It's the first week of the New Year and everyone tends to feel like you have a clean slate to start with going into 2011.
When it comes to social media those that are already using it can feel good thinking that they are ahead of the curve. Of those that haven't started, many have made it one of their resolutions to start investigating how it can help them in their business life this year.
Unfortunately I hate to burst their bubble but technology changes so fast that even if you have created the most amazing social media strategy, you are going to find out there are still things you are missing. Those that haven't started are going to have to work even harder to play catch up.
Social media monitoring is going to be something that you are going to have to consider for your organization. It's not enough to have your own social profiles and be using those to engage with your consumers. Now you have to consider what is being said about you on other online sites that you don't know about.
Two of the big names in this right now are Radian 6 and Alterian, but there are other choices too. Social media monitoring is the ability to use programs that can check the web for any mentions of your organization. This can include online articles, blog posts, tweets and facebook comments as part of the package. In addition to the monitoring they can give you charts and graphs to tell you how you are perceived by the audience.
This type of information is immediate feedback that you can have access to if you need to know what your customers are saying about you, new products or new campaigns you launch.
The programs require some training to use and you have to learn what keywords to put into it so that you are able to gather the information that is valuable to you.
You might want to consider adding a resolution that considers if social media monitoring is right for your organization.
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