Why media monitoring matters for storytelling

[fusion_text]You probably have heard us or someone else say that it’s important that you listen to your customers – that you actively engage with them and monitor what people are saying about your brand.

Not long ago, I attended Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference – where I met some amazing people who I learned a lot from. Theo Cooper from Untold Agency talked about how storytelling has become a buzzword and all of a sudden there is a renaissance in marketing (see the interview below). Storytelling has always been here. Content marketing has always been here. But the last years, we’ve been blinded by technology and stopped focusing on substance in what we share.

The medium doesn’t replace the message. – Theo Cooper

I also had a chat with Peter Handley, director of theMediaFlow (see interview below). We talked about how brands tend to look at SEO, content and search as different dimensions of digital marketing – but how each and every dimension actually affect one and other.

Some agencies use monitoring tools to gather and listen on conversations between people in a given community to see what the topic they talk about revolves around – and build stories and create campaigns based on that – which I think is an excellent way of knowing what resonates with your audience.

The first revelation brands have when I talk about our media monitoring tool is to use it for customer service. Of course, using monitoring tools will allow you to connect with your customers across all channels (blogs, forums, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube etc) and respond to questions on the go. But there is so much more to media monitoring:

For content marketing you can, as Handely talks about in the interview, crawl forums and other media for topics that interest people – and make sure you can target the right message to your audience with the content you produce.

The communication department could do an analysis on common words mentioned with your brand to see if your brand in positioned where you want it to be – and take action if it’s not.

The commercial aspect will allow you to do research, get ideas, and do trend checks. Whether you are launching a new commercial/campaign or a product you can do research in the active period and then monitor activity after the campaign/commercial is down.

Media monitoring also allows you to make better keyword purchases – by letting you see what words are used in what context. For instance can the word “coffee” be used with “vanilla syrup” a lot. As a marketer, you can then check how cheap the keyword “vanilla syrup” is and buy them cheap to create an ad: “The best coffee with vanilla syrup in town”.

There is a lot more to media monitoring than just catching mentions of your brand. We have incorporated a fully functional and award winning media monitoring tool in our platform. Want to learn what we can do for you? Click here to get in touch!