Are you one of those marketers who is always on the go? Are you running from meeting to meeting and trying to keep up with the latest news. If so, then you need real time alerts for your brand.
With these handy notifications, you can stay in the loop about what’s happening with your company, no matter where you are.
💡 Read Media monitoring: The Ultimate Guide
So how do they work, and what kind of benefits can you expect? Keep reading to find out!
What Are Real Time Alerts and Why Should You Use Them for Your Brand/Business?
With real time alerts, you can receive notifications every time someone mentions your brand name or keywords related to your business. This allows you to respond to any online activity involving your company quickly.
Even better – you can save a lot of time and effort. You can get rid of the time-consuming and demanding work of researching what’s happening online. You can stay on top of what people are saying about your brand, which emotions these posts evoke, and whether something is going on that requires your immediate attention.
And it’s just the tip of the iceberg. How else do real time alerts benefit you?
Read Keep Calm With Media Monitoring Alerts On
Save time and money for your business
First and foremost, media monitoring and real-time notifications can save you time.
You can automate the process of online brand research and get results in real-time without even lifting a finger. It will take minutes to set up Google Alerts or real time alerts in a media monitoring tool, and then you’ll be good to go.
Moreover, real-time alerts are an excellent way to save money for your business. Using them can avoid making costly mistakes that can damage your reputation and you can divert your resources to other business needs.
Read Streamline Business Processes: From Chaos to Control
Improve employee productivity and satisfaction
The other great thing about real time alerts is that they can help boost employee productivity and satisfaction.
Your employees will be able to quickly find and react to any online activity related to your brand, which will streamline their workflow a lot. They will be able to prevent or resolve the potential issue before they cause any harm.
Moreover, by using real time alerts, your employees will feel more motivated. They will be able to focus only on the most relevant tasks and not “waste” their time on never-ending, tedious Internet research.
This, in turn, will lead to higher employee satisfaction and retention rates – and a happier workforce.
Easy way to spot and prevent a crisis
Real time alert systems can also help spot a crisis before it escalates. By monitoring online activity related to your brand, you can quickly identify and resolve any potential problems before they negatively affect your reputation.
For example, if you see a sudden spike in negative mentions of your brand, you can investigate the cause and take action to resolve the issue. When something happens, you get immediately notified and never miss a thing.
Read Spike Alerts: Proactively Identify Crises and Trends
Keeping your competitors under control
By monitoring online activity related to your competition’s brands, you can quickly identify any new opportunities or threats.
For example, if you see that your competitor is getting a lot of negative press, you can use this opportunity to position your brand as the better alternative.
On the other hand, if you see that your competitor is launching a new product, you can quickly adapt your marketing strategy.
Thus, you can always stay one step ahead of your competitors – draw conclusions from their mistakes, and avoid doing the same.
Help to provide better customer service
With real time alerts, you can quickly and efficiently resolve customer issues as they arise. As a result, your brand creates a better customer experience overall. As soon as a problem arises, you will be the first to know about it, allowing you to take action immediately and avoid letting your customers wait too long for a response.
In addition, real time alerts can help build trust and confidence with your customers. They’ll know that you’re always on top of things and committed to providing them with the best possible service. The immediate reaction shows you care.
Read Meeting Customer Needs: 7 Ways to Get to Know Your Customers Better
How to Get Real Time Alerts
As you can see, there are many benefits to using real-time notifications, including improved customer service and operational efficiency. To get the most out of your real-time alert system, you must set it up properly.
The first step is to select a method that works best for your business.
There are two primary options to choose from:
Google Alerts
It’s a simple tool that sends out an email every time a keyword is mentioned online.
For example, you can get info about news, products, or mentions of your name. However, it’s important to point out that Google Alerts doesn’t cover impactful social media mentions, making a huge difference. Instead, it focuses on websites, blogs, and search results.
