Today, companies and even individuals, can greatly benefit by leveraging social listening. Social listening has to do with looking at what is being said about your business, as well as delving into any trends related to it, in order to better connect with your cusotmers and followers.
Social listening is important because it can help drive additional engagement with your company, products, and also enable you to better reach and communicate with your customers. All of this activity will bring in more revenue for your brand, and boost your following. Win, win!
In order to engage in social listening, you should take the following actions:
- Identify your target audience. In business, it often boils down to properly identifying the people who would derive the most value from your product/service/messaging. Getting this initial piece right sets the stage for everything that follows, so take care to ensure that you put the required effort and research in here.
- Understand what it important to them and what they are looking for in a brand. Knowing your target audience is key. You want to become familiar with their needs, wants, desires, hopes, joys, worries, concerns and more. By really listening to them, you’ll continue to grow this knowledge.
- Analyze how they are currently engaging with you. You want to meet them where they are, and engage with them in a way that is most natural for them. By looking at their activity, you can make this determination, and understand them on a more intimate level, meeting them where they are comfortable.
- Track what they are saying. You want to analyze it all- the good, the not-so-good, and the in-between. The more that you listen, the more that you will be able to identify trends, and respond to what they are saying. Remember that no one likes a one-sided conversation, or wants to do business with a company or person that does not care about them.
- Figure out what makes them happy and what frustrates them. When you cut through the red tape, you’ll be able to determine what they like, respond to, and what they would like to change about your business/products/you. The more that you can get to the bottom of this, the better your future conversations with them will be.
- Engage and make adjustments. Responsiveness is key when it comes to social listening. This involves active listening and responding appropriately, and in a timely manner. It’s always good to leverage humor and to relate to your customers on a human level as well. They view your brand as a person, and want to be friends.
- Continue to listen and engage. Things change frequently in business so it’s vital to keep your finger on the pulse of social listening. There are so many benefits to doing so! To this end, keep listening, engaging, and analyzing the trends to remain close to your customers and followers now and in the future.