Use Social Listening to Anticipate and Respond to Client Interests

One of the reasons social media is so popular with researchers is it provides an opportunity to listen in on conversations, AKA social listening. You should be doing the same with your customers through your website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and other sites you regularly use. You’d be surprised at how much you can learn by tying in a hashtag (#) on Twitter and Facebook. But first, you need to know what to talk about.

It’s Called Social Listening

Social listening is a public form of intelligence gathering used by people who aren’t spies or hackers. For the rest of us, we are well aware of how Facebook can become a “time suck” to use Betty White’s famous term. The same with Twitter. Create a social listening strategy, as Social Media Examiner (SME) suggests, to use your time wisely. SME suggests identifying the key players in your industry and/or geographic area, and listing their URLs in a spreadsheet. I suggest you do the same with your customers. I highly recommend you also check out Nimble’s social relationship management tool for this function. Be aware, though, that LinkedIn recently blocked all CRMs from directly importing contacts. There are easy workarounds to do this. Even if you don’t, Nimble will still be able to locate your LinkedIn contacts and use the site to auto-match profiles. After you’ve built your two lists—one for industry sources and one for customers—sort and organize the kind of notifications you want. You can use your Gmail account for this by installing filters. Then, collect updates; SME likes Feedly, a free RSS reader that networks with Google. Nimble can also do this and many other tasks SME discusses. Schedule a time to dedicate to read the feeds you receive from Feedly or Nimble. Look for your brand, competitors, trends, issues, keywords/buzzwords, and names that keep popping up. When you identify a handful or more, you’ve found your spy list and your discussion gurus.

Social Listening Tools To Get You Started

To help you get started, check out the list below for a variety of popular tools to consider using with your social listening efforts:

• • Web monitoring/alerts: Google Alerts, Mention
  • Website metrics/keyword analysis: Google Analytics, StatCounter
  • Dashboard management: Hootsuite, TweetDeck
  • Social/web search: SocialMention, Addict-o-matic, IceRocket, Topsy, Twazzup
  • Paid social media monitoring software: Radian6, Sysomos, Lithium

Join In or Start a Conversation With Clients

Float topics you think will interest your customers to them. You can do this with Twitter, your Facebook business page, or in a regular email newsletter linked to your website. Retweet or share interesting and relevant posts with your own comment. We can hope Twitter will, eventually, incorporate this to be automatic with their desktop site; several mobile Twitter apps already do this. Encourage clients to join the conversation, which I know can be challenging. This is where the customer social media list you’ve built comes in handy. Use it to check in on them and find out what they’re talking about. When you find an interesting comment, engage them and your Twitter followers and Facebook Likers about this. Give credit to the original customer, who at least is likely to post a response, and don't forget to let him or her know that you value their feedback.

A word of caution: Be careful using Facebook for contests or giveaways. If you choose to do this, review their guidelines in Section IIIE. Twitter has contest guidelines as well. In summary, social media helps you listen to what is being said about your company, brand, or topic of interest. If someone is talking about you online, then there is a good chance they are looking for an answer to a question, a solution to a problem, or providing some sort of positive or negative feedback/review about you. Social listening gives you the opportunity to anticipate and quickly act on what you heard by offering solutions or sharing information with people on the appropriate social media channels as needed.

By responding to interests in a timely and professional manner, you are empowered with the ability to help people, engage with your customers, and provide an overall positive social media experience.

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Is Your Company Paying Attention to Social Listening?

It’s no little secret that social media marketing plays a vital role in the success of any company’s marketing campaign. In fact, social media has significantly changed the world of marketing as we know it by providing consumers with the opportunity to voice their ideas, opinions, and reviews about your brand, products and services with their friends, family and audience at large. This level of sharing can result in significant influence on the buying public. According to a report published by Digital Information World, 71 percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals.

With so many people likely talking about your brand, it only makes sense to pay attention to what they are saying.

What Is Social Listening and Why Is It Important?

Social listening assists companies in understanding what their customer’s desires and concerns are while providing the opportunity to respond in real time. Social listening can provide a great number of benefits and opportunities, including the ability to engage directly with consumers, drive insights that can be used for making informed decisions, and obtain sales leads.

Social Media Examiner reported that although many companies have a good understanding of what social listening is, they fail to understand how they can apply an effective listening strategy to their social media process. Still, learning how to employ social listening effectively is critical to a company’s future success. According to Social Media Examiner, 60 percent of marketers surveyed used social listening strategies last year and 24 percent had plans to do so this year. Unfortunately, only 31 percent of marketers believed that their social listening strategies were effective.

