Twitter Monitoring: Get the most out of your social listening strategy

People love expressing their thoughts and opinions on Twitter. This includes their thoughts and opinions about your brand.

The platform is essentially a goldmine of consumer data with over 328 million monthly active users and over 500 million Tweets sent every day (Source: Omnicore, 2017 ). In other words, Twitter is the perfect platform for you to be monitoring and listening to your customers.

But how can you harness Twitter’s data to create or improve your social media listening strategy? Read on to find out!

4 Methods For Using Twitter Monitoring To Find Out More About Your Customers

1. Search Keywords

One method for finding out more about your customers on Twitter is to search for relevant keywords.

Relevant keywords include:

Your brand’s name
Your product’s name
Your competitor’s name
Buzzwords
Slogans
Your campaign or event names

By searching for these keywords, you can:

Find Common Questions: In today’s fast-paced social media-driven world, consumers want answers now. Using Twitter to search for consumers talking about your brand in real-time can help answer these questions as quickly as possible.
Find Trending Topics: Use Twitter to find out common keywords your customers are searching. This is a great method for finding out trends and influencers that interest your customers. You can then utilize this information and incorporate it into your next campaign. For example, you can reach out to a relevant influencer and ask them to participate in your next marketing camping.
Crisis Management: Use Twitter to intervene when a customer is bad mouthing your brand or if you made a mistake and need to do some serious damage control.

For example, Clayton Hove used Twitter to let Smart Car know what he thinks about their products.

However, thanks to social media listening and a bit of science, Smart Car was able to find Hove’s Tweet and reply with this witty response:

Pro Tip: People make mistakes! Search for misspelled keywords.

2.Use Hashtags

Hashtags work similarly to keywords in the sense that they can help you find common questions, comments, and topics that your target consumers are talking about or searching on Twitter. Hashtags, however, give brands the benefit of being able to create their own.

For example, Netflix created the hashtag #ASOUE and was able to find out what people are saying about their show ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events.’

Similar to Netflix, you can use your own hashtags or search other relevant hashtags to find out what customers are saying about your brand.

How to use Hashtags to find out more about your customers:

1.Branded Hashtag: Create a branded hashtag that is unique or specific to your brand. Nike’s #JustDoIt is an example of a branded hashtag that allows their customers to get creative with their posts and allows Nike to see who’s talking about their brand.

Pro Tip: People make mistakes! Also search for misspelled hashtags.

2.Trending Hashtags: Search for trending hashtags relevant to your industry. Use these hashtags in your posts to reach your target audience.

For example, musician Kristian Bush took advantage of the hashtag #MusicMonday by making a post on a Monday about music:

Product Hashtags: Use hashtags that are related to your product or service. If someone is specifically searching for your product or service on Twitter, and you just posted using your product’s hashtag, then you’ve got yourself a potential customer.

Pro Tip: Search your competitor’s hashtags to see how they are engaging with their customers.

Lifestyle hashtags: Similarly, search hashtags that are relevant to the lifestyle of your target consumer. For example, a yoga clothing company might search the hashtag #YogaEveryDamnDay.

Location Hashtags: Search location hashtags to find out what people think about your store in a certain area.

Event Hashtags: People love to post pictures after an event using the event hashtag. You can find out people’s thought and opinions about an event you hosted by searching the event hashtag.

2.Use URL Shorteners

URL shorteners are great for tracking website traffic or campaign results via Twitter. By using a URL shortener, you’ll be able to find out which customers are clicking your website or marketing campaign via Twitter and which Tweets are generating the most clicks.

For example, Star Wars uses a custom URL shortener to see how much traffic is being generated from their posts on Twitter about the newest season of Star Wars Rebels.

Furthermore, URL shorteners are great for:

Character Limits: Twitter has a 140 character limit which makes it difficult for brands to get their message in on one Tweet. Shorteners help remedy this problem by shortening links to take up fewer characters.

Customer URLs: The issue with using URL shorteners is that spammers love to use them to copy companies and spam their followers. Using a customized URL reduces spamming and security issues because users will be able to to see that it’s your brand’s URL.

Pro Tip: Twitter automatically shortens URLs to 22 characters. However, if you want to shorten your links even more and/or measure and track consumer behavior, then consider using third party URL shorteners such as Bitly or Goo.gl.

Bonus Pro Tip: Make sure all of your URL shorteners are up to date. Google will notice if your URL leads to an error page which can affect your SEO ranking.

4. Find the Best Social Listening Tools

The key to finding out the most about your customers is to monitor your Twitter 24/7. But because you can’t monitor all day and all night, you need to find a social listening tool that will do the work for you.

To find a social media listening tool that works for you:

1.Ask yourself: What do I need from my Twitter monitoring tool?

Do I need to track hashtags?
Do I need to find relevant influencers?
Do I need to track mentions?
Do I need all of the above?

Ask yourself: What is my budget?
Research your options. Find out what set-up and customer services each tool offers.
Thoroughly check the services that each tool offers. Maybe the tool can go above and beyond your objections.
Look at contract lengths. Determine how long you will need to use a social media monitoring tool.
Test and compare your favorite social media monitoring tools.

7.Purchase

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Final Thoughts

Every day there is more to discover about your customers on Twitter. If you start using these 4 Twitter monitoring methods today you can start improving your brand’s reputation, providing superior customer service, and much more!

Pro tip: Use Twitter in conjunction with Facebook and Instagram to see what your customers are saying about your brand on every platform!

How will you use Twitter in your social listening strategy?