Five brand tracking mistakes — and how to fix it

If you're putting a lot of effort into building a solid content strategy — great stuff! 

This should mean that your social media followers have an idea of who you are and what you offer. 

Let’s say your posts get some relatively good engagement with likes, some comments and even a few shares. You’re on the right path — your social boat is staying afloat and riding the waves. But, before you can drop the anchor and claim your market share, you need to be tracking much, much more to keep the competitors at bay. 

Make a point of frequently searching keywords that are related to your brand as well as the brand name itself. Include any potential misspellings too. Do this on various social media platforms, as well as search engines that will include mentions on other: 
Next, do the same for your competitors and compare it to your own brand. If you have partnered with an influencer, set dedicated time aside to monitor them (or see point five below). Additionally, ensure that they continuously align with your brand's ideals and values and keep an overall positive message across all their posts. 

Lastly, have a look at your response rate. In this day and age, customers want a response like yesterday; if you're slow to the party, it could be damaging to your brand.


Our conscious mind is constantly filled with the marketing-voice about consistency …
(try saying that fast about three times), but for some reason, most of us start dwindling around the halfway mark toward a goal — or even give up entirely. 

Staying motivated to track your social media brand mentions on a daily basis can become a mundane task, especially if what you are tracking is not showing much of an uptake. 

Our pro tip for making brand monitoring a tad bit easier? Just do it, and do it first! 

As author Brian Tracy says in Eat That Frog!, his book about time management and procrastination, “If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first”. Quite a visual, right? It comes down to completing the tasks you dread first, before anything else. Make it a ribbit — I mean habit and see what happens.


Having a wonderfully laid-out spreadsheet filled with data can leave one feeling all fuzzy inside … but data without interpretation can only take you that far. Your online brand reputation could be at stake! 

So, time to put your ear to the (social) ground, and take notice of what is actually being said. 

‘Social Listening’ is a term you may or may not be familiar with, but in essence, it can arguably be defined as: 
Now take a deep breath — it’s not as intimidating as it sounds, but it may take some time and practise. You can start by doing a deep dive into relooking the pain points of your buyer personas and think about their behaviour again — incorporate targeted keyword tracking. 

This will help define what information will be of most value to your brand, and set time aside to dissect your findings. Now, do some research into your industry macro-environment, how are other brands thinking ahead? Try to look for gaps in the market, no matter how small they may seem. 


The social world is your oyster and we have an ever-expanding lineup of digital doors to open and explore. The more the merrier, right? Er, no. 

A big mistake that marketers make in an attempt to get their brand out there is spreading their resources too thin. You cannot have a focused brand tracking strategy if you are attempting to track your presence across a multitude of platforms. 

Instead, focus your energy on one to three platforms where your customers are most likely to spend their free time. 

Generally speaking, Facebook is a great all-rounder platform to reach almost any type of client segment. Add LinkedIn if your focus is the B2B market and Twitter if you are up for regular posting and establishing your company as a thought leader. 

Instagram is the best platform if you incorporate great visuals to catch attention first, typically if your offering is product-based. Of course, Youtube will drive traffic if you can continuously produce valuable video content. 

For a younger market, consider incorporating TikTok or Snapchat — and for a slightly older visual market, look into Pinterest.


Now that you’ve narrowed down your target platforms, it’s important to note that brand tracking can be very time consuming — and even frustrating. When your to-do list is lingering in the back of your mind, it’s hard to know what to prioritise.

This is when you need to bring in the professionals (add superhero soundtrack here). 

There are many tools online that can be of use, but do your homework and be wary of misleading ‘free offers’ and trials or services that don’t really have the reach in monitoring that you would like. Look at which metrics are tracked, are they of value to you,  and how extensive the reporting options are.

If you have a bit of budget to spend and want in-depth tangible results for social ROI, consider chatting to a business that specialises in social tracking for brands. A flexible approach to contracts with no obligation to sign long-term contracts is a big positive as well as having a personal account manager that can listen and understand your needs instead of applying a default approach to tracking. 

By handing it over to the pros, you will not only have time to focus on the rest of your strategy, but have no-effort results right at your fingertips. 

In conclusion, continuously monitoring what is being said about your brand on social media will keep you at the forefront of satisfying client and customer needs and ultimately lead to greater business growth.




Want to know more about who amaSocial is? Check out our article, Our journey or contact us HERE for brand tracking solutions tailored to your needs.