When implemented in the correct manner, social listening can provide the opportunity for companies to interact directly with their consumers. Social listening is about much more than simply watching tweets and posts that mention the name of your company. Additionally, social media listening must be more than something that is applied at the beginning of a campaign. Instead, it should be a strategy that is applied throughout the entire process.

Effective Strategies for Social Listening

In order to achieve solid results, it is imperative that you listen carefully and respond in a strategic way.

·      Begin by setting up a strategy for tracking social mentions. Given the breadth of the Internet and social media platforms today, this can seem like an overwhelming task. Fortunately, there are some tools available that can help you with this process. Mention.net is one of those tools. This tool will watch literally millions of different sources in dozens of languages. Anytime someone mentions your brand, Mention.net will provide you with real-time alerts.HootSuite is another great tool that can help you benefit from customized streams, allowing you to easily track conversations across a variety of platforms. Other popular tools include Trackur and Sprout Social.

·      Do more than just listen; understand before you respond. Take the time to analyze what you are hearing from your consumer base. Consider the context of the conversation. For instance, consider whether your customers are venting and complaining to their friends or whether they are reaching out to you in a direct manner.

·      Consider share of voice. In other words, what is your place in the conversation? How much are people talking about your brand? If you are a small business, it very well may be the case that your customers are not talking at all. As surprising as it may seem, a lack of conversation can be just as bad as a negative conversation. When your customers are not saying anything, it is vital that you take advantage of the opportunity to jumpstart the conversation. A great way to do this is by posting different types of content that will encourage shares and likes. Great examples include entertaining posts, inspiring posts, and posts showing them how to solve everyday problems, hopefully using your product.

·      What is your customer’s tone of voice? We all know that when you are interacting with a customer on a one-on-one basis, it is vital to pay attention to the customer’s tone of voice. The same is also true when it comes to social listening. In this case, you need to gauge whether the conversation regarding your brand is primarily positive or negative. Ideally, the conversation should be positive, but if not, you need to ascertain the root of the problem and take steps to resolve it.

·      Trends matter. Social listening is about much more than simply tuning in occasionally to hear what customers have to say. You must stay actively engaged in order to identify trends as they develop over time.

·      Do not listen just for the sake of listening. Social listening should always have an identifiable outcome. Make certain that your company has a process in place to do something with the information that you obtain. The information you glean will do nothing to benefit your company if it remains trapped in your marketing department.

As social media continues to grow and evolve, the importance of social listening will expand as well. Make sure you have a solid plan in place sooner than later to ensure you’re taking advantage of the knowledge you gain. 

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5 Social Media Trends for 2014: New Research

#1: Social Listening Becoming Important

More brands are beginning to really listen to their customers.

According to the report, 60% of marketers were using social listening strategies in 2013 and 24% plan to do so in 2014. The sad news is that only 31% of marketers think their social listening is fully effective.

Consider the context of social conversations and respond strategically. Image source: iStockPhoto.com.

Key Takeaways

Social listening offers opportunities to interact directly with consumers. But it’s not just about setting up a HootSuite account and watching tweets that mention your brand’s name.

• Don’t just listen; understand first—are you hearing one loud voice or a growing trend? Is positive sentiment due to great advertising or an awesome product? Understand the full picture before you respond.
• Consider the context of online updates and conversations—are consumers reaching out to you directly or venting to their friends? It’s their context (not yours) that matters. Your response should fulfill their expectations.
• Engage with the intention of delivering mutual value—consumers have shown they’re willing to give up some level of privacy in exchange for better service and incredible value.
• Demonstrate how listening builds relationships, rather than simply “intruding” on consumers’ conversations. People are still sensitive about privacy and listening for listening’s sake is simply creepy.

#2: 57% of Marketers Use Social Advertising

The lure of social advertising is fascinating. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others are daily destinations for millions of U.S. consumers who spend an average of 37 minutes per day on those channels.

No wonder 57% of marketers used social ads in 2013 and another 23% are expected to start using ads in 2014. But again, only 23% of digital marketers find their social advertising efforts effective.

Marketers’ budgets indicate the appeal of social advertising.

Key Takeaways

The problem for marketers is that social ad options are very confusing. What’s the difference between a Facebook promoted post and a Facebook sponsored story? When should you promote a check-in story? And do social ads even work?

