How to Make Social Listening Part of Your Calgary Marketing Strategy

What Is Social Listening? And Why It Is Important?

Social listening is the digital business practice that involves tracking discussions across social media platforms. Social listening requires you to analyzing what people are saying in relation to your industry, brand, services and products online. This will give you valuable insights into the mind of the customer and it will help you understand where your business can improve.

The importance of social listening:

The quality feedback you gather from the public.

It helps you understand customer needs.

You will easily handle crisis and protect your business reputation.

Resource to aid business focus and creating new content.

The Triumphs and Pitfalls of Social Listening

There are upsides and downsides to any Calgary marketing practice, and this includes social listening.

Triumphs:

Vital data collection from real people through very responsive means like hashtags and listening tools.

Instant understanding of your market and what the customers really need from your brand.

Improvement in your customer services will be dynamic, fast and focused.

You can get quick feedback on new products; since the social media will immediately start talking about the experience.

Pitfalls:

Social listening tools only gather information from public profiles. This means you are only analyzing a fraction of your customers.

The customers have to actually make comments and reactions that mention your brand or product before the tools identify the data; this may be limiting as more activity may be taking place.

Social listening tools are yet to understand sarcasm, so they classify the data according to the words mentioned.

Getting Started on Social Listening

An effective social listening plan will include the following;

Set your goals:

At the start of any project, it is important to set goals. Social listening goals may include gathering data to improve your brand or improving customer service.

Draw up a listening process:

Create a process that is in with your set goals. You will need to draw up an action guide that helps you choose which conversations to engage in!

Access tools for listening and monitoring discussions:

Get the best social listening tools for this project; these tools comb through various social media platforms and present you with relevant content. You can begin with these tools and include more as you improve;

Review Tracker, TalkWalker, Hootsuite, Audience. Brandwatch, etc.

This activity can also be done manually if you are not ready to commit to a service. This can be beneficial because you may be able to find conversations/remarks that the digital tools missed.

Connect with new customers and engage cautiously:

When you have found some conversations or requests by customers from the public, you have to learn to be cautious in engaging with responses. Identify new customers and try to connect with them better, as you do well to focus more on positive energy while responding. Give answers to requests mildly and refer the customers involved to the proper business site that handles their matter.

Knowing your Competition in the Industry

Social listening takes industry competition seriously and does not only focus on customer reactions towards your brand! This resource is a great way to learn about their recent strategies and business developments within your industry. The conversations that concern your competitors should also concern you! This strategy can help reveal future trends and show gaps in your industry.

Social listening is also a great way to learn from your competitor’s mistakes. Your business strategy should evolve in real time. This fast action will allow you to stay ahead of the curve.

Feedback from customers is always a great resource for motivation and direction. Did you reach your target audience? Are you comfortable with their response? These are target driven questions. Listen for the answers to these questions and continue to improve from there. Social listening in Calgary is one of the best ways to measure the impact of your business communications. Begin harnessing the power of social listening today. Click HERE to learn more.