Marketing isn’t just about the messages you send out into the world. In fact, it’s a two-way process. Without the ability to listen and absorb information about who your customer is and what they are saying, you won’t be able to formulate advertising messages and create content that reaches them effectively.
Marketing professionals have a term for everything, and in this case the buzzword is “social listening.” Social listening involves paying close attention to what is being said online about a company’s products and those of their competitors. It requires the ability to sift through information on social media and turn that information into a competitive advantage.
Here’s how digital marketers can fine tune their social listening strategy and convert a keen ear into higher conversion rates.
Find Out About Your Community
Before you can start listening to your audience, you need to know who they are. Which social media platforms do they use? Are they clustered in a particular age group, gender of geographical location? The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to keep tabs on what they are saying.
Think About Your Audience’s Everyday Problems
One of the key principles of content marketing is the need to create content that addresses peoples’ problems. Content that offers solutions and ties those solutions to specific products will always attract visits and generate conversions.
Because of this, social listening strategies need to find out what pain points motivate their audience. Search for people who are complaining about the services provided by your competitors. Use terms like “[x] can’t” or “terrible service from [x]” and target these people.
When you’ve come up with a list of pain points, create content that addresses them. Ask questions on platforms like Quora and use the answers to come up with content that addresses the concerns of your audience. Blog, create videos and write direct marketing emails linking your products to real-world solutions.
Trace a Path to Your Landing Pages
Social listening can also be used to find out how web users find their way to your pages. When you run marketing campaigns on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, be sure to take advantage of ways to track how many users are attracted from each platform.
Ask for customer feedback when people make purchases and include a question asking where users heard about your pages. Include any sites that could be relevant, from discussion forums to media outlets (and don’t forget to include search engine queries too).
When you know where people are coming from, it’s much easier to create efficient, targeted marketing campaigns with a high ROI.
Research Influencers in Your Field
Social listening isn’t just about listening to your own customers or potential customers. It’s also about monitoring leading experts and influencers in your niche. Every market niche has social media users or journalists (or both) who dominate the conversation. These are the people who have enough social media influence to make or break reputations, and you need to know what they are saying.
You also need to monitor who mentions your company. When you send press releases to media outlets and bloggers, keep a record of who mentions your products. If they give you a mention, send them a message to show you are paying attention. In time these influencers could become effective brand ambassadors, so cultivate their loyalty as much as possible.
Discover New Talent in Your Area
Marketing isn’t the only part of business operations that can benefit from a social listening strategy. It’s also an excellent way to boost your recruitment efforts.
Finding talented, dynamic staff is one of the key determinants of business success. Traditional recruitment methods carry high costs and aren’t guaranteed to attract unconventional, creative applicants. That’s why many elite companies go straight to potential employees. You can do the same.
Task your HR staff with tracking social media users or staff at competitors via LinkedIn. If they are producing great content or building an expert reputation, they could be a good fit for your company.
Track Product Launches in Minute Detail
Social listening is more relevant at certain times, and one of those occasions is during major product launches or the start of marketing campaigns. When you roll out new products, you need to know how they are being received. What are people saying about them? Are your messages getting across?
The only way to know for sure how your efforts are being received is to monitor Twitter conversations, check Facebook feeds, log into key discussion forums and set up Google Alerts to track mentions of your company. If something is going wrong, it’s vital to address it as quickly as possible. Sometimes, ads are poorly targeted or confusing. By listening closely, you can assess whether this is the case and take action promptly.
Manage Your Brand Reputation
Launches are peak times for social listening, but companies also need to track their brand reputation continuously. You probably won’t have the time to scour Twitter for every mention of your products, staff or brand. However, by setting up alerts and using social media automation products, you can capture most mentions on a daily basis.
It’s important to determine your “background level” of social mentions. That is, how often do people talk about your products in a positive or negative sense? When these metrics rise or fall, it’s usually a good sign that action needs to be taken. The only way to find out that background level is by listening to your audience over a sustained period on social media platforms.
Marketing Intelligence Can Determine Business Success
Social listening isn’t an optional extra. It’s at the core of online marketing success. You can choose to adopt “deep” or “shallow” listening processes, but to really know your audience, the more knowledge you collect, the better.
There are plenty of tools on the market to help you gather information, from Hootsuite and Klout to TweetReach. Many of them offer limited free packages and are simple enough for any company to adopt.
If you haven’t implemented a listening strategy, do so immediately. It’s time to take control of your brand reputation and really get to know your audience. What you learn could take your revenues to the next level.
