How to monitor your presence on social media

Below are some tips on what you should be tracking on social media.

Facebook
Facebook is a great way for you to jump right in and start interacting with past and potential customers. Your business page wall allows you and your fans to interact directly with your business. Fans can post comments, feedback, questions etc.

On Facebook, you should be monitoring:

1. The wall post - fans who post on your wall, provide feedback, reviews or who like your page.
2. Comments - fans who interact with you, answer your questions, polls, fun games etc
3. Likes - anyone who 'likes' your post, photos etc means they like the content of that post.

Twitter
Twitter lets you and your followers post short and sharp tweets, comments or links quickly. Because the tweets are limited to 140 characters, it may become overwhelming as the tweets will come through quickly, but the tweets and information you should be monitoring for on Twitter include:

1. Questions - be ready to respond quickly to anyone's questions about your business or products and services. Be helpful by answering anyone's questions about your industry too. It's a great way to build credibility and will showcase you as the expert in your field
2. Support - it's important to respond quickly to anyone asking for help. If you respond quickly to a person's question or request for help, it will show that you're listening and you care.
3. Feedback - be sure to acknowledge any complaints or negative feedback and resolve any issues as soon as possible. Acknowledge any positive feedback with a thank you or even retweet it to show your other followers what people think about your business!
4. Monitor any other conversations or 'mentions' about your competitors. Keep up-to-date with what they are doing, so you can keep ahead of the game.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a great social media platform for networking, recruiting, promote relevant content written by you and for showcasing you as a thought leader in your industry.

Below are some items you should be monitoring on LinkedIn:

1. Use LinkedIn Answers - showcase your expertise and build your credibility as an expert in your field.
2. Group discussions - answer questions or link to other relevant resources.

Blogs
Blogs are a great way to create content that's relevant to your business and can be used to drive traffic to your website. Providing relevant and quality blog articles can also position you as a thought leader in your industry.

With blogs, you can track:

1. Comments - view what people are saying about your articles, your competitors or the industry. Provide your comments or feedback if relevant
2. Links - are there other websites or blogs linking back to your blog articles?

Monitor what is being said about your business - some simple tools include:

1. Check into Twitter and view any twitter mentions about your business. You can use the search function in Twitter to check for industry tweets or terms, mentions or @replies or hashtags
2. LinkedIn has a RSS function for question categories, which provides a feed to you when someone asks a question in that category.
3. Set up Google News or Google Blogs which are great tools for collecting and searching for articles that are important to your business
4. Set up Google Alerts, which tracks any relevant articles on a particular keyword (eg your business name or industry term etc). You can set it up to receive alerts in real-time or for it to send you an email once a day/week.
5. Log into your Facebook page and scan your wall for comments.

For assistance with social media monitoring, or if you would like more information about social media marketing, speak to one of the marketing consultants at TA Fastrack today on 1300 659 289 or visit www.tafastrack.com.au.