Brand monitoring and social-media analytics are almost invariably lumped together, even by savvy marketing  folk. But there really should be no confusion between monitoring tools that simply catalog anytime and anywhere a term is mentioned and analytics solutions that give you a holistic view and true understanding of your customers. This isn’t to suggest that monitoring isn’t valuable. On the contrary, for Public Relations it’s a gift from heaven. PR has always been structured towards tactics: responding in to current events as they happen, in a matter of hours or days, if not minutes.

Marketing and advertising, on the other hand, have more strategic needs that can only be addressed by deep analysis and trend discovery. Marketing organizations are not structured to respond to tens of thousands of mentions, they are structured to work on the 25-30 major themes and customer needs that cut across the entire conversation. Marketers need to gain understanding about their customers and their market place in order to create messages and campaigns that play out over several months (at least). While PR practitioners are often forced to live from crisis to crisis and spike to spike, marketers have the freedom to sit back and watch how things develop, casting a critical eye on the relevance of groundswells.

Think of it in terms of stock investing — if monitoring is the best day trader, then analytics is Warren Buffet. Day trading keeps a close eye on the sharp peaks and valleys of daily stock prices and relies heavily on tips, rumors, and hearsay. As day-traders are acutely aware, one bad guess or reaction can spell disaster. Strategic investors are not concerned with the daily spikes but with the much smoother trend line of activity spread out over weeks and months. Lots of day traders make and lose their wealth many times during their lifetimes; their day-to-day lives are full of fear and turmoil. When it comes to your brand, what type of investor are you?