How To Choose The Best Online Media Monitoring Tools

Social media is quickly becoming a favorite venue for retailers as a means of selling products and services, finding leads, and branding their products and company. You don’t have to be an online marketer to benefit from social media. Even business that sell only to local customers from a physical store can benefit from having an online presence. Social media has opened the lines of communication between companies and their customers, making each more accessible to the other. The growing popularity of social media sales has also led to the introduction of many social media monitoring tools that allow companies to find and follow the right people and learn what is being said about them. The key to benefiting from this type of communication is by finding the right tools for our needs.

Some of the top social media monitoring tools today are:

1. Viralheat
2. Sysomos
3. Visible Technologies
4. Brand24
5. Oracle Social Cloud
6. Salesforce Radius6
7. DataSift
8. uberVU

Originally, social media monitoring was used to market products and services and for crisis prevention. This has evolved significantly today and is used by all types and sizes and types of companies in a variety of ways. Most often, the information that is gathered is used to provide improved customer service that will look good for the company.

What Do You Want to Accomplish?

This is the first question to consider before choosing a tool. The only way to accomplish what you set out to do is to have the right tools for the job. The most popular tool available today isn’t going to be worth anything to you if it doesn’t help you accomplish your goals. Get specific about what you want to accomplish and what you will have to do in order to do it. Then, look for the tool that has features to address the specifics.Decide where you are going before you look for the map.

Which Core Features Are Essential for Your Needs?

How important are demographics? Do you need to monitor in multiple languages? How important are visuals to you in comparison to their cost? Since cost is an issue for almost any company, weight the importance of those features that you might like against the ability to fit them into your budget.

How Complicated Are They to Set Up?

Do you or someone on your staff have the expertise to set up queries, create reports, or drill-down into results? Some monitoring tools can be easily set up by the average individual while others require an analyst for the job. Which option is best for you? Even if a tool has more to offer, you aren’t likely to get the benefits if you don’t have the pro on staff that you need to set it up.

Which Sites Will You Focus On?

Facebook and Twitter are some of the most popular social media sites but others like Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google Plus+ are also top choices. The best social media monitoring tool will also depend on the site where it will be used.

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