How The Facebook Interest Lists Will Help With Your Social Media Monitoring

Never before have we had such a direct and convenient way to monitor the infinite discussions that take place on the biggest and most used social media platform out there today! With 850 million users chatting, posting, sharing, commenting and potentially complaining, Facebook has upped their game and granted us non-restricted access to monitoring these convos in the convenience of our much-loved mini feed.

Through the new Facebook Interest Lists, you now have the opportunity to monitor pages and industry leaders alike, without the need to be subscribed, friends, or even fans of these pages. For all of you social media monitors out there, Facebook has given us a gift that grants us exclusive access to a pool of engagement and conversations that has never before been able to be monitored in this direct way.

Let’s take a look at who stands to gain from this new lists feature:

Duh! Facebook: The lists give users a reason to stay on the platform longer, since they can now use their mini feed as a news feed for both their personal and business interests.

The marketer: Interest lists give marketers a new opportunity to reach a broader audience.

The most important one of all, YOU! Facebook interest lists provides you with a new and profound opportunity to strengthen your social media monitoring tactics.

As I explained in the post What Type of Social Media Listening Should You Be Doing?, there are three main discussion categories that your company should be monitoring online:

1. Discussions about your brand
2. Discussions about your competitors
3. Industry discussions

The new Facebook interest lists give you a new and very targeted opportunity to monitor the two latter discussions, straight from your mini feed.

Check out how simple it is to start benefiting from this new feature pronto!

Step 1: Create your interest lists
You can choose to either create your own interest lists, or subscribe to lists already created. Either way, the first step is to determine what you want to monitor, and who you need to add to your lists in order to achieve these monitoring goals. Let’s take a look:

To monitor your competition you’ll want to add the following to your lists:

• Competitors’ fan pages
• Authority figures within their organizations
• Brand advocates whom you know mention the brands regularly
• Media relations whom you know publish about the brands regularly

If it’s industry discussions you want to monitor, you’ll want to add:

• Competitors’ fan pages
• Your own fan pages
• Authority figures and thought-leaders within the industry (including yourself)
• Competitor advocates as well as your own
• News channels and blogs that regularly publish content about the industry, your own brand and your competitors’

Step 2: Start monitoring!
Once you’ve created your lists, you’ll continue to interact and use Facebook as you always have, only now you’ll find the stories and content you’ve requested all nicely bundled within your mini feed. Over time you’ll be able to continue to work these lists to your advantage by getting creative and narrowing in on the top content you absolutely don’t want to miss out on.

An added bonus that I bet you didn’t think of!

Sure you can subscribe to already existing lists. If there’s something already created out there that you want to pay attention to, by all means, that’s what they’re there for! But there is a unique angle to finding gaps in existing lists and creating your own public lists. If you’re creating lists that monitor the discussions and news related to your industry, odds are that these lists will be highly beneficial and intriguing to other key players within the same industry. Being the creator of these lists will help you position yourself as a thought-leader within your industry, which has a substantial power all to itself!

Don’t forget that the opportunity to achieve this is now! Lists are just starting to roll out, so there’s no time better than the present to get a head start and begin monitoring and creating lists that will put you ahead of the game!

Social media monitoring plays a crucial role in both your social media crisis plan and your social media marketing strategy. These new Facebook interest lists offer you a unique opportunity to target the discussions and content that gets shared on Facebook, like you’ve never been able to do before.

How will you maximize on your social media monitoring skills with the help of the new Facebook interest lists? Share your comments with me below!

P.S. Facebook has just started rolling out these interest lists, so if you don’t see the button to create a list on the left of your mini feed, hold tight, it’ll be there shortly!

P.P.S. If you’re looking for a quick and easy tutorial of how to get started with creating your interest lists, check out Amy Porterfield’s 10 minute tutorial that takes you through each step of setting up and using your lists. Click here to watch Amy’s quick tutorial.

P.P.P.S. I’ve created a fabulous list titled Social Media Crisis Planning that you can subscribe to if you’re interested in following news, updates and strategies from the leaders within the social media crisis communication realm!