If you are a small-business owner with a cupcake cafe in Vermont or a vintage boutique in New York, you know that your business concept may not be unique to that area. What can you do to set yourself apart from the other small-business owners who are opting to target your same market? Begin a social media campaign complete with social media optimization, social media networking and social media experts. Begin monitoring your business, your competitors and additional information to reach the level of success you desire.

If you are a small or medium business, it's important that you delve into social media monitoring. Your business may already be successful, or your business may be struggling. Regardless, it's crucial to know what your customers need and want. With social media monitoring, you can know what your customers and competition are saying about you and what the general feelings about your product are. Whether you employ a PR professional or you rely upon your own marketing genius, you know just how influential your customer comments and feelings can be, particularly if they're released through Twitter, Facebook or blogs.

Social Media Monitoring Tools: What to Look For

Monitor & Listen 
Social media tools can monitor public opinion about your company and product through various social media channels. The best social media monitoring tools, in fact, can make your PR professional's job so much simpler and their efforts more effective. A negative or positive Tweet or Facebook mention by an influential person can either hurt or help your business. By using tools that track these social media sentiments, you can respond quickly to the negative comments, perhaps stifling any negative mainstream press or highlighting the positive press.

Features 
Managing information is an essential feature for any monitoring tool you choose. If you are monitoring Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs or forums, the sheer volume of mentions concerning your business may be overwhelming. With a workflow feature, you can enlist the help of your employees, marketing guru or PR professional to manage comments throughout the social media realm. Reporting tools are an equally important feature. A social media campaign without comprehensive reporting is a wasted effort. Analytical and sentiment reports allow you to visually track the success of your campaign.

Sentiment Accuracy 
Sentiment measurement acts as a sort of customer mood ring. Negative, positive or neutral, you will know what your customers are saying about your brand. Negative comments about your brand, for example, may not be explicitly about your product, but about the poor service a customer received. Sentiment is pure emotion. Knowing how your customers feel about your product or brand is crucial for your social media monitoring tool's overall success.

Ease of Use & Setup 
The social media monitoring service you choose must fit your business's needs, as well as your social media aptitude. There are some amazing features provided through these social media tools, but your social media campaign will not be successful if they are not simple to use and understand. You and your employees must be able to read and understand the raw data being extracted from your social media monitoring efforts in order to act on it.

Social Defender is equipped with all these capabilities and more to help your business use social media effectively. Find out more about social media management and Social Defender features here.