Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall? Social Listening provides your business the unique opportunity to do just that and discover EXACTLY what your audience thinks, feels, and says about you both directly and indirectly.
Many Small Business Owners believe they have social media covered for their business if they are creating content by posting frequent, relevant information for their customers. And while that is valuable, we want you to think of social media as a two way street, as both output and input.
Today we’ll be discussing input side of social media in the form of Social Listening. This is where businesses can monitor, analyze, and engage in conversations about them, their competition, and their industry on social media, and is critical to truly understanding your customers.
Remember how we discussed that a brand is your customers’ perception of your business? (Need a refresh? Click here!) Social Listening is your key to learning what that perception is so you aren’t left wondering whether or not your messaging and brand strategy are effective. It also can help guide you as you continually work to shape that public perception so your brand sends its intended message successfully to consumers.
Here’s 5 ways Social Listening can help make your brand a success:
1. Learn What Topics Are Most Valuable to Your Audience
2. Interact With Your Customers and Potential Customers
3. Increase User Generated Content
4. Tackle a Potential Crisis and Rectify Pain Points
5. Learn From Your Competition
1. LEARN WHAT TOPICS ARE MOST VALUABLE TO YOUR AUDIENCE
Knowing what your audience is interested in will help you create meaningful content they care about. By positioning yourself as a thought leader in your industry, you are seen as more valuable to your customers’ lives and therefore build your brand equity. This applies to your organic SEO as well as targeting your paid social media efforts.
2. INTERACT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS AND POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS
Building your brand requires you to remain authentic with your audience. Your customers follow you and interact with you for customer service help and answers to their questions regarding your products and services. When you engage with them authentically, your brand comes to life in a way that your customers know is approachable and responsive. These are both qualities you should strive for while growing your business.
3. INCREASE USER GENERATED CONTENT
One of the best ways for people to trust your products and services- customer reviews! Seeing customers use your product and discuss what they like most about it creates desire in prospective customers. You should encourage your existing customers to share their experience with how and where they use your product or service. Branded hashtags are a great way to keep these in one place. This shows prospective customers that real people are using your product and creates more content for your business to share on social media. Remember: always ask permission to share your users’ photos and reviews! Customers are usually happy to share their images and reviews, and better yet, will watch for your business to repost their review to then share with their own audience.
Need further proof that prospective customers care what others have to say about your product/service?
76% of consumers say content from past buyers influences their purchase decisions
HubSpot
4. TACKLE A POTENTIAL CRISIS AND RECTIFY PAIN POINTS
While every business loves to read glowing reviews of their offerings, social media is a popular destination for customers to air their concerns and complaints. While the content may be negative, don’t despair. This is actually a good thing for your business. You’ll uncover the issues and struggles your customers face with your products and can use them to improve. You’ll also find which social media platforms are home to horror stories vs successes and should keep this in mind when reviewing your brand strategy effectiveness.
No matter if your customer is writing a negative review or a positive one, ALWAYS respond to them. This builds trust, which is the most important quality your business can have among your customers.
5. LEARN FROM YOUR COMPETITION
While you should never copy your competition, social listening on your competition can help generate new ideas for your brand strategy. Find out what they’re doing right and where they fall short with their (and your!) audience. See what types of posts are receiving the most engagement and resonating with consumers. You can absolutely use your competition’s wins and losses to your advantage. Because you share a customer base, seeing what THEIR customers are saying provides further insight when developing your own strategies.
Think of Social Listening as part of your Customer Service department and treat it as such.
Don’t have time to take on social listening? Not sure where to begin? Let us help. Muse Creative can take care of your business’s Social Listening so you can focus on your products and services. Contact us today to learn how we can help your business go from “an option” to “the top choice.”