The amount of data we generate will continue to grow enormously until 2025, according to studies by IDG and Seagate. But this data is largely unstructured and difficult to analyze. Monitoring tools have been developed to make relevant data useful for companies. But what features do monitoring tools need to include? We give you an overview of the most important features.
The software of monitoring solutions collects data from millions of sources and evaluates it. Social media monitoring solutions are particularly useful for a company’s content production. They can be used to find content that is of interest to customers. In order to analyze the thousands and thousands of data appropriately, monitoring tools – whether open source or enterprise software – use the so-called data analyst. His work is simplified by various functions, filters and other applications. The individual tools also optimize the results of the data analyst. A monitoring solution should primarily include the tools presented in this article. Want to learn more about monitoring tools? In our market overview, we have considered 126 criteria and compared 11 social media monitoring solutions.
Search queries and their settings
Monitoring results come from the so-called search queries. The user specifies search criteria on the basis of which the network is searched. Various sources can be examined, such as blogs, websites or social media. The search is for mentions of certain keywords or phrases. These search queries are therefore the be-all and end-all of fruitful monitoring. Not without reason, the user of each of the tested monitoring tools can therefore create the search queries independently. Moreover, each of the tools accepts operands such as or or and in the search.
Practical handling of the results
Depending on the tool, the results are displayed differently. Most of the time, they are not yet in a conducive arrangement. Therefore it is certainly helpful to be able to evaluate and tag the results again independently. This is possible with almost all tools. If a result is not relevant and useful for further reporting, the delete function can also be important. Individual findings can be easily removed with it. It is the same with the source collection. With each tool, the user can decide on the sources: If a source is to be excluded from the monitoring, it can also be easily deleted.
Filtering and sorting the results
When it comes to practical filtering as well as sorting of the results, the tested tools have very different but practical features. The tool Cision Communications Cloud can score with the most functions in this regard. Here, the user can filter the results by date, origin, media genre, country, tonality, text, DMA, country, city, product, company, brand message, time period or media lists. Echobot MONITORING, on the other hand, allows users to filter by language, media type, sentiment and ratings, reach, time, source, and source exclusion. The Radarly tool, for example, relies on completely different features: here, the user can filter by countries, languages, platforms, gender, age, queries, free texts, time periods, text levels, visual filters, geolocations, authors and tonalities.
The tools also have different useful features when it comes to sorting. For example, with the Buzzrank Monitor tool, it is possible to sort chronologically and by relevance, sentiment, and service-dependent variables (number, likes, comments, etc.). When working with NewsRadar and Webbosaurus, the results can be sorted by dates, reach as well as interactions, among others. In the case of the Cision Communication Cloud, Echobot MONITORING VICO Analytics and Webbosaurus tools, the time periods are each customizable by date. Brandwatch, Buzzrank Monitor, Keyhole, NewsRadar, Radarly and Ubermetrics additionally offer a time limit.
Each solution thus offers its own focus on filtering and sorting features. Which application is best suited for the respective user or company therefore depends on the specific requirements. In general, however, it can be said that the software applications overlap with regard to the most important filtering and sorting options.
Conclusion
One thing is certain: there is no loser among the monitoring solutions. Ultimately, the tool must convince the user overall and fulfill the desired purposes. The demands of the user are just as individual as the capabilities of all tools. Our study “Market Overview Monitoring Solutions” provides a detailed summary of the features of the tested tools. It is available for free download.
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