How many times have you heard, “the customer is always right?” It took a long time to realize that the statement isn’t actually about the validity of what the customer is saying, but an approach on how to fix an issue that a customer may have with your product, service or business model. Listening first and engaging second should be key to your social media approach.
President and Chief Marketing Officer, Connie Ramos-Williams gives us 10 ideas to start building a better social listening and analytics plan.
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Research where people are talking about you.
Sure Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are smart places to start listening. But forums, Snapchat, Instagram, TripAdvisor, Yelp, may be just as important depending on your industry. Make sure you keep an eye on any platform your business could be mentioned, and interact with people who are talking about you online.
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Identify the industry influencers.
Trusted influencers are out there creating content for just about every topic. Find them and see what they’re talking about. Worst case scenario…you become an influencer yourself!
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Listen for social selling opportunities.
Be on the watch for tweets or posts that indicate someone may be on the prowl to purchase a specific product you offer, and be ready to chime in with a link to your business or product. The more opportunities you find to place your brand in front of a consumer, the more likely you will turn views into profits.
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Keep an eye out for non-direct brand mentions.
Put together a list of words people may use to describe you, your industry, and your competitors, and track conversation around those keywords across the social web. A lot of social media management platforms, like SOCi, have this built into their programming already to make tracking your brand easy.
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Connect social media to the broader business.
The highest-performing marketers integrate social media activity into other business functions to help their sales teams discover new leads and community managers identify brand advocates. Online communities help brands have a personality, expand their reach and stay relevant in their industry.
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Create categories to organize mentions.
Track topics and keywords by assigning categories and moving content into categories, you’ll have a far easier time understanding and taking action on what people say about you.
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Draft analytics reports to help shape future marketing endeavors.
Create consistent monthly or weekly reports that cover sentiment analysis, total mentions, most active networks, and pain points to help shape current and future campaigns and the way you talk to your customers. You can’t improve if you don’t know what is working or not working.
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Be customer-focused, not channel-focused.
Get to know people as customers, connecting the dots on their relationship and history with the company. Remember that social media is supposed to be SOCIAL! This is a great platform to really connect with your customers on a personal level. People buy from those they trust!
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Automate what you can but keep the human element.
Figure out what automation techniques work for you and allocate human resources where it makes the most sense to increase productivity and authenticity. Radio is a great example of an industry facing an increase in automation and decrease in human interaction. As more personalities lose their jobs, the harder it is for listeners to connect with stations on a “hometown” level. Thus making the radio industry less appealing to consumers and ultimately, advertisers. People connect with people, not computer programs.
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Draw meaningful conclusions about your customers from sentiment analysis.
Measure consumers’ attitudes toward your brand through social listening. From there you can make changes where needed and create new brand campaigns that will be more effective than previous ones.
Implementing these 10 steps will help your business find great success in the digital marketing landscape. We understand that sometimes this all gets overwhelming, overlooked and confusing for business owners. Let CONRIC’s digital marketing team take care of your social media presence! Call 239-690-9840 ext. 1001 or email info@conricpr.com to schedule your free virtual business marketing consultation today.
