At this age, it’s very important for companies to have a good reputation online. Not just that, having ardent followers also comes in handy as they form a huge chunk of your consumers. Besides, the more the followers, the more awareness you create for your company.
So what’s social media listening? It’s the process of being on the lookout on the various social media platforms for mentions about your products, company, services, competitors among others. It enables you to respond to what people are saying about you online.
It differs from social media monitoring in that the latter only looks at the rate of interaction or how many times you’ve been mentioned. Social listening goes deeper to understand why they were mentioned, is what they talking about positive or negative and what can be done to create more opportunities from that.
Importance of social media listening
Why make wild guesses about what your clients or consumers need from you, or what they think about your brand when you can actually get firsthand information while seated at your desk! Here are reasons why you should be social listening:
To discover new opportunities
Customers always have concerns. And when most of them have concerns maybe about your packaging, then it’s time for you to take note of that and innovate. They may love your product but it’s not available in certain regions. That’s an opportunity right there. Customer satisfaction should always be your priority to maximize growth.
Customer Engagement
Social Media Listening centers around responding to clients’ needs and conversations. And when you respond, it makes them feel more valued, cared for, and creates customer brand loyalty. Listening enables, you to come up with target messages that ensure you address the real concern raised.
Spy on Competitors
Maybe it doesn’t sound right, but analyzing how your competitors are doing helps you plan on your next move wisely. Through mentions, you can be able to know conversations centering around your competitor’s company, their general performance on social media sites, who are their followers are how huge is the following, what are they doing right, what are they doing wrong, are they active on their platforms and so on.
Through this, you can then be able to work on your next move.
Crisis Management
When things are good, customers will talk. And when things are going south, they will also not keep quiet about it. All you need to do is have your ears on the ground, understand where the problem is coming from, and address it before it gets out of hand.
How to get started on social listening
To listen appropriately, you need to know the keywords associated with your brand. If you own a beauty shop, your keywords will not be related to someone with a coffee shop. Through social listening tools, you will get a grasp of how the audience describes your business, the wording.
They revolve around the name of your company, products or services offered, information on your competitors, names of your company leaders, and hashtags associated with your company.
Also, listen across all the platforms to get a grasp of what’s going on. Conversations on Facebook may differ from those on twitter. It may also come to your attention that conversations around your brand are more consistent on LinkedIn than they are on Facebook.
After all the listening, be sure to act upon the findings. When you have the findings and sit on it, that will be going as far as social media monitoring and not listening.
Some of the listening tools include Hootsuite, Adview, reviewTackers, Brandwatch, Consumer Research, Mention, HubSpot, and Union Metrics just to mention but a few.
You may be thinking of adding Social Media Listening into your marketing strategy but not sure how to do it. Don’t worry because Netbase Quid got you covered. Why them? Because of the experience acquired over the years working in the industry. The company knows exactly what tool to use to search for your brand mentions. Netbase will also come up with the right keywords specific to your brand to better explore opportunities, combat crises, and get consumer feedback.