Twitter currently attracts over 330 million active users per month. It’s one of the most popular social media channels, and businesses now need to use it to promote their brands and manage their reputations. 

Twitter monitoring is an effective method for managing your brand’s digital presence. It’s an insight into how people are talking about your business, what interests them and what your competitors are doing. 

In this article, we will explore the many benefits that Twitter monitoring can generate, we will also take a look at Twitter monitoring tools that you can use to manage and enhance your brand’s social media presence. 

What is Twitter monitoring? 

Twitter monitoring is essentially checking the platform on a regular basis for conversations relating to your brand, your competitors or your specific industry/sector. In the era of social media, it’s important for brands to remain aware of current opinions, pop culture topics and trending news. 

If brands lack awareness of what’s being discussed on social media platforms, they risk missing out on potential opportunities to capitalise on or potentially running into PR crisis that will damage their brand. With Twitter monitoring, you can stay aware of how your brand is being perceived by target audiences. 

Why should brands conduct Twitter monitoring? 

Twitter is essentially a social media platform that facilitates discussion and encourages users to share their insights, thoughts and opinions. For brands, it’s a platform full of rich data that they can capitalise on to enhance their image or help mitigate potential crises. 

Brands should utilise Twitter monitoring as part of their research for developing a strong and successful social media marketing strategy. With Twitter monitoring, brands are able to;

Track brand mentions 

Brands can set up a Twitter alert for any time someone mentions their brand in a tweet or in a comment. This is beneficial in that businesses can see the discussion surrounding their brand in real-time. 

This allows businesses to gain insight into the authentic opinions surrounding their brand’s products or services. It also indicates which type of content target audiences are engaging with and it highlights content that brands should be investing in. 

Track competitors 

Tracking your competitor’s online performance is just as important as tracking your own. With Twitter monitoring, brands can see the type of content that their shared target audiences may be interested in, as well as identify the potential pitfalls that similar brands have experienced, without having to undergo those negative experiences themselves. 

Tracking competitors’ content via Twitter monitoring can also present unique opportunities for brand promotion. Take for example the notorious Colin vs Cuthbert war, where Supermarket Giants Marks and Spencers took Aldi to court over infringement of their iconic caterpillar cake. 

The result of this Twitter beef resulted in a tongue-in-cheek back-and-forth between the two supermarket giants, here are some of our favourites below: 

Interestingly enough, other supermarket gains who were obviously completing Twitter monitoring, capitalised on the opportunity to get involved in the viral discussion.

Remain aware of trending news

Brands should also utilise Twitter monitoring in order to remain aware of topical news. Even if the news isn’t directly related to your specific industry, it can still provide opportunities for your brand to position itself as a current and socially aware brand. 

Avoiding potential PR crisis 

Another benefit of Twitter monitoring is that it can help brands avoid potential PR crises. If someone is upset with the brand’s product/service, it is not unusual to see a Tweet that has reprimanded them. Whilst this may initially feel like an attack on the brand, it can actually present an opportunity for the brand to demonstrate its level of customer care on a public platform, or in other words, there is no such thing as bad press! 

Check out this article for more tips on social media crisis management. 

Twitter monitoring tools

We have compiled a list of Twitter monitoring tools that you can use track engagement associated with your brand. 

Hootsuite 

Hootsuite is a social media management tool that allows you to monitor multiple social networks simultaneously, including Twitter. With Hootsuite, you can create streams for your monitoring queries and view them all on one dashboard. This makes it easy to keep track of mentions, keywords, and hashtags in real time.

Hootsuite offers a 30-day free trial for any of their plans, which start from £89 per year for an individual plan. 

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a Twitter monitoring tool that enables you to monitor multiple accounts at once and create custom columns for your monitoring queries. You can also schedule tweets, reply to mentions, and track engagement metrics.

Tweetdeck is an entirely free-to-use platform, it was once an independent app but has since been bought by Twitter and embedded within its user interface. 

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a comprehensive social media management platform that offers Twitter monitoring capabilities. With its Smart Inbox feature, you can easily monitor mentions, keywords, and hashtags, as well as prioritize and respond to messages in real time.

You can trial any of the Sprout Social plans for free for 30 days, or alternatively purchase one of their plans that start at $249 per month for a standard plan. 

Brand24

Brand24 is a social media monitoring tool that focuses on tracking mentions and analyzing online conversations. It helps you monitor Twitter for brand mentions, keywords, and hashtags, in addition to providing detailed analytics to measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts.

Brand24 offers a free 14-day trial, with their individual plans starting at $69 per month.  

Agorapulse

Agorapulse offers real-time monitoring, allowing you to stay on top of conversations and mentions as they happen. You can also use the platform to publish content, schedule posts and monitor ad comments. It’s an incredibly diverse range of software, with many more features that we have mentioned. 

You can trial Agorapulse for free for 30 days before signing up to one of their plans that start at €49 per year. 

There are many more Twitter monitoring tools available than the ones we have listed above, check out this article for 11 free Twitter analytic tools you can start using today!

Want to learn more about Twitter monitoring? 

If you’re interested in taking your social media presence to the next level, get in touch with us at ProfileTree, we provide in-depth digital marketing training that is tailored to your brand and geared towards social media success.