Companies that are based in Asia and the Asia-Pacific face many challenges when it comes to social media for their business. The different government regulations and cultures change drastically between countries. Even the channels and networks that are popular vary from one country to the next.
However, that does not mean that your company should not embrace social media, and find the best way to use it to your advantage according to the country you are based in. Once you begin to use social media, you should be sure to consult with a company that specializes in social media marketing for businesses. On top of that, take it a step further to find a company that understands the language, cultural, and legal differences for each of the countries that you do business in. A knowledgeable company will consult with you to make sure you are on the right track and at least help you get started, and possibly even continue your social media strategy and programming for you.
Benefits of Social Media Monitoring
If you have been holding off on developing a social media strategy out of fear of negativity from the public or disgruntled customers, your restraint could be hurting you more than you realize. Customers and the public will talk about your company online and in social media, whether you have a presence there or not. Therefore, it is very important to not only establish yourself on your own social channels to build up your reputation, but to monitor what people are saying about your brand in the media, publications, online, and in social media.
Having a presence on your own social media channels helps you get into the conversation and continue engagement and also respond to any problems or complaints in a timely manner and on your own terms. Sure, complaints might crop up, but you will quickly be alerted through your monitoring service and respond in kind. This is very important because it shows that your company is listening and that you care about and responds to your customers.
Remember that most consumers just want to know that you respond to complaints and address concerns that are posted online. They are more concerned in that than the actual problem that someone else had. Another benefit of social media monitoring is gathering intelligence on your consumers’ behaviors including the keywords and language they use to describe your company’s products and services. This can help you in targeting new prospects who also use similar keywords and key phrases that you might not have previously used in your content strategy or advertising.
Media Monitoring Tools
Media monitoring has become an important part of social media marketing. Monitoring can be easy when you use automated tools. Monitoring also makes responding quickly easy as well. Response time is a big factor in whether or not you can resolve a problem reported through your social media channels.
Some tools are more robust than others and the level of monitoring ability is reflected in the price of the tool too. Here is a list of social media tools that can be used in Asian countries and also work all over the world:
- Isentia is a company with a suite of media monitoring tools that are specifically geared towards businesses in Asia and the Asia-Pacific. They specialize in media monitoring, social media monitoring, and online reputation management in Asian and Asia-Pacific Countries. They have different tools for different countries.
- BuzzNumbers is a social media monitoring service available in Australia and New Zealand that provides an easy way to conduct real-time research and uncover data and insights into what your customers and end users are saying online.
- SinoPortal is a media monitoring product that is exclusive in China. Businesses in China know that media and social media are quite different. Playing by a different set of rules, this product provides you with fast access to information and returns information for you based on the criteria you filter in the search.
- IFTTT stands for If This Then That. The website allows you to make what they call “recipes” out of the different combinations so that if you are mentioned, you are alerted. There are many other options for this website; it can be used for a great deal of different applications for personal and professional use.
- IceRocket is a free tool that will search across the web and social sites for mentions of keywords, phrases, or names you are interested in monitoring. The filtering options allow you to indicate very specific information that you are searching for.
- Social Mention helps you not only monitor media, but it also measures and defines sentiment. A growing trend in media monitoring is to gauge sentiment using automated methods.
- Addictomatic is a free tool that helps you instantly get an overview of your brand across many different platforms. The wide range of platforms monitored by this tool includes Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, WordPress, Bing News, Delicious, Google, Ask.com, and more. In addition to monitoring your brand reputation, you can also get an overview of recent industry developments and other relevant events or information.
- HowSociable is a tool that helps you measure your social media presence as well as that of your competitors. This type of social media monitoring and measurement intelligence is very good for bench marking your overall social media marketing efforts.
Conclusion and Takeaways for Your Business
Media monitoring is important for all businesses around the world. However; media monitoring for businesses in Asian countries is crucial as social media for business grows in popularity in this region where image is very important to the cultures.
Once you do establish a social media strategy and get monitoring in place, it will allow you to execute best practices in social media communications for each country and cater to the different cultures and best practices. Once you realize the benefits of social media for your company, you can continue to utilize this outlet of communication and reputation management to help catapult your company into the spotlight in a profitable way.
Images: “China High Resolution Social Media Concept/Shutterstock.com“
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