Social Listening Strategy to Monitor Your Brand
There’s no doubt that social media marketing is here to stay, but there’s more to it than many people realize. Engagement on social media is a two-way street: you post content to encourage followers to engage with your brand, but to be successful your brand must also engage with content from your followers. The best way to do it? Implementing a social listening strategy.
Social listening involves monitoring social media platforms to identify and evaluate public discussion of your brand. It shows that your business listens and responds to feedback, and can even be used for market research. Still not convinced? Here are the top four reasons a good social listening strategy is essential for your brand.
Keep an eye on the competition
Social listening is one of the best ways to evaluate the competition (and even convert some of their customers to your business). As brands are increasingly turning to social media, social listening is able to identify what other businesses are doing, as well as who is talking about it and why. Maybe a competitor’s Instagram game is strong, or they’re trending on Twitter. You won’t know unless you’re part of the conversation! Listening to social media buzz about not only your brand but other companies is the best way to stay informed. It can even create valuable conversion opportunities; consumers posting online about their unhappiness with a competitor’s product or brand may be looking for a new solution. Reaching out to these dissatisfied customers with information about your business may just convince them to convert.
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Identify the market
Social listening is also invaluable in identifying your market. Tracking social media hashtags can help you identify the influencers who are heavy hitters in your target demographic. Reaching out to these trendsetters after you’ve researched their reach and engagement will help you make sure that you pick the right influencer to promote your brand. Social listening is also a great resource for building consumer profiles. Although every business has a target market and an ideal customer, sometimes these ideals don’t always match the actual demographics that are driving business to your brand. A smart social listening strategy can be used to create consumer profiles that reflect typical customers of your business. This information can be invaluable in adjusting or updating your marketing efforts to maximize your brand’s appeal.
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Get positive feedback
Who doesn’t love to hear that they’re doing a good job? Social listening will highlight positive feedback from customers who love your brand or have had great experiences with your business. You can amplify the excitement by using the feedback for testimonials on your website or reposting it on your social media to create buzz around your brand! It’s also a great opportunity for product research. Some users will post online about what they want to see from your business in the future or what their favorite products and features are. This user generated content is invaluable because it’s honest, organic, and tailored directly to your brand. Listen to what your customers are saying and use it to launch your next product!
Get negative feedback
Unfortunately, however, things aren’t always perfect. Whether it’s an unhappy customer or an unfortunate accident, social listening can also unearth negative feedback about your brand. While it may not be fun to read, in truth negative feedback is as important to your brand as positive feedback is. It presents a learning opportunity to grow or change so that your brand can become the best it can be. Responding to negative feedback online shows that your business really listens and cares. Correcting mistakes, apologizing to unhappy customers, and offering compensations like money back or future discounts shows that your business takes responsibility when things go wrong and works to fix them. A prompt response to customer complaints can make the difference between fixing the situation and losing a customer, so it’s important to incorporate handling negative feedback into your social listening strategy.
If people are talking about your business online, you want to be part of the conversation. Social listening allows your business to hear what customers are saying and respond to their praise or concerns, as well as monitor the competition and do market research. For these four reasons, implementing a social listening strategy is essential to a strong social media presence and to finding marketing success!
Want your marketing to create a bigger social media splash? The team at Kraus Marketing is ready to assist with any of your marketing needs to help you be the brand everybody is talking about. Contact us today!