Top 10 reasons why #socialmedia monitoring is critical to your business

Conversations are going on all around the Web about your company, your products and services, and your competition. Are you listening?

Social media monitoring is your ear to the World Wide Web. It enables you to find, evaluate, and listen in on the conversations that are important to you and critical to your business. Less expensive and time-consuming than formal, structured consumer surveys or polls, the unobtrusive listening nature of social media monitoring provides
an often more accurate, honest, and dynamic view of the marketplace and consumer attitudes.

Social media monitoring will help you join the conversation, conduct better consumer research, gauge consumer sentiment more effectively, find more customers, and help shape your brand identity.

Social-Eyez provided the top 10 reasons why social media monitoring is so important for your business, exclusively for The Internet Show Middle East:

Social media monitoring enables you to:

1. Find out what the world thinks about you and your competitors
   Consumers are talking about your company and your competitors in blogs, wikis, forums, and websites. Social media monitoring enables you to listen to what they are saying and gain valuable insight into what the market thinks about your industry, your company, and your competitors.
2. Develop qualified sales leads by engaging consumers
   Social media monitoring reveals where potential customers spend their time online, enabling you to engage them with sales incentives when and where they will be most interested in what you have to offer.
3. Monitor customer feedback more effectively
   Customers voice their opinions and share their experiences with your products or services through social media such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Social media monitoring enables you to listen to the conversation in real time so you can engage and react quickly to what’s being said.
4. Improve customer relations by engaging them in their space
   Solidify and expand your relationship with customers while building brand loyalty by reaching out to them where they spend their time.
5. Find out what employees REALLY think about your company
   Social media monitoring often reveals more about employee attitudes and morale than any survey or interview, enabling you to obtain real insight into how employees feel about your company, its products, and policies.
6. Gauge online AND offline marketing campaign effectiveness
   The old tools for determining ROI on marketing campaigns are no longer effective – it’s all about consumer sentiment and what’s being said in a hundred different forums and a thousand different blogs. Social media monitoring lets you listen in, analyze positive and negative comments about your marketing efforts, and evaluate campaign effectiveness.
7. Monitor your competition
   Stay informed about your competition by monitoring new product announcements, marketing campaigns, and corporate announcements.
8. Spot consumer trends as they happen
   Social media monitoring helps you be there first as the buzz around the latest consumer trends builds. Listen, evaluate, and respond in real time to take advantage of changing consumer demand.
9. Protect your brand and reputation
   Sentiment analysis enables you to determine consumer’s’ attitudes toward your brand, products, and company, enabling you to take effective action earlier, if necessary.
10. Influence the influencers
    Consumer preferences are being increasingly shaped by bloggers and online reviewers. Find and engage the influential bloggers, websites, and forums talking about your brand

To learn more about social media, and how it can benefit your business – register to attend Social Media World Middle East 2011 – in Abu Dhabi, September 27th 2011