Regular blogging and active presence in social media are all imperative in today’s business environment. But your online marketing efforts can be successful only if you learn social listening – the single most important tool in your online arsenal. Social listening is the element that takes online conversations from a monologue to a dialogue.
Social Listening is the“active monitoring of social media channels for information about a company or organization, usually tracking of various social media content such as blogs, Twitter, social networking sites, video/photo sharing websites, forums, message boards, and user-generated content in general.”
In other words, social listening is following social media for specific brands, topics or conversations related to, or involving your business or industry.
Businesses should reach out to industry influencers – people who are prominent in your field, or who have a strong following, your potential clients and existing customers. For example, getting a blog link or Twitter mention from an established blogger can earn you followers, boost your company profile, and earn you sales.
You must specifically leverage social media listening to improve your business. Social Listening can result in lead generation and online reputation management.
If you do not know what the world is saying about your business, it is time you did. Social listening will help you do it.
Social listening for reputation management is all about monitoring Facebook, Twitter, blogs, online review sites, and the entire web for mentions of your company name/brand. Then, you respond promptly with thoughtful replies to negative reviews, express appreciation for positive reviews and constantly engage with customers/prospects
Social listening also gives you incredible insight into your competitors and their activities. As you monitor the social landscape for mentions of your brand, you can also set up listening for your competitors. Track their successes and foibles, and get the inside track on new products, offerings, policies, and other notable changes from your competitors.
Social listening helps you track market trends and emerging ideas. Similar to tracking your competitors, you can also set up social alerts for emerging trends and new ideas in your industry.
Social listening – though sounds complicated – is actually simple in practice. Several apps like Hootsuite make it easy to track keywords, phrases and mentions across social channels. All you have to do is set up your alerts, and then monitor social conversations on a daily basis. Listen and learn — increase sales through customer feedback.