These are some of the questions that make social advertising very tricky. But don’t be caught flat-footed when what used to work starts failing. Educate yourself and learn the most effective ways to leverage social ads in the current market. Here’s a simple plan to get started with social ads:

• Establish measurable marketing goals.
• Set your budget (start small).
• Know your audience’s needs.
• Pick the channel.
• Research different ad types (how they work, how to leverage them and how your audience will perceive them).
• Check out the competition.
• Optimize your landing pages.
• Experiment and create ad copy (two or three versions).
• Test and measure.

#3: Email and Social Integrate

You would think the widespread use of social media has made email obsolete. But email is alive and well, according to 68% of marketers who say email is core to their business. In fact, social media has made email even more powerful than ever. Take a look:

Email is core to business performance, but social is the other side of the coin.

Key Takeaways

It’s important to understand the relationship between email and social. With email marketing, you have the ability to stay top-of-mind with existing customers, which helps bring them back to your door. Then by encouraging your email subscribers to connect with you on Facebook or Twitter, their friends will see your brand on their news feed, thus generating more social visibility for you.

On the other hand, you don’t want to leave your social connections at the mercy of Facebook’s arbitrary algorithms. You want them to receive your content straight to their email inbox, where you have more control and can extend those relationships.

• Use email subject line testing to optimize Facebook ad headlines and vice versa.
• Incorporate your most popular email content into status updates (and vice versa).
• Test image effectiveness via email and incorporate into status updates (and vice versa).
• Just like sponsored stories, incorporate your fans’ enthusiasm for your brand into your email content.
• And finally, tease upcoming emails via a Facebook status update.

#4: Assemble Your Social Media Dream Team

The survey found that social media teams are becoming more common, with 57% of respondents having a dedicated team to strategize, execute and steward social media initiatives. Typically a social media team has three people or fewer.

Having a dedicated team is key to social media marketing success.

Key Takeaways 

Most brands understand that having a dedicated team is key to social marketing success. It’s also clear that one-person social media “teams” are most common (probably due to small budgets or lack of buy-in from upper management).

Of course, having a social media team of more than one person would be great. But don’t be discouraged if you don’t have the budget to make it happen. There are always things you can do to create social media success. However, you also have toadjust your expectations to match the level of investment in your budget and team. Here are some basic tips if you’re a one-person show:

• Start with a strategy. Know what you want to accomplish from social media and choose your social networks wisely.
• Create a workflow process. Schedule some time each day for routine social media activities (e.g., listening and monitoring, posting updates, networking and so on). The more you repeat these tasks, the better you’ll get at it.
• Develop quality content. You’ll need to create original content on a regular basis (e.g., blog posts, images, videos, graphics, etc.). Even with a small budget, you can get other people to create high-quality content for you by using a service like Fiverr. You can also get free images from Flickr or Wikimedia Commons.
• Get the word out. Let your co-workers and customers know that you have a Facebook page or a Twitter profile. Encourage them to engage with the company on these channels. It’s also a good idea to join an online community where you can tactfully get the word out to others (without spamming them). The more value you add to their conversations, the more receptive they will be to discovering and engaging with your online brand.

#5: Social Media ROI Remains Elusive

While marketers are dedicating more time and resources to social, they’re not 100% sure how effective it is in terms of ROI. Thirty-four percent believe they’re currently seeing ROI, while 52% believe their social media efforts will eventually produce ROI. This is not good.

Measuring social media can be tricky, but not doing it at all is damaging to business.

Key Takeaways

Many business owners make the mistake of not measuring social media ROI. Know this—As long as you’re not measuring, you will never understand how social media marketing can benefit your business.

Measuring helps you to be intentional about your marketing activities instead of spending time and resources on useless tactics that don’t work.

Start by defining clear, measurable social media goals such as brand awareness(e.g., Facebook likes), lead generation (e.g., email opt-ins or content downloads) orcustomer retention (compare cost of retaining a social media customer vs. a non–social media customer). Then develop a content strategy to achieve those goals(remember that content drives social). Focus on one or two social channels where your target audience hangs out and gradually scale as your audience and your resources grow! Soon you’ll be counted among the 34% who are seeing ROI on their social media efforts.

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7 Social Media Trends for Consumers: New Research

#1: More Time Invested in Mobile

The survey found that consumers are increasingly looking to their smartphones and tablets to access social media.

While the PC is still the most widely used device when it comes to social media consumption, the study found that time spent on mobile apps and mobile websites accounted for a 63% increase (compared to 2011) in total time spent.

Additionally, 43% of users said they use smartphones to access social media, while 16% connect using a tablet.

Mobile and particularly apps are where people are spending their social networking time.

Key Takeaway: When it comes to consuming social content, it’s all about mobile. For marketers, that means that mobile has to be your top content priority this year.

