By Chris Lee

Social media presents businesses with the opportunity to reach wider audiences and monitor what is being said about their brand around the world in real time. Yet despite the possibilities open to brands, very few PR professionals are spending adequate time and resource on monitoring social media channels, according to a study out recently.

Nearly two thirds (60 per cent) of PR agencies and departments that monitor social media channels spend less than two hours a week doing so, a survey by PR industry information firm Daryl Willcox Publishing, despite the perceived importance of social channels to PR.

Of 376 PR departments and agencies surveyed, 85 per cent said they monitored social media, including blogs and forums, for coverage and conversations, although a third (31 per cent) of these said they dedicated an hour or less each week monitoring social media. Just seven per cent currently spend at least a day a week monitoring social channels.

Daryl Willcox, founder of Daryl Willcox Publishing, wrote in his blog that the time PRs typically spend monitoring social media “doesn't seem like very much time to me.”

He continued: “If it was spread across the week - like it should be with such an immediate medium - that would be a maximum of about half an hour per working day. When you consider that 'listening' is a critical part of social media strategy - a proactive process as much as a reactive one - then just half an hour a day strikes me as minimal.”

When it all goes sour

Many companies know to their cost how quickly bad news can spread online and how quickly it needs to be managed. For example, Transport for London was forced to take action when commuter Jonathan MacDonald filmed an incident between a member of London Underground staff and a passenger on his mobile phone and posted it on YouTube. The film has been viewed almost a quarter of a million times and also led to the suspension of the staff member. As the story emerged on microblogging platform Twitter, it was fairly simple to monitor its development as it moved through the social and broadcast news arenas.

Tosh Bruce-Morgan, managing director of Cision UK, which produces workflow software for PR and other media professionals including real-time coverage monitoring tools, said that PR professionals could monitor social media for more than simply brand reputation management.

“Organisations need to monitor multiple channels – like tweets, video virals and blog posts - in as real-time as possible to respond to potential crises, straightforward client service issues and sales leads, while periodic analysis allows the measurement of communications return on investment and can be used for, say, market research and gauging brand awareness,” he told NMK.

Social media monitoring best practice

While 68 per cent of PR professionals surveyed said they used free online tools and search engines to monitor social media channels, 42 per cent said they visited each social platform individually.

The ability to monitor brand reputation should be a basic prerequisite of any communications professional, according to Tim Hoang, senior digital consultant at PR firm Cohn & Wolfe. Hoang told NMK that brands need to think about what channels are relevant to them, who the influencers are within their field and what the content of the messaging is, rather than simply counting eyeballs.

Hoang said that while social media analytics tools such as Radian6 were becoming increasingly popular, PR professionals needed to become adept at combining Google to collect data and spreadsheet tools such as Excel to present the findings.

“To a certain extent we are now able to hear what people are saying to their friends and family. Although social media allows you to eaves drop on conversations traditionally held in the pub, it is pointless unless the brand is willing to either engage or take that feedback on board,” Hoang concluded. “It is not what you find, but how you interpret those findings.”

Disclaimer: The author has worked in a copywriting capacity for Cision UK