
Imagine you are confronting a friend about one of their habits that bothers you but instead of paying attention to what you are saying they are continuously staring at their phone. How terrible would you feel? This is exactly what your customers’ feel when you are not listening to what they have to say about your brand. It is also one of the main reasons why social listening is important.
Through social listening, brands gauge keywords and brand names in conversations around them and on social media to know what their customers feel about their brand. There is no hard and fast rule about how to do social listening instead all it requires is for you to be patient and alert.
When people tag your brand somewhere or comment on your post, understand what they are saying rather than just looking for an apt reply. Similarly, take part in conversations around you. Make sure you discuss your competitor brands with others. If you see two people arguing about a certain brand observe what pros and cons they highlight. Social listening is all about being aware of what customers think about not just your brand but also your competitors, and the industry you are part of.
Why is it important?
Since the past few years, not only has marketing changed from traditional to digital but customers have also evolved into digitally smart and well aware humans. Earlier, to sell your product all you had to do was to create a convincing ad and you were good to go. Whereas now, customers do not believe in ads or get fooled by celebrity endorsements, instead they look for real experiences and reviews. This is why brands now need to focus on how their target audience perceives their brand.
Another reason why social listening has now become an extremely crucial marketing tactic is increasing accessibility. Everyone now owns a digital gadget. Toddlers listen to nursery rhymes on YouTube, whereas kids as young as five have digital watches and iPads. Apart from that, satellite services like Hughesnet Gen 5 allow people in rural areas to access the internet as well. This is why brands can no longer depend on ratings or customer review cards they need to go about this the digital way.
How Social Listening Helps your Business?
- Helps you develop a strategy:
Marketing strategy takes into account everything especially the kind of content that needs to be created for any kind of PR activities required. By listening to the opinions of your target audience developing an appropriate strategy becomes quite easy. This way brands can also save money from being wasted on the wrong marketing techniques.
- Honest Reviews:
When brands like KFC or Burger King launch a new product or a deal many people share it on their timelines and tag their friends with varied comments. Finding these comments is a great way for brands to understand what their customers feel about them.
- Brand Image:
If your brand has recently started working on its brand image then listening to customer conversations is the perfect way to estimate whether your strategy is working or not.
- Competitive Advantage:
Social listening not only helps you identify your own brand’s strength but it plays a major part in getting hold of your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. All you need to do is listen to what customers have to say regarding your competitors and start using their weaknesses against them to gain a competitive advantage.
So, how do you start?
Initially to kickstart social listening all you need to do is become alert yourself and ask your employees to do the same. Start taking more part in conversations around you and online. Apart from that, there are also several softwares like meltwater that help you identify what customers are saying about your brand. You can join different Facebook groups, start following bloggers, and influencers to see how your audience is reacting to your products.
Social listening can help your business up its game if you do it the right way.So, start investing your time and money in it now before it’s too late.