When I talk to people about social media monitoring, they’re mostly interested in how it relates to their overall online engagement strategy. And, of course, that’s perfectly reasonable as you think strategically about planting seeds around the web.

However, what a lot of people aren’t thinking about are all the other reasons why they could be monitoring online conversations. After all, it’s one thing to use a monitoring platform to guide your online participation. It’s a completely different thing, though, to collect information for a wide range of reasons.

Over the next few posts, we’ll be taking a look at the different reasons why social media monitoring isn’t just for monitoring social media. For example…

It’s to help you gain business intelligence.

• Generate leads
Beyond engaging in social media and being ready to act on leads generated through participation, you can learn a lot by listening. Keep your ears open and look for issues people are having with your competitors, needs expressed online, news of events related to your service offering and RFPs that are coming through.

• Keep an eye on your competitors
Knowing what your competitors are up to can help you decide how to differentiate your offer. Run keywords that are directly connected to your competitors’ executives to see what they’re doing. Listen to conversations related to their brands to learn what people are thinking about it and to identify its flaws. Consider listening in on their employees, because you never know what nugget of insight they’ll drop in your lap.

• Feel out the issues facing your industry
Listen to industry keywords to learn what influential people industry wide are thinking. Figure out some of the trends that will affect your business. Learn the language people are using to discuss the field and reflect that back in the messages you prepare.

• Gain key product development insights
People will often give you unsolicited feedback on how you can make things better. Whether it’s in customer service, supply chain, or the product itself, keep an eye out for clues on how to better meet the expectations of your users.

How do you use social media monitoring to gain business intelligence?

Tags: Business Intelligence, Marketing Communications, Messaging, Planting Seeds, Planting Seeds online, PlantingSeeds.ca, Social Media, Social Media Monitoring, SocialMediaMonitoring.ca