Since the application possibilities of brand monitoring solutions are very diverse, the goals must be clearly defined in advance.
Whether for brand safety, crisis prevention, reputation, competitor monitoring or trend scouting: Brand monitoring has become indispensable for brands. Whereas in the past attention was focused on social media comments, images, videos and podcasts are now also becoming interesting for brand monitoring.
By Karsten Zunke
Corona has changed a lot. Not only that many companies have had to change their sales strategies and increasingly switch to e-commerce. Anyone who did not listen to their customers in this turbulent time quickly bet on the wrong horse. Not so Clarins: High-quality cosmetic products are the trademark of the French luxury company.
When sales from brick-and-mortar stores plummeted due to the pandemic, the brand focused on e-commerce and used social media to deliver digital experiences to customers. The strategy was implemented using various Hootsuite tools. Using Brandwatch, Hootsuite's social listening partner, Clarins analyzed customer conversations related to his brand and found that the originally planned communication was no longer relevant.
During the lockdown, interest in makeup declined rapidly as people returned to the basics of skincare. The collected data has also shown that the preferences of customers are shifting, so that the originally planned content would have come to nothing. Instead, what was needed was content that could be used to market cosmetics tailored to the effects of stress.
Not least because of such findings, the brand was able to initiate suitable measures, including a video consultation and beauty coaching via Instagram stories in the DIY character. Based on trending conversations in search engines and social media channels, an effective social media advertising strategy was also developed.
The combination of measures was successful. By listening to customers, adapting quickly and changing its tactics, the company was able to build and expand new sources of income on the Internet despite the closure of the stores.
Shopping habits come into focus
In the pre-Corona era, brands typically used social media monitoring and listening for image and trend analysis. However, after sales in stationary retail collapsed due to corona, shopping habits have also come more into focus for classic brands.
Influencers play an important role in the social web. As a rule, they are opinion makers and multipliers at the same time. Especially YouTube stars and popular Instagrammers influence the purchasing decisions of their followers.
Modern monitoring solutions now help brands to identify suitable influencers. Monitoring automatically determines which influencers report on desired topic environments. The number of posts, the sentiment of the content and the reach are good indicators for the selection of the right partners.
Likewise, brands can use such tools to assess the work done by existing influencer collaborations. The hard figures show who reports and how the response is. By monitoring previously defined criteria, it is possible to quickly find out with which influencers a cooperation is successful and with which not.
Tips and product information in demand
Why it is so important to have the ear very close to social media consumers in these times is also shown by a recent study by the ECC KÖLN. Accordingly, Corona has led to a sharp increase in the number of followers.
One in five of the social media users surveyed (22 percent) said that they had followed more retailer and manufacturer sites since the crisis – among the younger ones, the figure was as high as 38 percent. Across all ages, Instagram (48 percent) and TikTok (44 percent), but also Facebook (34 percent) were targeted. Above all, information on new products, discounts or tips and tricks about product use were sought.
Monitoring can cover the entire public Internet
Accordingly, communication about brands and their products on the social web also increased. In the communities, consumers uninhibitedly express their wishes, praise, criticism and purchase intentions or show interest in certain topics.
Opinions about products and brands are shared. Good, but also bad. The latter can quickly grow into a shitstorm. Many major brands have already experienced this. An effective remedy for this is comprehensive information and quick reactions.
For example, almost all social monitoring solutions enable automatic e-mail alerts or push notifications to be sent immediately to brand managers as soon as a certain topic is frequently discussed and shared. The more brands become online retailers themselves, the more important it is to include opinions and reviews on products and services in social media monitoring.
Monitoring does not have to be limited to social media. Typically, the entire public internet can be covered, including blogs, forums, and review platforms. If retail plays a direct role for a brand, review monitoring should also be included in an overall technical solution.
The positioning of competitors is also becoming more interesting in this context and can best be observed automatically. For example, S.I.E Solutions, a specialist in digitization and system integration, uses monitoring (echobot) to be informed about current customer comments and events in its own market environment.
Especially during the first phase of the pandemic, the company wanted to stay informed about the most important news from customers and thus provide starting points for discussions. While previously manual research and high personnel effort were necessary to prepare the media monitoring, the software now provides a finished compilation of the desired topics and media. Selected items are sent to all employees with one click. In combination with two other tools from the same service provider, the company automatically receives a complete market and competition overview.
Making brand love measurable
Although the focus of many brands is now shifting to retail, image and branding must not be neglected. They continue to be enormously important aspects that companies on the net must keep an eye on, because if the brand image is right, consumers can be more easily inspired to buy.
The social listening platform Talkwalker recently identified the most popular brands in the world among users and selected the "Love Brands". In other words, brands with which people have a positive connection.
More than 1200 brands worldwide were analyzed on the web based on various criteria, including the engagement rate and consumer sentiment in social media and news, as well as a percentage of mentions that belong to the category "joy" or contained certain keywords.
The result: The most popular brands on the web in the DACH region are Obi, Sennheiser and Rossmann. The advantage: Consumers are not only more likely to remain loyal to brands if they have a strong emotional connection to them: those who love a brand are also more likely to recommend it.
But a positive connection between people and brands is not only expressed in texts. Images and videos dominate the web and convey emotions far better than words strung together. Accordingly, images and videos should and are now also included in technical brand monitoring. In this way, companies on the social web are able to find, for example, posts in which photos are posted with their brand logo without mentioning the brand name in the accompanying text.
Podcast monitoring is coming
New channels can also be analyzed better and better. Around half of all Germans now listen to podcasts regularly or at least occasionally. These audio formats are used above average, especially by younger and more educated target groups. This was the result of a representative study recently conducted by podcast marketer Julep and the agency Pilot.
These high usage figures suggest that brands that want to know what is being said about them will have to "listen" in the truest sense of the word in the future and should have this communication medium "on the monitor". So far, podcasts have already been included in brand monitoring. But the providers only examined the show notes, i.e. the short written explanatory texts for an episode.
First analysis tools are able to search even spoken content
The first speech analysis technologies are now able to search spoken content as well. They are still in their infancy, but it can be assumed that they will develop and spread rapidly. In the USA, for example, the telecommunications brand Verizon has already gained good experience with this. Earlier this year, several news sources in the U.S. reported that star investor Warren Buffett had bought Verizon shares.
The conversations quickly flattened out there. With the help of podcast monitoring, it was found that the stock was still positively discussed weeks after the first reports. Finding such "hidden" mentions in podcasts allows a brand to better respond and customize communication.
Another analysis in the "Nintendo Switch Craft" podcast showed that despite many positive terms, a brand can also gain insights into what needs to be improved for future updates. It should only be a matter of time before podcast monitoring as part of automated brand monitoring is one of the standard instruments.
The first podcast monitoring solutions already include German-language podcasts in speech analysis. This development is regarded as an important step towards obtaining comprehensive and valid mood images in the future and increasing marketing efficiency.
7 tips: How to create the framework conditions for automated brand monitoring
- Since the application possibilities of monitoring solutions are very diverse, the goals must be clearly defined in advance.
- Identify all channels where your brand is being talked about.
- Choose a suitable social monitoring solution or service provider and monitor the identified sources continuously.
- No matter where you want to "listen" in the market: Consider the language of your customers when setting topics and keyword lists.
- Prepare yourself for contingencies right from the start: Schedules for crisis communication or for integrating customer service should be worked out and immediately available if necessary.
- Also think outside the box and include competitors in the monitoring – this allows you to better identify dangers, but also trends.
- If necessary, act immediately: Automatic e-mail alerts or push notifications help you to detect a shitstorm at an early stage and possibly prevent it.