7 ways SAS uses social media monitoring to track the competitive landscape

Social media monitoring has taken on heightened importance in a wide range of business concerns, from communications to customer service.

In PR and on social media platforms, monitoring—and responding—can be powerful tools for shaping your image and claiming a greater share of voice.

Paying close attention can also help you glimpse future trends in your industry, says Kirsten Hamstra, senior global social media manager at SAS, a North Carolina-based software analytics company.

“It’s not just listening to what people are saying about you,” she says. “It’s listening about where you want to go, what the future holds.”

Here are lessons from the way SAS runs its highly effective monitoring program:

1. Involve your experts.

SAS has a team that tracks any mention of the company and its products, including questions, comments, concerns and user issues, Hamstra says.

If needed, either the monitoring team responds, or it calls on its “social media first responders,” or subject experts scattered from throughout its staff of 14,300 employees, says Hamstra.

“They have a particular subject matter expertise where they might be able answer a question that those initial folks within our social [media] center can’t,” she says.