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People are talking about you, right now.

Yes. You.

If there was a rumour out there, spread by God-knows-who, that you have a bad case of “BO”, it’s no surprise that your next action would be to unconsciously check yourself to see if it’s true. And if you do, you’d try to get rid of it, buy a deodorant or spray to expel it.

This is the same attitude to development and growth that most businesses are adopting today.

And the media plays a vital role in it.

Understanding social media intelligence.

It is important to know what the masses say about your product or your business, in order to take important steps that will propel not only your sales over the roof but your reputation, as well.

Social media intelligence involves businesses engaging in the process of largely collecting and analysing data from various media channels.

This is done in order to gain insights or get a wide peek into the business performance, to get an idea of consumer reactions, check in on competitors, and be alert about the wider market.

For example, a blog owner can source for ideas on topics to write on from reputable sites like Quora and reddit, where anyone can go to ask a question or leave a review or their opinion on just about anything possible.

This same blog owner can read such posts relating to his niche, and then, use the intel he’s gathered to shape his next article or blog post to be better.

This smart move will, in turn, change the public perception of his readers, and even critics, about his works, for the better..

This is a form of insight gathering, however, it’s more on the “manual” side. With the help of media monitoring tools, he can accomplish this way faster.

How do businesses gather data for social media intelligence?

In the past, data for media intelligence was usually gathered from print editorial contents or broadcasts, or even digital news media. These data could also be obtained from non-news sites, blogs, and social media networks.

Now, all that has changed.

Today, machine learning is employed for social media monitoring and all other sophisticated bits of media monitoring. Intelligent tools are now used to track, as well as gather and arrange all the relevant news needed to help businesses grow.

This includes brand mentions, hashtags, and trends.

How to use social media intelligence like a boss.

The internet is ridden with data, much of which social media greatly contributes to. This is one “tool” to leverage towards business promotion.

And while the blogger example seems sufficient, you would still need to learn to apply social media intelligence on the internet, when you’re scouring social media to research trends for your business advantage.

It’s not always, “let me see what people are saying about my business”. Sometimes, the trick is to look outside of yourself.

So, what does this mean?

It means you should research what your competitor business is doing, what their customers are saying about them that makes them better than you.

“What are they doing that customers don’t like? How is their social media presence?”, are the kind of questions you should be asking.

And if their customers are leaving bad reviews for them on social media, even better!

What can be learnt from it? How can you avoid making that same mistake in your own business, and even win the hearts of their customers, in the process?

By answering all these questions, you will avoid being these guys.

Funny comebacks are cool. But such responses to user reviews and comments can throw possible interested customers off, once they see how inconsiderate you’re being with other people who buy your products.

And this is all good stuff, but it’s not enough until you go underneath the imaginary “wiry workings” of social media intelligence to really fix and spruce up your business game.

Why use social media listening tools?

You are not omniscient. But social media intelligence tools are. Well, close to it, at least.

You can’t be everywhere. And the business world does not take pity on that fact. It will not hold its horses for your sake.

Which is why tools that can be used for thorough and in-depth analysis are what you should be using to collect insights for your business.

It’s much like eavesdropping on a conversation about you, but without physically putting yourself in a risky position and worrying about being exposed.

Some of the tools you can adopt to enhance your online listening eyes and ears are:

Google Alerts

Agility monitoring

Mentionlytics

Hootsuite

Reddit Keyword Monitor Pro

All these social media monitoring tools let business owners keep track of conversations, keywords relating to their brand or product, hashtags, and even mentions, without them moving that much muscle. They’re huge time savers.

Why is social media monitoring important?

It can save your reputation.

Using the same “BO” scenario, when you don’t get ahead of the rumour to dispel it, it will get worse. And in the long run, whether it’s true or not, no one will care. The conclusive fact would be that “(insert your name here) has bad body ordour”. And that should explain this enough.

It can help you measure the effectiveness of your business campaigns.

Gathering data, good. But gathering data that you can measure and use to predict the outcomes of all your efforts towards the business? Now, that’s freaking fantastic.

And you can use these data to establish better relationships with your customers.

It can “teach” you how to manage a crisis.

If a customer goes out of their way to leave a bad mark on your business by dropping a negative review, your response to it matters. And how you choose to respond will either cost you your reputation, or boost it.

Any business equipped with a smart social media intelligence strategy can optimise the content they put out. This will have a great positive impact on the outcomes, in the long run.