The process of setting up Google Alerts is pretty simple. All you need is a Google account. You choose the keyword and set up some additional information, such as:
- frequency in which you want to receive alerts
- sources that the tool should monitor
- language
- region
- whether you want Google to consider all the results or only the best ones
Note! Alerts from Google aren’t exactly real-time. You can receive Google alerts once a day or once a week. There is no other option to choose, so you will not get notified immediately about every deviation.
Media monitoring tool
It’s a comprehensive solution for monitoring the mentions and keywords all around the Internet.
Whether they appear on Google search results or social media such as Twitter or Facebook, you will know about them. These solutions also offer additional options such as analytics, ready-made reports, and many other valuable features that you can access to get further insight.
In most monitoring systems, configuring notifications isn’t too complicated either. The process varies depending on the media monitoring tool you choose, but most of them offer tutorials and knowledge bases to assist you in setting them up.
4 Features Your Media Monitoring Software Should Have
If you’re asking yourself how do I choose the best monitoring system for real-time alerts, you need to consider your specific needs and budget. Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, take the time to read the reviews and compare different pricing options.
What features should you look for?
1. Real time alerts
There is no doubt that this feature is at the top of this list. Not all monitoring systems provide real time alerts (with an emphasis on real-time). They may offer alerts, but the option to get notified as soon as the system detects some intensified buzz could cost extra or not be available at all. Check it out before making a decision.
2. Detailed reports
The option to create a report with a single click is a must-have feature that you should look for in your future monitoring tool. Alerts are one thing, but you should also be able to create and download reports quickly to understand your mentions and the bigger picture. A competitive analysis, a quick overview of mentions, and detailed reports are the things you should pay attention to.
Read Media Monitoring Reports: All You Need to Know
3. Sentiment analysis
What if you could get real time alerts with sentiment analysis? That way, you can quickly determine whether mentions need your immediate attention or they can wait a little longer. Check whether the monitoring tool can automatically detect the mentions’ sentiment. It streamlines your work a lot and lets you focus on things that matter at the moment.
Read Sentiment Tracking: How to Get Inside Your Customers’ Minds
4. Comprehensive filtering
Imagine getting hundreds of mentions daily. Organizing them all might be challenging – but it becomes simple with relevant filters. It is possible to manage them more effectively by choosing, e.g., the author, sentiment, or channel. Make sure that advanced filtering is available.
With a little bit of research, you’re sure to find the perfect real time alert system for your business.
Pst! You don’t even have to look far. All of these features can be found at Determ. It’s the one tool that meets all your needs for 24/7 monitoring (and can send notifications via Slack channels, email and our mobile app).
Real-Time Alerts Customer Success Story: Elements of AI and 404 agency as Project Partner
Elements of AI project is a global educational course about the basics of artificial intelligence. This free course was launched in Finland with the goal of democratization and spreading knowledge about artificial intelligence.
Challenge
As a communication partner for this project, 404 had to handle press releases and monitor the media coverage, as well as create and implement a social media influencer campaign. When it comes to monitoring the media and social networks coverage, it was extremely important to them that they get notified in real-time about all the newly published articles and posts.
Solution
With the help of Determ’s Customer Success team, they’ve set up monitoring to track which media outlets published articles about the projects and which didn’t, while also monitoring mentions on social media. Determ removed a lot of manual work that they would otherwise have to do and made the whole experience more efficient.
Impact
With Determ, they could cover all the key media outlets and social networks in real-time and achieve great visibility. To Luka, having real-time notifications is USP number one because the industry is fast-paced. Also, he found the possibility of having a mobile app quite convenient and user-friendly.
“I haven’t seen such great user experience with other tools in a sense that I can set up the app to send me push notifications every time a new mention comes up.” – Luka Bojić, PR Consultant at 404
Conclusion
Real time alerts can be a valuable tool for any business. If you’re not already using them, now is the time to start. Implement them into your business strategy and enjoy the many benefits they offer. Your customers and team members will thank you for it, not to mention your company’s reputation!