Listening Beyond Keywords

INTELLIGENCE FROM THE SOCIAL WEB

Listening Beyond Keywords:
URL BASED SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING STRATEGIES
APRIL 2011

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About PostRank
PostRank Inc. monitors and collects social engagement events with online content in real-time
across the web. PostRank gathers where and when stories generates comments, bookmarks,
tweets, and other forms of interaction from a host of social hubs. Publishers and people
interested in their content can then use PostRank analysis to gauge inﬂuence and reach with
audiences.

PostRank is based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and has clients in over 150 countries worldwide.

PostRank Methodology
PostRank indexes and analyzes millions of new articles and stories on a daily basis and monitors
over 25 popular social hubs and each day tracks more than 15 million user engagement
activities in real-time.


Big ears hear lots of noise.
There’s a lot of chatter in social media. Online consumer activity and communities continue to
grow, and, by extension, so does the volume and variety of their conversations.

These conversations can get loud, but loud doesn’t mean there’s always depth or relevance to
them. Actively listening to the conversations and commentary relevant to you isn’t going to get
any easier, unless you approach it intelligently.

People are talking about your brand, your clients, your competitors, and your industry. You
know that you need to listen, analyze, and respond. You know that you can’t give equal
attention to all of these mentions. You need to monitor in a way that is at the same time precise
and truly comprehensive.

It is possible. You can ﬁnd the important and relevant online conversations to glean the
intelligence you need. Presented here are a few ideas to consider when exploring social media
monitoring and modes of listening.

You don’t know what you don’t know.
Using monitoring tools to capture the right conversations online has been an art, and a very
manual one at that. Monitoring has also traditionally been very expensive in terms of money,
time, and human resources. However, many hope to master this art because there is so much
business value in the intelligence available from social media.

Keyword searches – sometimes multitudes of them – have been perhaps the most obvious and
certainly most common way of listening. Mentions of your company’s and competitors’ brands,
products, and services; campaigns; industry events... There is no end to the compilations of
keywords on which you can spend time and money.

Building a truly exhaustive keyword search is, clearly, an unattainable goal. Many of us
endeavor to do this, but we can’t be sure we have discovered all of the conversations that
matter. New products, new brands, new events – for which we do not yet know the names –
can be left out of a keyword search. Additionally, many companies search for terms that they
use in describing their business, which aren’t necessarily the same as the terms that consumers
are using.


We need to supplement keyword-based monitoring in order to effectively discover new
information about brands, competitors, and industries, as well as the “consumer speak”
conversations. We also need to use traditional media and website monitoring to glean
intelligence from online conversations beyond the constraints of keywords.

One of the biggest challenges of keyword-based listening is that it is a battle between an ever-
proliferating volume of social media information and the processing power of the human brain.
A battle the brain predictably loses. We are simply not wired to acknowledge, sort, judge, and
determine action on that voluminous a fire hose of data.

As a result, we make choices and educated guesses. Listening here, responding there, and often
spreading our attention too thin and applying it to the wrong conversations. We remain unsure
of the quality and breadth of our listening and whether we have heard and captured all the
vital online conversations.

How can we break the cycle of partial listening to what we already know and respond to what
we think is important, to win the battle over this magnitude of social media information?
Alternatives to keyword-based listening are a worthwhile consideration. The clue to these
alternatives may be found in content.

If a URL could speak, what would it tell you?
Content is king and the realm of social media is no exception. Content – especially the content
you produce – sparks conversations about your brand and defines their topics and direction

Content coalesces and shapes online communities, assembling millions of people on millions
of sites into groups focused on shared interests. Content bridges websites and social media,
bringing your potential customers from Twitter and Facebook to your website. Remove content
from social media and the business value disappears. Content rules the realm of social media,
and it is wise to follow the king.

Extending the metaphor, your king needs an intelligent advisor, which is where listening and
monitoring tools come in. Tools that analyze content across the social web, not just where you
think conversations are taking place. Tools that enable clear insights into the conversations
affecting your brand and measurement of the health of your content.


With URL-based content monitoring you will achieve precision unattainable by keyword-based
monitoring. Any piece of content published online is intrinsically connected to a unique URL.
By following URLs in your monitoring you will always be following the exact piece of content
you should be monitoring and listening only to the conversations happening around it. No
need to add additional filtering to pinpoint relevant conversations.

Add some hard data to the art of social media monitoring and listen to what your URLs are
telling you. Feel confident that you have captured all the conversations that matter on your
websites, competitors’ websites, and sites with important industry news. Discover unmet
customer needs or disconnects between your brand alignment and target audience.

Every navigator needs a map.
When you build your social media monitoring strategy on listening to these domains, you
will learn more about not only what you already knew, but discover new information, new
terminology, and what consumers truly think and talk about. You will also be able to track
content from point of origin to points of proliferation across the social web. The result will be
a map of the roads on which your content is being transported and key influencers helping to
move it along.

This mapping will provide two essential points of insight. First, the secret life of your own
content will be revealed. You will be able to distinguish which content is successful, where, and
with what audiences, and which content fails to engage audiences on the social web. You will
know what topics and styles of content to ramp up on, which could use tweaking, and which to
weed out.

Second, you will also be able to map and effectively tell the story of the lifecycle of your
competitors’ content. You will be able to identify their communities and influencers, their
content strongholds, and points of proliferation. This will enable you to more intelligently
position your content.


The URL is a digital lynchpin.
Social media monitoring can be done with much greater efficiency, and without an
overwhelming need for resources. URL-based monitoring enables you to learn who your
audience is, where they congregate on the social web, what content of yours resonates with
them, and how they engage with it. More broadly, you learn who the influencers are, stay
informed about your competitors and the latest industry news, and find where the greatest
opportunities for growth are on the social web.

Turning your social media monitoring into the science of precision listening is now an
attainable goal. Follow the content with URL-based techniques and learn how your content
engages audiences on the social web. Find your influencers, your opportunities for social
growth online, and stay informed about your competitors and about the latest news. Listen to
what matters. Hear what consumers have to say. Do what your customers want.


PostRank Inc. monitors and collects social engagement events with
online content in real-time across the web. PostRank gathers where and
when stories generate comments, bookmarks, tweets, and other forms of
interaction from a host of social hubs. Publishers and people interested in
their content can then use PostRank analysis to gauge influence and reach
with audiences.

Based in Waterloo, Ontario, PostRank offers a collection of Industry Reports
for customers who are interested in monthly content and engagement
data for specific industry verticals. These reports are important to those
who understand the value of social engagement and want to enable more
effective engagement with their customers and audiences. PostRank also
offers Custom Reporting solutions and Data Services APIs to further explore
and understand how and where audiences are engaging with relevant
stories across a variety of social hubs.

For more information visit:
http://data.postrank.com

Contact Us:
Peter Frisella, Business Development

E: peter@postrank.com
P: (519) 514-0064 x223
A: 505-180 King Street South
Waterloo, ON N2J 1P8

INTELLIGENCE FROM THE SOCIAL WEB

Listening Beyond Keywords

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