first priority for a social media strategy - a brand audit using a social media monitoring tool

First Priority for a Social Media Strategy:

A Brand Audit Using a Social

Media Monitoring Tool

Download the full whitepaper here:

http://socialmedia.alterian.com/learn-more/roi/brand-audit-whitepaper

An Excerpt from the Let’s Talk Social Media ROI Series








Cornerstone of Listening

The social web is filled with conversations about your

brand, your competitors and industry topics. Everyone is

in agreement that listening is the first step before you

should join the conversation.










A Brand Audit is the First Step in Social Media Monitoring

There is a natural progression of application of social media

monitoring over time as a company gains experience:

• Brand Audit

• Public Relations

• Corporate Marketing

• Search Engine Optimization

• Product Development

• Competitive Insight

• Sales – Lead Gen

• Customer Service

• Social Media Campaigns










Brand Audit Goals

The primary purpose of a brand audit in social media is to

provide direction for a social media campaign or

engagement.

But what is the justification for doing so? A brand audit not

only indicates reasons to participate but also identifies

where to do so online as well as offline.

A social media monitoring tool provides in-depth information

that will provide considerable insight into a

social media strategy.










Social Media Monitoring Tools Needed for a Brand Audit

Daily Volume Report

Charts the number of conversation over time










Social Media Monitoring Capabilities Needed for a Brand Audit

Share of Voice Report

Shows the distribution of the conversations across the social

networks.











Themes Report

A word cloud that is created by analyzing all of the

conversations











Author Tags

Depict the words that people are most frequently tagging

their content with in the hopes that others will search for it.











Demographic Reports

Sorts the data by age, gender, and popularity.











Top Domains Reports

Shows the domains where the majority of the conversations

are happening online.











Top Authors Reports

Shows the authors that are generating the most conversations.











Map Overlay

Identifies the physical sources of the conversations.











Top Languages Reports

Creates a list of the languages that consumers are using when

creating their content.











Brand References and Content Tone Reports

Indicates the Sentiment and tone around the conversations.










A Brand Audit Business Objectives

Marketing

• Clarify whether the messaging is connecting with

customers

• Is it reaching the target audience

• Are the word of mouth marketing efforts being

achieved?

• Are there opportunities for lead generation?

• Generate more word of mouth

• Reduce market research costs











Sales

• Build relationships

with potential

customers

• Contribute to building

brand visibility

• Reduce customer

acquisition costs



Customer Service

• Are customers receiving

responses in a timely

manner

• Are their needs being met

satisfactorily

• What is their sentiment

• Reduce customer support

costs

• Increase customer loyalty









Public Relations

• Improve public

relations effectiveness

• Build advocacy

program Identify

influencers and

engage them

• Minimize brand crises

• Establish thought

leadership



Product Development

• Gather ideas for products

• Innovation - Improve new

product success ratios

• Bring outside ideas into

organization

• Competitive insight

• Reduce product

development costs








How to Do a Brand Audit



1. Set up searches

2. Scrub the results:

3. Use Share of Voice Report

4. Use Compare Dates Report for business

development

5. Review the reports listed above in section 1 of

Purposes of a Brand Audit for insight

6. Create a report that offers insight on potential

objectives to be accomplished in a social

media strategy








Conclusion



A brand audit is essential for every social media

engagement and the measurement of it. Assessing a

brand's online presence without a social media monitoring

tool would be very difficult. A professional tool offers the

advantage of aggregating all of the information in one place

and the ability to perform an in-depth analysis of the data in

a variety of ways. It provides the basis for determining the

business objectives. The tool also provides a basis for

benchmarking the data and creating a reporting

methodology as the social media strategy is executed.






