Are You Listening?
Judge Judy is fond of reminding people in her courtroom that we have two ears and one mouth, meaning we should listen twice as long as we speak. Truth, even for brands.
Every brand needs to have a social listening strategy. Social listening happens when you monitor and analyze conversations across social media to better understand the customer, brand perception and the current impact of its online presence.
Understand Your Customer
The first reason to invest time in social listening is to better understand your customer. Social listening can help you discover the habits, interests and problems of your target audience. Social listening also helps you to discover which channels your target audience uses and how they are used. With this insight, you can create content that is shared in the right places and is relevant to their interests.
Increase Engagement
Social engagement is not always easy, but social listening tools can help you stay on top of conversations. It increases your ability to find conversations everywhere they are happening, not just on your channels.
Discover Business Opportunities
Social listening can lead to inspiration for new topics to cover in your content marketing. You can tap into top of mind topics and pain points. You may uncover an issue you didn’t know existed and win by addressing a customer need.
Reach New People
You can find new people in your target audience via their social conversations. Monitoring keywords and phrases that are relevant to your brand can lead you to people who need you and don’t know it yet!
Research Competitors
Social media is public, so it is a very transparent place to monitor competitors and complimentary organizations. Listening can help you learn about what your competitors are doing. You can see the impact of their content and who is engaged.
