Last updated on Mar, 16 2017
Social listening has moved well beyond just looking for buzz, and now informs marketing content and product innovation, as well as measures brand healthIn this post, we’re spilling the beans about social listening that go beyond using it for reputation management, to become an indispensable part of your digital marketing strategies. But before we delve further into the realms of social listening, let’s first understand basics of social listening.
- Forrester
Social Listening – What should you know about it?
Web and social sites have become dominant forces, frequented by today’s tech-savvy customers on a never-ending quest to seek information. Harvesting the relevant social data from the gazillion web inputs to provide actionable insights forms the underlying principle of social listening. Unfortunately however, businesses have limited the inexhaustible benefits of social media listening for reputation management. What if Social Listening is included as an integral aspect of marketing strategy? The results you’d achieve could thrill you beyond imagination.Here’s a brief lowdown on some of the exciting ways to use Social Listening to your advantage:
#1. Keep a finger on the pulse of your audiences…
Back in the day, businesses built personas and connected with their audiences using traditional techniques of market research, competition analysis, focused interviews, etc. Why resort to these techniques when you can supplement (or even replace) your conventional approach with newer, exciting methods? Here’s how to optimize the best of social listening for audience segmentation:- Hashtags – Using the simple hashtags could give you a clearer reach into your customer’s mind. It could also help you participate in relevant conversations to establish your brand power. Consider monitoring your competitor’s hashtags as well, for better results!
- Track information – On the social web, people have a propensity to publish a lot of details on their interests, demographics, beliefs and desires. Such information is difficult to gather in the real-world, where you’re less likely to be entertained by your target audiences.
- Real-time reviews – In the offline world, you have focused groups of hundreds and thousands. With social listening however, you can access millions of conversations about your brand in real-time.
#2. Confer power to your brand
Social listening is really good for your brand’s health! With social listening, you can identify the business questions your brand can answer. It is time to strike gold with social listening by:- Amazing customer experiences – Social Listening can improve your customer service and help you ensure amazing customer experiences for your brand.
- Brand evangelism – You can leverage the power of social listening to identify brand evangelists who can come together to make a strong, positive impression for your brand.
- Social monitoring – You can quickly address and even resolve concerns with social listening by simply finding out customer concerns, and coming up with the right solutions to help them out.
- Actionable insights – With social listening, you can go on to make informed decisions that endear your brand to masses. This could be a good way to augment your brand’s position. You can also make use of the best social media monitoring tools that guarantee actionable insights.
#3. Provide Customers with a bang for the buck!
Make Cold Calls with Content…
Having a content strategy in place will not just engage your existing customers, but also help you enter new markets and establish relationships with new customers. You may have faced problems with developing an effective content or social strategy for your business. Social listening can put an end to your woes by helping you in some of the following ways:- Agility – Did you know that 41% of your customers expect you to respond to them within 6 hours? By listening carefully, you can improve your response time and help you improve agility. If you’re looking to keep a tab on your audience and identify problems or negative comments quickly, social listening could be the best strategy for you.
- Community-building – Use social listening to build a loyal community of followers that you can interact with. Social listening helps you define key influencers in your sector, and build an effective content or social strategy that is conducive to their needs.
- Customer-engagement – Use social listening to identify topics that interest your target audiences. This would help you come up with an effective content dissemination strategy that interests your audience and keeps them hooked to your brand.
#4. Uncover hidden Opportunities….
Peep into the minds of your target audiences to uncover exciting opportunities for yourself, disguised in the form of pain areas of your customers. You can find answers to the following questions about your customers, by simply using social listening:- How does a day in the life of your target audience go?
- What do they truly need?
- What do they perceive as the true source of pain in their lives?
- Which true source of pain in their lives are they unaware about?
- How can you add value towards easing their pain?
- Who would ultimately pay for your solution?
Imagine having clear answers to all of the above questions… Half the battle is already won!
Use social listening to uncover the pain points of your customers, and give solutions that add value to the lives of your customers. This could help you come up with perfect solutions that come across as exciting opportunities to connect with your audiences and make them love you all the more. Who would have thought that simply listening carefully could bring you such amazing results! With social listening, you can uncover exciting opportunities for yourself, by peeping into the minds of your customers.#5. Deep-dive into customer mindset & forge strong relationships
What we tend to forget is that 90% of all purchasing decisions are based on emotion… Help your audience repose faith in you, and you’d start generating revenues in no time. Here’s how you can go about it:- Customer preferences – Listen carefully, and you’d find millions of inputs about your customer preferences and mindset. You can easily make use of relevant information to deep-dive into your customer’s mindset and make the right efforts to please them.
- Personal connect – When you get an access to the social data of your audiences, you can work towards identifying common interests and segment your audiences further. This would give you the opportunity to connect with them effectively on a personal level, which can work wonders for your brand!
#6. Use Social Listening as a lead magnet
Paying attention to the conversations about your brand, industry and competitors is a prerequisite to grow your business. This can help you not just generate leads, but also grow your revenues. Want to know how? Find out below:- Strike Conversations – Offering simple responses to common grievances could be magically effective in winning hearts of your target audiences. You can respond to people with grievances and help them out, particularly when they’re talking about you. Consider taking the conversations offline, if you feel the conversation is taking an ugly turn. In any situation, prioritize the needs of your audiences, and you’d earn a loyal customer for life!
- Watch Competition – Some of the best revenue-building ideas are generated by mining a competitive landscape! Monitor your competition silently, and you could witness some of the most rewarding results.
- Identify Opportunities – Participate in relevant conversations about your industry and offer valuable insights that could help in winning the confidence of your target audiences. Be the brand that people look up to be, and you’d have already established a strong relationship!
We’d ask you to strike gold while the market is hot… and for all the right reasons make social listening as a part of your marketing strategies. Do let us know how you wove magic with social listening in your business?
Don’t forget to share your social listening success stories with us, through your comments below!
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