#2: Pinterest Usage Continues to Rise

Pinterest continues to experience exponential growth since its launch in 2011. The platform had the highest increase in audience and time spent of any social network across all devices such as PC, mobile web and apps.

Pinterest continues to be the most popular social networking site on the Internet.

In addition, a May 2012 Harvard Business Review article titled, “Moving customers from pinning to purchase,” states that:

“Pinterest users reported a surprisingly high correlation between pinning and subsequent purchasing: more than 1 in 5 Pinterest users has pinned an item that they later purchased. In the social world, this is a high conversion rate.”

Key Takeaway: As a marketer, remember that product photography is more important than ever when trying to persuade Pinterest shoppers to pin and buy your hottest-looking items. Capitalize on their shopping experience and make your profile as creative and visually engaging as possible.

Also, don’t forget to engage with people who have pinned your items to see if you could nudge them into buying something!

#3: Social Networking Generates Positive Sentiments

One of the most interesting findings in this survey was that 76% of participants said they experienced positive feelings after engaging in social networking.

Some of the words used to describe how they felt were: informed, energized, excited, connected and amused. However, 21% reported negative sentiments after social networking; examples are overwhelmed, anxious and wasted time. 24% remained neutral.

Consumers generally feel good after engaging in social media.

Key Takeaway: Social media is saturated with sentiment-rich data. Every update, tweet, blog comment or online review is a critical source of data that can inform your CRM program. As a marketer, you should be very interested in gathering and analyzing sentiment data to see if your social messages are producing the desirable outcomes you’re looking for.

#4: Twitter Drives Social TV

Twitter has emerged as the most powerful driver of ‘social TV’ interaction. That means when people are watching the Super Bowl, American Idol or the elections, they are simultaneously using Twitter to share their thoughts and experiences with friends.

In June 2012, a third of active Twitter users tweeted about TV-related content, which was up from 26% at the beginning of the year.

Tweeting while watching TV is becoming a very popular social phenomenon.

Key Takeaway: Social TV is still a new concept for marketers. However, considering that an average of 43 minutes are spent each day watching TV (HubSpot), and that many of those viewers are then sharing their experiences online, marketers shouldfind ways to align any TV advertising with their online strategies (e.g., incorporating hashtags or tweetable sound bites in their TV commercials). This prolongs the conversation about brands beyond the TV, while allowing for extended word-of-mouth marketing.

#5: Social Care is the New Customer Care

Social care is a way for companies to provide regular customer service through social media platforms. The study revealed that one in three social media users prefers social care to contacting a company by phone.

Consumers use a variety of channels for social care. For example, they are most likely to comment or ask a question about a company’s products or services on the company’s Facebook page (29%), on their own personal Facebook profile (28%), on official company blogs (15%), on Twitter (personal handle – no mention of company, 14%) and on Twitter (company’s handle, 13%).

Social care is transforming the way brands respond to customers.

Key Takeaway: Social media has conditioned consumers to get immediate feedback. As a marketer, the risk of failing to meet such high expectations is not just losing customers, but having negative comments about your brand blasted around the user’s network and their friends’ networks. If you can get social care right, you will create a wide gap between your brand and your competition.

#6: Mixed Feelings about Social Ads

Another interesting finding was how people react to social ads. While 33% of people surveyed find ads on social networks to be annoying, 26% are more likely to pay attention to an ad posted by a friend.

Generally a Like is the most common action taken after seeing a social ad (26%), followed by a share (15%) and a product purchase (14%). As far as demographics go, the study found that Asian-American consumers were the most likely to respond positively to social ads, while white consumers were the most likely to be turned off by social media advertising.

A lot of people find social ads annoying, especially if the ads are not relevant to them. Image source: iStockphoto.

Key Takeaway: Because advertising on social media is more annoying than other digital areas, marketers should proceed with caution and make sure their ads are highly relevant and targeted. On the bright side, many people don’t mind social ads if they’re tailored to suit personal tastes and interests. This presents a great opportunity for marketers to raise brand visibility.

#7: Social Listening a Key Consumer Activity

Social media is transforming the way consumers around the globe make purchasing decisions. Consumers are using social media to listen and learn about other consumers’ experiences (70%); find more information about brands, products and services (65%); and compliment brands (53%).

Most social media users are listening to other people's experiences.

Key takeaway: We tend to think of social listening as something only marketers and research analysts do. However, it’s interesting to see that consumers are also active listeners. This is an opportunity for marketers to educate consumers through compelling content, improve customer experiences (using social care) andmaintain strong customer relationships to uphold a positive brand image.

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