Monitoring Social Media Images is Essential for Brand Managers

Monitoring Social Media Images Unlocks More Detail Than You Can Imagine

As a brand gets bigger, it has less control over how it’s represented online. That’s a fact a lot of Brand Managers struggle to face up to and quite understandably too; it’s pretty scary when you think about it. However, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative thing. Yes, it’s harder to wrangle with unfavourable reviews, but it also means there is a wealth of data that works in your favour. UGC (User Generated Content) is the Holy Grail for favourable content, particularly from customers who are posting pictures of your product. And we don’t think enough people are talking about how essential that is!

While the majority of brand managers are using social listening tools to track any mentions of their brand in text, they are missing out on a huge number of posts that feature the brand visually. The value of this should speak for itself. Users trust users; that’s why reviews sites exist, right? If a user of your product shows a cool way to use it, others will follow suit. So, if we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times; Brand Managers need to be monitoring social media images and there is no time to lose!

Your Social Listening Strategy 

The bottom line is that there are billions of images posted on social media every day. Do you know how many of those include your brand? If you log into the tool you use that tracks social media mentions and you can’t get any data that can help you answer that question, then perhaps you either need to look into another tool or chat to the company about introducing the ability to monitoring images. 

Your social listening strategy needs include monitoring images and videos that include your brand, whether the accompanying text mentions it or not. Monitoring visual mentions gives you deeper and more intelligent insights than merely monitoring text; it’s like a data smorgasbord with notable benefits.

Also, in practical terms, users are more likely to tag you when there’s an issue or they have a question. Great for customer care; not so much for marketing. That passive endorsement of your product that’s so valuable to you? That’s less likely to be tagged, so you won’t see it unless you can track it.

Monitoring Social Media Images Gives You Consumer Insights

Think you know how consumers feel about your brand? Wait until you start using a platform that incorporates a Visual Artificial Intelligence API. 

Analysing images where your brand appears means that you have the ability to gain a deeper understanding of how and where people are using your products. It’s an excellent way to enhance your knowledge of your target demographic because you get to look into how they are creating content around your brand; what kind of aesthetics trend among people posting pictures of your products and what kind of environments they are taking those pictures in to name just two.

It might even help you realise that, despite targeting a specific age group, a different one entirely is taking photos and posting your brand online. The possible consumer insights you might garner from monitoring visual mentions are so vast that it’s almost impossible to list all potential scenarios. 

Monitoring Social Media Images Gives You Complete Data

The fact is, if you are only reporting on text mentions of your brand then you are under-reporting and quite possibly under-selling your team. Monitoring social media images is the only way to get complete figures in relation to how many people are “talking” about your brand online. 

In a study carried out by our team at VISUA, we discovered that brand managers who use social listening tools that have the ability to scan visuals can get up to 1046% more insights. And that is no over-exaggeration! It makes sense to seek out a platform that can track everything for you so you don’t get anything less than the full picture. 

Monitoring Social Media Images Gives You Campaign Inspiration

Furthermore, if you have the ability to monitor social media images, you might gain some information for future campaigns and brand messages. Often, Brand Managers are so busy crafting the desired image for the brands they work for that they miss the image their existing customers are already creating for them. Especially if they can’t monitor social media images. 

Using a social listening tool that incorporates a Visual-AI API can unlock an untold number of creative brand ideas. Taking a hypothetical example: 

Imagine you are managing a Rose Water brand that’s meant for making desserts. You use your Visual-AI empowered social listening platform to analyse images and videos featuring your brand. Through this, you discover that social media users are not using your product for its intended purpose. Instead, thousands of people are using it for skincare and to add a little more flavor to their Gin and Tonics. 

This is the type of user-influenced insight that could power a campaign that speaks directly to your audience highlighting the diversity of the product and positioning it as multipurpose; a must-have for glamorous skin, glamorous drinks AND glamorous desserts.

It’s also a fantastic way to spot impressive user content that could be included in social campaigns with their permission and measured way of examining potential influencer partnerships.

The ability to see what your customers are doing with your products and how they are engaging with your brand is the most powerful tool for any brand manager. Never before in the history of digital marketing has there been such a ready source of powerful consumer sentiment along with the ability to analyze it all to ensure you you’re making the right brand decisions. 

If you’re not getting that from your current social listening provider, it might be time to have a stern conversation with them about why they can’t provide you this game-changing data. Alternatively, take yourself over to Brandwatch and test out their platform. Not only will you see the visual data your brand needs, but you’ll be using the number one social listening platform as recently announced by Forrester.