Benchmark, inspiration, trend, reputation – all different words to define an essential daily practice. In a global context where ultra-responsiveness and uncertainty have become the norm, the stakes of digital monitoring are high. Inclusion explains all of this in its new article, “What is the Role of Digital Monitoring in a Digital Strategy?”
Digital monitoring is defined as a permanent and organized surveillance of the web, aimed at keeping up with the latest news related to a specific topic. It differs from a simple search by its regular and systematic nature, which ensures no detail is missed.
Digital monitoring can follow multiple and complementary sources, such as:
- The results from major search engines, starting with Google.
- New publications on major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
- Major news aggregators, including Google News.
- All types of sources on the internet, such as a specialized blog or a competitor’s communication.
The main reasons for monitoring in a digital strategy
1- Track the evolution of marketing trends
Staying up-to-date with trends gives you the ability to propose more creative ideas. Knowing which trend is viral can help you create similar content and stay relevant.
2- Listen to your customers
Digital monitoring also provides an opportunity for you to listen to your customers. Receiving feedback on the quality of your products or services will help you improve them.
3- Stay ahead of your competitors
One of the primary ultimate goals for all businesses is to be the best of the best. To achieve this, you need to stay ahead of your competitors. You need to know which trends they are using and determine how you can do it better or how you can incorporate those trends into your own business.
It is important to know what the next trend is, but it is also crucial to understand how to implement it in your business.
Which tools to use for effective digital monitoring?
1. Feedly
Feedly is a content aggregator. This service allows you to retrieve all the news published by the sites you are interested in on a single interface (the Feedly website).
The advantage? Instead of visiting your favorite sites one by one to see if they have posted new information, everything is centralized and accessible with one click.
Feedly is the perfect tool if you want to conduct broad-spectrum monitoring in your industry.
2. Google Alerts
Google Alerts is the first tool that comes to mind in terms of digital monitoring. It’s a classic, very easy to use, as all you need to do is enter keywords, names, or brands to be notified by email whenever those terms appear online.
It’s the ideal tool if you want to be alerted whenever a specific topic is mentioned anywhere on the web.
Choose the terms you want to track (such as your company name, a competitor’s name, a specific topic, or a website URL) and select the type of content you’re interested in (news, blogs, videos, etc.). Depending on the frequency you set, Google will send you emails with newly published content that contains your keywords.
3. Social media
Mainstream social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and others allow you to subscribe and follow competitors and market news. They help you stay informed on a subject, engage and converse with internet users, understand your environment including competitors, clients, and media, gather feedback on products and services, track news on chosen topics, find the latest information, and improve skills in specific areas.
4. Newsletters
Newsletters from your competitors are a valuable resource for competitive monitoring. Once subscribed, they deliver summaries of their latest updates directly to your inbox, sometimes even sharing insights from their own sectoral monitoring efforts.
Conclusion
The three key points to remember about digital monitoring according to Inclusion are:
1. Monitoring is a regular activity, not just a one-time search on a specific topic.
2. It’s easy to find information, but challenging to find the right information. With vast amounts of data flow, it’s crucial to be mindful of information sources.
3. Effective monitoring is organized and requires automation tools, applications, or software for efficiency and accuracy.
