September 17, 2025
Syed Mohammad Sharfuzzaman Nayeem
Imagine being invited to a crowded party, and you are obsessed with making an impression. There will be a few things on your mind the entire time.
What do these people think of me? Do they find me cool? Am I overdressed?
The most important question of all will be, “Do they even care?”
Just like this person at the party, you, as a brand, would want the answers to these questions when competing in the biggest dynamic marketplace of all, social media.
You asked what is social media monitoring and this is your answer. Social media monitoring tells you whether people care about your brand online, and if they do, what they talk about.
Social media brand monitoring refers to the practice of tracking and analyzing conversations, mentions, and trends spanning across various social platforms. It could be LinkedIn, Facebook, or anything else.
So, let’s say you have a social media monitoring software. What does it do for you? It can, for instance, find out what the audience is saying about your campaign in real time, assign meaning to those conversations (are they happy, angry, or just being sarcastic?), and give you a sentiment score.
You, as a decision maker, can use the result of this analysis and score by a social media monitoring tool to get the data before choosing whether to continue, improvise, or simply abort the campaign.
So, social media brand monitoring in a way stops your decisions from being swayed just by likes or comments in the first hour of launch, and digs really deep to find actual concerns.
So, how does it actually happen? Let’s break it down:
Things have changed, and if you want to build brand presence, it cannot be just on search engines.
So, you are getting insights and covering all the ground on the internet, which means no FOMO for your brand.
By now, you know what is social media monitoring. So, let’s talk about why it’s worth it. For me, it boils down to 5 key reasons -
Implementing social media brand monitoring delivers both short-term and long-term advantages -
It’s an honest mistake when people use these terms interchangeably, but they are not the same -
Think of monitoring as hearing and listening as understanding. Both are essential, but monitoring is the foundation.
If you want to get the most out of a social media monitoring software, follow these steps -
Here are some software (both paid and free social media monitoring tools) to get you started -
So what is social media monitoring? Do you remember the recent PR crisis with Bollywood celebrity Shah Rukh Khan, where funny images of him with a weird hairstyle were just everywhere on the internet?
The efforts to deal with that situation escalated it because people found it entertaining that a big celebrity was bothered by something this small.
Social media brand monitoring is something that saves you from being in a situation like that.
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1. What is social media monitoring in simple terms?
It’s the process of tracking online conversations about your brand, competitors, or industry to stay informed and engage effectively.
2. Is social media monitoring the same as listening?
Not exactly. Monitoring tells you what’s being said, while listening helps you understand why it’s being said.
3. Why should small businesses care about social media monitoring?
Because it’s free or low-cost, it helps with customer service and keeps you competitive even against bigger brands.
4. What are some free social media monitoring tools?
Google Alerts, Social Searcher, and TweetDeck are easy-to-use free tools to start with.
5. How do I choose the best social media monitoring software?
Consider your business goals, budget, number of platforms you want to monitor, and whether you need advanced analytics like sentiment tracking.
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