social media monitoring

5 Social Monitoring Tips to Improve User Experience

Website Tips and Tricks

Build it and they will come, but make sure you maintain it or they will leave.

One of the most defeating feelings in the world is putting time and effort into a product or service and watching it crash. To avoid the chance of your site or service virtually dying out among social media, practice social media monitoring.

There are multiple routes and steps to take when carefully watching your social media, but when you are well-disciplined in doing so, you’ll reap the benefits. Benefits include higher website traffic and happier customers.

Below is a list of 5 tips to keep you on track for watching over your social media platforms. Keep reading to keep them growing.

1. Pay Attention to the Customer

Knowing exactly who you are marketing to might seem like an obvious tip, but you’d be surprised how many businesses are neglecting to do such.

Not only are they neglecting to know their customer, they are also neglecting to know how their customer is feeling.

For every happy customer comes 9 referrals. However, for every unhappy customer, there are 26 customers who remain silent. You can obviously see how the negative voice would take reign over the unspoken.

To help get a little more personal with your customers, check out any comment sections you have on social media. Maybe post poll-like questions on Twitter and weigh the results. Engagement will not only improve your service, it’ll strengthen your customer’s trust in you.

Once you check out comment sections and feedback areas, don’t forget to then react to it.

We know you can’t reply to everyone, but maybe personally reply to negative comments asking if they have any further concerns. Reply to positive comments with genuine gratitude.

The more you build your engagement, the more willing a customer will feel to speak up. When a customer speaks up, that’s just more feedback to use in the future.

If you’re unsure where to start, don’t fret too much. The internet provides tons of tools to monitor user behavior.

2. Understand Your Competition

Many good ideas are unoriginal ideas made even better.

It’s perfect to hop on your competition’s social media and see what is and what is not working for them. Don’t worry, it isn’t unethical to investigate. It’s research.

When you notice something that isn’t working, try to dig a little deeper and understand why it isn’t working for them. Then see how you can maybe steer clear of the difficulties they are experiencing.

If you see something that is clearly working for them, pull the idea apart and try to figure out what the key elements are. Don’t copy their idea, just gather inspiration from what they’re already doing.

Negative customers usually speak out the loudest so try to pick those out of your customer’s crowd. When you spot one, reach out to them privately and explain your services and it’s advantages. Just be careful not to speak disrespectfully of another company.

What goes around comes around, and everyone needs good karma in social media monitoring.

3. Scope Out Influencers

Luckily for you, social media is constantly increasing in usage and popularity. Between apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it’s hard to escape the web.

Among the tangled webs of growing brands and companies are influencers with dedicated followings and a thirst for exposure. Influencers are people who advertise a product or service on their personal social media for some sort of compensation, whether through samples or money.

70% of millennial consumers are making decisions based on their peers and influencers. They are not only looking up to them for inspiration but for guidance in their decisions.

Social media monitoring goes beyond your immediate audience, reach beyond. Choose an influencer who matches your targeted demographic, has high engagement on their own accounts, and has a respectable presence online.

It’s amazing what a simple product placement or mention can do for your company.

4. Make Sure It’s Smooth Sailing

When your site is experiencing technical problems on your end, you can almost guarantee customers are experiencing technical problems on their end.

There are unfortunate common problems to watch out for. Problems include slow loading, server crashes, hacking, and an overload on-site visitors. All of these will greatly affect your customer’s viewing experience.

With effective social media monitoring and strong IT support, you should be able to navigate around these obstacles. Make sure your host company is reliable and able to respond to problems at any time of the day.

During major internet holidays such as Cyber Monday, pay extra attention to your sites. There may be hundreds of visitors trying to access a single page at any given time.

5. Know the Latest Trends

Not only should you be monitoring your own social media, you should be practicing social media monitoring on accounts you have no ownership over.

Take a quick hop into the trending hashtag pages on Instagram and Twitter. Once you’re there, allow yourself to dive a little deep and see what everyone is talking about. Obviously, pay attention to your targeted demographic a little extra.

If you see a social media trend taking place, adopt it, but don’t overdo it. Use popular keywords, appealing color schemes, and incorporate hot topics.

Make an effort to branch outside your normal posts. Don’t be afraid to post Instagram and Snapchat stories. Filters are always a fun tool to capture attention.

One thing to avoid is highly controversial topics. Unless your product directly deals with politics or religion, those are conversation topics to avoid. Your audience has a wide range of social backgrounds.

Social Media Monitoring Works

Devote a chunk of time each day to dig a little deeper into what is going on concerning your customers, competitors, and popular trends. By being observant of your virtual surroundings, your social media presence will continue to climb.

Check out more of our site to gather more knowledge and insight on successfully battling the world of social media. We also offer web monitoring services that will alert you if your site is down.