Synthesio’s Trend Detection & Insights Series, Part 3 (see parts 1 & 2): How many topics and keywords does your brand monitor from online conversations? If you’re like most brands with a robust Social Media Intelligence program, the answer is most likely a lot. And that makes sense. You need to know what’s going on with your brand, your competitors, your products, their products, your influencers … the list really goes on and on. While monitoring all of these topics is necessary, it can make it really challenging to dig into all of the findings for every single one, and identify the social media trends taking place that matter to your brand. That means, unless your Social Media Intelligence platform is performing online trend analysis automatically, you’re missing out on some important insights.
Insights that, if you did know about them, could influence your marketing strategy, boost your sales, and help your brand stand out in a competitive market.
One of the types of signals that’s now possible thanks to advancements in technology is topic co-mentions.
What is a Topic Co-Mention?
A topic co-mention is when two topics (or keywords) are used within one post. For example, if two of the keywords your brand is monitoring are “NBA” and “Golden State Warriors,” a mention like this would be an example of a co-mention:
Spotting Co-Mentions is Not Enough
Knowing that there is a co-mention between topics that you care about is a great start. But it isn’t enough. Beyond alerting you about the existence of a co-mention, your Social Media Intelligence provider should be able to explain why, where, and how the social media trend took place. Just like the detection of the social media trend itself, the generation of an in-depth online trend analysis report should be generated automatically. That way you can spend more time strategizing, and less time searching.
Why Being Aware of Co-Mentions Is Important for Your Brand
Marketing professionals need to have a clear understanding of their consumers and the social media trends their consumers are driving. Part of that online trend analysis means having insight into who or what consumers associate your brand and products with.
Of course, one mention containing a topic co-mention is not a ground-breaking insight for your brand. However, 5,000 or even 200,000 mentions with the same co-mention certainly might be.
Being aware of social media trends such as topics that are often mentioned together will provide you with a greater understanding of your consumers, and bring your attention to:
Partnership and Sponsorship Opportunities
If your brand or one of its products is often being mentioned with an event, organization, influencer, or even another company, that could mean an opportunity for collaboration. If consumers are already associating you with an event, why not nurture that association and present a strong presence at the event.
If consumers are associating you with another company or organization, a partnership may be beneficial to your brand.
A Need for Differentiation
On the other hand, if consumers are often mentioning your brand or products alongside a competitor and their products, it might be time to differentiate.
Being able to start a business online is easier than ever, which also means that most industries are saturated with competing brands. Understanding which of your competitors your consumers associate with you, can help you develop marketing and product development strategies that will keep your brand unique, and differentiate you from the competition.
Product Defects
Upon logging into your Social Media Intelligence platform, you’re alerted to a new topic co-mention. One of your products is consistently being mentioned alongside the word “toxic.”
It’s not a situation any brand wants to be in, but getting ahead of the problem can make all the difference. A well-coordinated and well-timed cross-functional response can limit damage and restore consumer trust in your brand.
Influencer Performance and Discovery
If an influencer promoting your brand is often mentioned alongside it, you know they’re doing a great job. With so many influencers available, every tool for performance evaluation is important! You may even find brand advocates that you weren’t aware of, that are often mentioned with your products, expanding your influencer marketing program.
These are just a few examples of how your brand can benefit from topic co-mentions.
And luckily, with advances in AI and data science, performing online trend analysis and detecting topic co-mentions is easier than ever.
Are you ready to take your brand’s social media intelligence to the next level with state-of-the-art co-mention detection? Schedule a demo today to see these capabilities in action!
