Being able to hear the pulse of your customers and fans gives you a good advantage in staying ahead of your competition.
Knowing what your audience is thinking about you or your business can help you fix problems when they occur or improve to earn more followers.
Does Hootsuite Monitor Mentions?
Hootsuite is able to track mentions of keywords on social media and different websites. Hootsuite offers this feature to help you stay on top of your game in the business. You can check what your customers are saying about you and gauge their reviews and happiness with your product.
This feature is a handy tool, especially when you want to check what the general public is saying about your product, industry, and their frustrations over it.
Here are some of the things you need to know about monitoring mentions on social media.
What Does it Mean to Track Mentions?
Hootsuite offers users a consolidated system that helps you track mentions of particular words over social media (i.e., keywords pertaining to you or your business).
This service allows you to see what people are saying on social media about a particular word you choose to track.
These can be mentions of products, hashtags, or terms related to the industry of your business, as well as yourself, if say you were an individual social media influencer.
What Type of Mentions Can I Track with Hootsuite?
You can search for any keyword you want!
The flexibility of keyword searches on Hootsuite not only lets you see what other people are saying about your brand, but you can also use it to check what people are saying about your competitors.
For example, if you are managing the social media profiles of a candidate for Congress, you can set up a search on mentions about your opponent.
In this example, you could use your mentions tracking to better understand how people view you, your opponent, and make changes to your campaign to fill any missing needs.
The great thing about the flexibility of monitoring mentions on Hootsuite is, you can also set up different streams with various spellings of the brand you are managing.
Let’s take the example of the candidate for Congress again:
- You can set a stream to check mentions of Congressman John Doe, and then set another stream to curate mentions of John Doe.
- Then you can also create a stream for Congressman #JohnDoe for curating mentions.
You can have different streams checking what people have to say about your brand, which helps you cover as many corners of social media.
How Well Does Hootsuite Track Mentions?
Hootsuite monitors mention very well, but two factors affect your results.
One, watching mentions on social media, is limited to public posts.
Since Hootsuite has to respect the privacy settings of users, it cannot track mentions made in non-public posts.
That means all mentions you get are from posts made public by the author or owner of the account.
The second factor that affects social media tracking is the keywords you use.
That is why it is crucial to create a list of all possible variations of the spelling of your brand.
Aside from typing it based on your style guide, you should consider other possible spellings, such as combining several words in one (e.g., JohnDoe), use hashtags (e.g., #JohnDoe), and even phonetic spelling (e.g., John Doe vs. Jon Doe).
How Exactly Does it Work?
Hootsuite searches mention on different social media platforms based on the selection you make.
Using keywords or phrases you input, it will gather all posts and reposts that contain the terms you used.
Also, you can add plugins to help you check outside the usual social media platforms. For a minimal price, you can track mentions of your brand on Reddit, news, and review sites.
There are two ways to track mentions.
One is through the keyword search, wherein you can input up to three words that Hootsuite will look for mentions of.
The second is through Search, wherein you can look for particular mentions with specific parameters or conditions.
You can add filters, gather results with only one keyword present, or even watch what people are saying about the terms you input in a specific geographical area.
Do Companies Typically use Hootsuite for This?
Tracking of mentions is one of the main selling points of Hootsuite.
The different search tools available on Hootsuite help companies stay steps ahead from their competition.
They can get a glimpse of how competing brands perform, and even take advantage of public relations disasters of rivals for their edge.
What Other Companies Can Track Mentions?
There are other services that offer monitoring services for social media.
These include Sprout Social, Hubspot, Buffer, Mention, and SumAll.
If you are looking for similar features as Hootsuite, minus the monthly subscription, you can consider SumAll.
If you are looking for a more affordable option to Hootsuite, Buffer is a good alternative, as its monthly subscription is almost half of Hootsuite.
Should I Track Social Mentions?
Social media is the fastest way to send information to your intended audience.
Most social media sites are free to access, and this is the fastest channel for people to discuss their approval or displeasure over a brand or company.
To NOT use social media to help you or your brand gain followers and customers in the modern age would be ill-advised.
Using Mentions to your Benefit:
Social media mentions help you address concerns of customers and would-be clients.
By tracking mentions of your brand or company, you will be able to resolve their queries or displeasures as fast as possible.
Remember that it only takes one person to trigger a viral post of either positive or negative feedback about your brand.
Being active in hearing what the public says will help you control the displeasure.
Another reason to check social mentions is to check what people want in a product, or how you should improve yours.
The sooner you hear what they need, the more you become steps ahead of the competition in addressing the needs of your stakeholders.
Staying Ahead of the Competition:
To emerge as the top brand in your field requires you to be steps ahead in creating solutions customers want.
If your competitor beats you to it, it will take more time and effort to beat them in the industry.
In relation, monitoring social mentions also help you check what the public says about your competitor.
You need to know what they are saying, so you can use it to your advantage.
If you track a string of negative feedback over their product, it is time to take advantage and guarantee your potential customers that they will not experience the same thing with you.
Sources:
What are Social Mentions and How to Track Them
15 of the Best Social Media Monitoring Tools to Save You Time