Social media conversations take place all day every day. With so many conversations taking place online, your social media presence matters, which means that social media monitoring is crucial for your brand’s success. Are you equipped to manage and engage with these conversations?

There are a few key social media monitoring mistakes that could be causing you to miss important mentions both loyal customers and complaints by potential customers. To help out, the four of the most common social media monitoring mistakes below — so now you can easily avoid them.

Not doing audience research

Engagement rates low? Your lack of target audience research could be to blame.

Knowing and understanding your target audience will help your brand generate personalized content that is useful or interesting, which will garner higher engagement rates. The right content will also grow the number of followers each platform has and help you to retain them.

Most social media listening tools provide all of the items necessary to learn the essentials about your target audience. Then it’s up to you to use that knowledge to create the personalized content to reach these groups of people.

Not tracking keywords

You probably know the industry keywords being used in your target audiences. But are you tracking them?

Tracking industry keywords can provide a ton of useful information, such as discovering the correct hashtags to use on each platform. You will also have the means to stay up-to-date on current trends and boost your brand’s exposure.

As an added bonus, tracking keywords can keep you in the loop on industry conversations so that you can hop in and build trust, as well as brand recognition. Just be sure to go too heavy on the hashtags!

Not handling negative reviews

No one likes to read, much less deal with negative reviews. But, did you know that negative reviews could actually help your brand attract new clients? It’s true! Negative news travels quite a bit faster than positive news, so by quickly and (I can’t stress this enough) eloquently handling negative customer feedback, you will let other social media users know that your company cares about its customers.

Even when you are unable to completely solve a situation on your social media channels, your audience will have the ability to see that you are doing your best to fix problems as they arise. This is rewarded by new or continued trust in your brand.

Not monitoring your competition

Not looking outside your own organization? Big mistake!

Knowing what people say about your competition is crucial. It gives key insights into what your audience does and does not like about their products or services (remember that mention of research earlier?). It also provides the opportunity to connect with their influencers.

In addition, setting up social listening tools will help you to gain sight into the volume, reach and sentiment of social mentions for your competitors, which you can then utilize to optimize your social platforms’ strategies.

So, there you have it. Jot down these major social media monitoring mistakes so you can avoid them in the future and watch your engagement rates soar.