Social media moves fast, and users’ posts are getting shorter and shorter, more often just images without much text. Consider the following:
- 69% of social media posts about a brand, product, service or event do NOT contain the name of the subject being posted
- More and more images are being posted without text at all
- Abbreviations and/or “nicknames” for brands and products are being used more often in social media posts
If you’re using a traditional social media monitoring program, you may be able to capture some of the content that is included in the above statistics; for example, if you are aware of hashtags or “nicknames” for your brand, you will be able to include these in your search parameters. However, it is likely that you will be missing out on the other content.
This is one of several reasons for including a location based monitoring program in your social media research efforts. By essentially creating a virtual fence around you locations or events, you can capture much of the content that does not contain text directly related to your brand.
Why is this important?
- In the case of event hosting, using a virtual fence to monitor posts coming from the event area can alert administrators to real time content. In some cases, this could help with pinpointing issues as they arise for quick assessment and resolution.
- It’s a great way to engage with visitors and customers while they are in the middle of an experience with your brand, service, or event. Reach out to those customers with a simple “thank you” or, better yet, reward them with a coupon for future (or current) use.
- Event planning and building a contact list can be difficult; using location based monitoring will give you more insight into who attends the event. Find out who attended through location based monitoring, connect with them on social sites, and encourage them to sign up for an email list so they can stay connected.
- Location based monitoring can give better insight into general consumer sentiment and can enhance your social media monitoring efforts. It can also give insight into your competitor’s customers as a new form of competitive intelligence.
As social media users become more and more brief in the content they post, it will become more difficult for businesses to capture this data. Enhancing the program with a location based tool will likely improve results and open up new ways to capture sentiment and engage with customers.