Contrary to common belief, listening is a two-way street. This is not a new fact. You probably do this more than you realize.
Listening is more than just hearing what someone says. It involves taking what you hear and acting upon it. Listening takes on new importance when it comes to customer relations.
When customers talk about your business on social media platforms, learn what they’re saying. Reading comments for the sake of your knowledge isn’t enough. Instead, read comments for insights on how to make your business better. This process is called social listening.
What is social listening?
Analyzing social media metrics such as engagements, likes, views, and mentions are only half of the battle. The term for this process is called social monitoring. To achieve social listening, it involves taking the analytics from social monitoring and putting them into action. For example, say you run a complex of rental vacation homes. You notice a respectable amount of customers between the ages of 55 to 60 are raving about the location of your units. So, you target your next campaign around the magnificent views offered from your homes at a discounted rate for seniors.
Why should I use social listening?
Customers are the lifeblood of your business. Their opinion is what matters the most. Social listening is a way to build a stronger connection with them. A 2017 case study on why businesses should perform social listening revealed that improving customer relationships is the key objective of nearly half of all companies. You will gain a stronger connection with customers by responding to customer service issues than just focusing on content.
It is always important to have an idea of what your competition is doing. Social listening not only provides a chance to see what customers are saying about your business, but what they are saying about your competitors as well. Keeping up to date gives you an idea of where you sit in your respective market and how to capitalize on opportunities and threats as they happen. Additionally, social listening presents the chance to catch competitor mistakes and avoid making them yourself.
Along with keeping an eye on the competition, social listening allows you to change your strategy in the moment. Every plan should have a plan B. If you see the mood shift among consumers in the middle of the marketing campaign, you can make the necessary tweaks and changes.
Tips and Tricks
Part of social listening is knowing what people are saying about your business, but also understanding where they are saying it is just as important. Just because your audience is saying one thing about your business on Twitter, doesn’t mean it translates to other social platforms. It’s important not to fall in love with one channel because you’re receiving positive feedback. Stretch your social listening across multiple platforms to gain more insights.
After looking across multiple social platforms, wait. Patience is critical when performing social listening. Don’t pounce on the first trend you come across. Establish a baseline and wait for change to occur. This practice makes developing insights sharper and easier. It is important to realize what trends are happening and equally important to understand why they are happening.
Make sure to listen and not just monitor. Remember how listening is a two-way road? Act on the data you analyzed. If there is a trend pointing towards a problem with your business, tweak the campaign to shift the tone.
How BCom Solutions and social listening go hand in hand
Social listening looks into the future rather than the past. The practice involves analyzing information, using it to guide a strategy, and then acting on it. However, the action you take varies depending on what the insight is. The same is true with BCom Solutions. Our team brings the same values to every campaign: be Bold, be Authentic, be All in. All the time. The actions we take are proudly molded to fit the needs of our clients.
Nebraska Legislature Insights
As the Nebraska Legislature ramps up its first session of 2019, the BCom Solutions team is using social listening to analyze social media data surrounding the hot topics on the Unicameral floor.
Each week, our team will deliver strategic reports directly to your inbox. Interested? Click below to sign-up!