semantic Analysis, though similar to NLP, uses vectorial semantics to understand the meanings of the statements. It is easy to separate the relevant and irrelevant content with the help of LSA-based tools.
Monitor Multiple Social Media Channels
Many organizations have multiple social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Customers can contact you on either of these channels, so you need to keep a continuous track of all these channels together.
You need to have a tool that can monitor all your social accounts at the same time.
Check Beyond Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms are not the only places where customers might talk about your product. There can be blogs, review sites, forums, news sites, etc. where customers have mentioned your brand name or your products. You need a tool that can extract this information as well since they are equally important.
Real-time Alerts
Real-time alerts are perfect for you if you wish to focus on your customer relationships. Tools with these features provide immediate alerts when a customer mentions your brand name on any channel.
Receiving real-time alerts help you provide prompt service to the customer in question, and it also saves your brand from any negative sentiment from the customer.
Summing Up
You will find several different types of online brand monitoring software in the market, but you need to be very cautious when you are making your choice. If you make the wrong choice, then you will have invested your money for nothing.
It is always advisable to have a moderate budget when you are opting for the software so that you can use some of its advanced features. Though this might seem costly at first, with the right choice, the investment would be worth it.
Make sure to check out the must-have features mentioned above when you are searching for the right tool for your company. Be aware of the necessary steps that you should keep in mind during the whole process.
Using brand monitoring software would help you expand your brand in very little time. You will have better reach in the market and among your customers. Moreover, by conducting a market survey, you will stay updated regarding any changes in the market and form your strategies based on it.
You can also easily handle all your social media channels from a single platform. The tools also look beyond the conventional social media sites and into other websites with mentions of your brand or product name.
Choose a well-functioning brand monitoring software and get ready for a fast-paced brand expansion!