Social Mentions: The What, Why & How

Getting your audience to engage with you on social media is just as important, if not more important, as your messaging and promotional strategies within your content, but is usually the most overlooked. The key to a successful social media strategy goes beyond just posting and ghosting. Your brand should be responding to content and interacting within your community revolving around your brand. How is this done? Meet social mentions.

What are social mentions?

Social mentions include any mention of your business on social media, both tagged and untagged. It’s essentially all the conversations about your brand floating around in social media.

Why are social mentions important?

Whether you like it or not, people are talking about your business online. If their feedback is positive, this could lead to new customers and more revenue generated. On the other hand, if their feedback is negative, and you’re not tracking these mentions to find and resolve the problems, it could result in a poor reputation.

You want to be sure you’re on top of those conversations so that you can respond and further engage your audience helping build trust and loyalty. Plus, you’re better equipped in owning the narrative of your brand online when you’re helping drive the conversation.

How to respond to your social mentions

There are many reasons people may be mentioning your brand, so it’s imperative to know how to respond to each of these different types of social media mentions.

1. Sharing product photos

You’ll often see customers share photos of your product, food, establishment, etc., whatever you have that’s photogenic. People love to share their experiences on social media, and when tagged brands interact with them online, it makes that customer feel acknowledged and appreciated.

Consider a “Thanks for sharing!” along with a personalized comment. Taking the time out to acknowledge the people who have shared your product is a great way to build brand loyalty.

2. Providing feedback

Sometimes customers will reach out simply to provide feedback.

This is incredibly important for you to find and listen to. After all, your audience cares enough to offer free advice for improvement in your business, product or service, be diligent and courteous enough to respond.

A great way to respond positively to this feedback is to assure customers you’ll let the correct team know.

3. Sharing a bad experience

The trickiest of social mentions, but one of the most rewarding when handled properly and important types to address. Remember this: If a customer shares a bad experience with your company online, it’s likely they simply wanted to vent.

The best way to respond is to immediately move the conversation to a more private location, work to resolve the issue, supply a support line or email address and keep a positive attitude.

4. Asking for help

Customers might also reach out or mention your brand when asking for help or support with an issue. To keep customers from turning to your competitors, respond to any support queries by letting the customer know you’re here to help and take action on the request to make sure it gets resolved. Most customers expect a response on social media within a day or less, even if it’s as simple as acknowledging the question and giving a time frame as to when you think you’ll have an answer.

5. Mentioning your brand in an article

Many people who write about your brand will share the article and mention you on social media in an attempt to get you to also share that article. In this case, you’re sharing positive experiences, so take the opportunity to thank the user, and possibly a share as well. It’s a great way to add user-generated content into your editorial calendar and build credibility in your brand.

How to track your social mentions

You understand what social mentions are and you’ve developed a plan on responding to them. You’re ready to go; but, you might ask, how can you find social mentions that don’t show in your notifications. These are our favorite tactics to help:

1. Create a hashtag for your customers to use in their social posts.

One incredibly easy way to find mentions of your brand is by providing users with a hashtag. Not only does this make it much faster for you to search for social mentions, but it’s a great way to gather user-generated content to share on your own feeds when planning your content calendar.

A great place to share your hashtag is in your social media bio, on your website and within your posts making it easy for users to find it and remember to tag it.

2. Search for your business name on each platform.

Each social media platform has its own search features that can help you find what you’re looking for. For example, on Facebook, simply type your brand name into the search bar, then click on the posts tab to find posts including your brand name.

3. Set up social listening and monitoring

Social monitoring can be used for finding social mentions to respond to, and social listening can be used for understanding what your audience is talking about in your industry and what they want to hear from your brand. Both are needed if you’re going to rock your social media game.