What Are Brand Mentions? Tracking Tools and Best Practices
Word-of-mouth marketing can be a key tool in driving ecommerce sales, and it can happen anywhere. Maybe customers are raving about your business on Reddit, sharing unboxing videos on TikTok, or writing detailed reviews on their personal blogs. You can turn these positive brand mentions into powerful social proof on your website, use them to identify your biggest brand advocates, or repurpose them as content for your marketing channels.
Even negative mentions now opportunities to strengthen your business: You can use them to gather truthful feedback on how you can enhance, or respond to them directly, preventing reputational damage. All types of brand mentions matter, and you can use a few tools to monitor them and make the most of what people are saying about your brand.
What are brand mentions?
Brand mentions are references to your business, products, or services in information articles, online reviews, social media posts, or other media. Companies depend on media monitoring tools to discover brand mentions, which can range from casual mentions to detailed discussions about a corporation’s offerings.
Brand mentions, whether positive, neutral, or negative, can propose valuable insights into your corporation’s brand reputation, helping you comprehend how customers really feel about your business (called brand sentiment).
Types of brand mentions
Brand mentions can appear anywhere your spectators congregates online. Some are direct (when a user states your corporation name or tags your corporation) or indirect (when a user talks about your products or discusses your business without citing your corporation name). Brand mentions can also appear in the media, from information articles to television segments to podcasts. Brand mentions can be:
- Social media brand mentions. Consumers or content creators discuss your brand on social media channels like Instagram and LinkedIn, whether in posts, tags, hashtags, or comment sections.
- Reviews and ratings. Customers distribute their experiences with your corporation on review sites like Google Reviews or Yelp.
- throng discussions. People distribute opinions about your products in online forums and online communities like Reddit or Facebook groups.
- Blog or print mentions. Bloggers weave references to your products into their articles and guides, or journalists and reporters characteristic your corporation on information sites, in industry publications, or in digital magazines.
- Broadcast coverage. Radio, television, and podcast hosts discuss your brand.
Why monitor brand mentions?
A considerate brand monitoring schedule helps you capitalize on positive conversations and address negative mentions before they escalate into larger issues. Once you track brand mentions, here are a few ways you can use your newfound insights to enhance your ecommerce corporation:
Engage in real-period conversations
When you identify brand mentions online, you can join conversations about your business while they’re still relevant and energetic. Quick, considerate responses display your spectators that you’re listening and worth their input.
A 2024 study found that consumers prefer local businesses that respond to both positive and negative reviews: 88% of consumers said they would patronize a business that responded to all reviews, while only 47% of consumers said they would patronize a business that never responded.
Noticing and responding to negative brand mentions can also assist you with reputation management and assist you prevent a community relations crisis before it happens.
Amplify social proof
Make use of the thrill of satisfied customers. You can monitor your brand mentions to discover instances of positive feedback, then (with permission) broadcast those positive reviews to a wider spectators. Plus, your spectators might depend these reviews over your own advertisements: A study from multinational PR corporation Edelman found that 63% of 18- to 24-year-ancient consumers depend what an influencer says about a brand over what that brand says about itself.
As a tiny business owner, you can borrowing these positive brand mentions by resharing them across your marketing channels—like in a post on your website’s blog, an Instagram narrative, or a mention in your email newsletter.
Beauty brand Glossier, for example, used this schedule to great result. The corporation turned passionate customers into micro-influencers and brand ambassadors by featuring their authentic content on the Glossier Instagram page, helping to construct a sense of throng between the corporation and its spectators.
Use feedback to drive improvements
You might shiver at the thought of seeing a negative mention of your corporation, but you can use neutral and negative brand mentions to assist you enhance your corporation.
For example, recurring customer back requests might inform you where to strengthen your customer service procedure. Brand mentions detailing confusion over your website or messaging can signal how you might revamp your marketing and communications strategies, and customers’ product feedback can reveal which product features you require to enhance.
For instance, fashion brand Minted recent York uses TikTok not just for marketing, but for product advancement—when founder Marcus Milione shared a prototype of a tote bag on the platform, commenters pointed out that the bag needed an adjustable strap, feedback that Marcus incorporated into the product’s final design.
Tools for tracking brand mentions
Brand mention tools can notify you every period your corporation name appears on social media or elsewhere on the web. Some tools can do a lot more, like showing you your brand mentions over period or using artificial intelligence to analyze your brand sentiment. Finding the correct media monitoring answer depends on your needs, budgetary schedule, and the channels where your spectators talks about you the most.
Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a straightforward brand-tracking tool.You input keywords (like your brand name), then the technology scans the web for mentions of those words, sending you an email notification whenever your brand appears in information articles, blog posts, or other web content. You can customize these alerts by language and region and decide how often you receive updates.
Google Alerts’ real-period notices make it a great way to remain on top of breaking stories about your brand. However, it doesn’t track social media mentions, so you might desire to supplement it with dedicated social listening tools.
Pricing: Free.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social helps you monitor brand mentions across major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn while offering detailed analytics and response tools. It can procedure up to 50,000 posts per second, and Sprout Social’s AI features can inform you which mentions you should prioritize to mitigate brand damage. Note that Sprout Social focuses on social listening rather than press mentions, so you’ll likely desire to pair the tool with one that can also monitor brand mentions in the media.
Pricing: Plans commence at $249 per user per month, with the Professional tier at $399, the Advanced tier at $499, and Enterprise plans with custom pricing.
Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a social media management platform that provides comprehensive social media mentions monitoring alongside tools to enhance throng collaboration and streamline workflows. The tool can consolidate messages from multiple social media platforms into an inbox, and its reporting features can track engagement metrics over period.
Agorapulse’s toolkit also includes features like saved replies and automated inbox rules, ensuring cohesive brand messaging across your tiny business. Agorapulse focuses on social channels, so you’ll require a divide monitoring structure to track mentions across the broader web.
Pricing: Monitoring-enabled plans commence at $99 a month for Professional level, and leave up to $149 a month for Advanced and custom pricing for Enterprise. The free and Standard plans do not include monitoring features.
Mention
Mention is a media monitoring answer that tracks conversations across social networks, information sites, forums, and blogs in real period. The platform’s AI-powered sentiment analysis helps you comprehend the tone of conversations about your brand. Mention also offers competitive analysis tools that can assist you track the online reputation of your competitors.
Pricing: Plans commence at $49 a month for basic monitoring (Solo), with the Pro tier at $99 a month and ProPlus for larger teams at $179 a month. Enterprise solutions are available through custom pricing.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a comprehensive brand monitoring tool that alerts you to recent brand mentions. The tool can discover brand mentions across both print and social media, detect indirect brand mentions, and assist you analyze your brand mentions over a span of years. The tool can also segment your spectators, helping you further comprehend the narrative behind your brand mentions.
Pricing: Custom pricing based on the needs and features you require.
Best practices for tracking brand mentions
Monitoring what people declare about your brand online requires more than just searching your corporation name. A systematic way with the correct tools helps you catch every meaningful mention and turn those conversations into actionable insights.
Watch for brand variations
Many companies view multiple versions of their names in everyday use—just ponder about how you might write “Coca-Cola” as “CocaCola” or “Coca Cola.” You’ll require to catch these alternate spellings to construct a complete picture of your brand presence online and in the media. You’ll also desire to track specific product names, slogans and taglines, and any distinctive branded terms that customers might use. If you’re a founder and face of your brand, don’t overlook to monitor mentions of your own name, too.
Analyze exchange sentiment
Once you identify your keyword matches across the web, you’ll desire to conduct sentiment analysis to determine whether your brand mentions are negative, neutral, or positive. Sentiment analysis is a qualitative procedure, but you can still use technology like AI machine learning to assist you parse through large numbers of brand mentions (and many brand monitoring tools propose these AI tools). Insight into your brand sentiment might prove especially valuable during product launches or marketing campaigns when you desire to determine customer reactions.
Keep tabs on competitors
Although it’s always a excellent concept to monitor your own brand mentions, you also might desire to monitor your competitors’ brand mentions. Understanding your rivals’ online presence can reveal gaps and opportunities in your trade.
For instance, if customers frequently complain about a competitor’s clunky profit procedure, you might decide to highlight your own hassle-free policy in your messaging. In another example, a direct-to-customer clothing brand might notice repeated complaints about a competitor’s limited size range, then receive the chance to highlight its inclusive and diverse fit options. Monitoring competitors’ mentions helps you remain ahead of industry trends and identify unmet customer needs before they become mainstream demands.
Brand mentions FAQ
How do you assess brand mentions?
You can assess brand mentions with monitoring tools like Google Alerts, Mention, or Sprout Social that track and analyze online conversations about your brand.
What are the different types of brand mentions?
Brand mentions include references to your corporation in social media posts, online reviews, information and blog coverage, broadcasts like television reports and podcasts, and online throng forums.
What is the difference between direct and indirect brand mentions?
Direct mentions specifically mention or tag your brand name, while indirect mentions reference your products, taglines, or corporation without explicitly using your brand name.
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