If you were a business owner who ignored their customers, had no understanding of their target audience, and did nothing to improve their brand’s reputation, you would likely be ruining your business. And while you might not be doing practising any of these disastrous business faux pas, if you are not implementing social media listening in your digital marketing strategy, you are essentially doing the same thing.Â
When you are building a digital marketing strategy you should always include social media as part of your campaign. Social media is ubiquitous, used by almost everyone across the globe, and without social listening, you are unable to reach these consumers on a meaningful level. Getting a little confused? Below we take a look at what social media listening is and how you can use it to grow your business.
What Is Social Listening?
In simple terms, social media listening is the process of monitoring your brand’s social media channels for any customer feedback, direct mentions, or discussions involving specific keywords, topics, and industries, followed by an analysis on these insights to formulate a content marketing strategy.Â
Social media listening looks for the root causes behind these social media conversations and implements strategy changes to the content marketing strategy. It allows you to create the content that your audience is speaking about on social media platforms, which can help to improve audience engagement and brand awareness.Â
One of the major benefits of using social media listening for your brand is that consumers prefer purchasing from brands that interact with them, and knowing what content consumers are speaking about and sharing can help you to achieve this. Being able to interact with your consumers on their level will help to make your brand more trustworthy and credible in their eyes.Â
How Can Social Media Listening Grow My Brand?
Now that you understand a little bit more about what social listening is, you can put it into use for your digital marketing strategy. Below are just some of the ways in which it can help to grow your brand.Â
Monitor Brand Health
You can monitor your brand name, as well as any spelling variations, your product names, as well as the names of any employees in your company. Seeing both positive and negative discussions about your brand will help you to reply and remedy the situation in a tactful and timeous manner.Â
You can use tools that provide sentiment analysis and topic creation, making it easier for you to create social media posts or articles that address what consumers are mentioning in relation to your brand. You may soon see an improvement in the health of your brand, as well as improved brand awareness. Monitoring what is being said about your brand is important to maintaining your reputation.Â
Improve Customer Service
Improving your customer service is one of the major advantages of using social listening for your brand. The Internet allows customers to air their opinions about brands easily and effectively, whether these opinions are good or bad. It is much easier for a customer to type a short tweet to a brand than it is to be put on hold at an automated call centre.Â
If you practice social listening, you can answer negative reviews, questions, or complaints quickly and correctly, providing a positive customer experience and encouraging brand loyalty. You will also be able to thank those who have positive reviews or comments, proving you are an interactive brand and that you are truly taking note of what your customers are saying.Â
Look For Hot Leads
You can look for leads using social listening by using tools that track the keywords that people use when searching for products or brands in your niche. This way, you will be able to target those people who have been searching for your products or services, allowing you to generate more leads and possibly bring in more conversions.Â
Look for a tool that can show you the demographics of the people searching for these keywords, making it easier for you to create targeted content, email newsletters, and social media posts. By using social listening, your audience will also be increased because you will not just be focusing on people who are searching for your product, but also on those who are speaking about it with interest.Â
Listen Up
Using social listening for your brand will help you to ensure that your reputation remains positive and that all complaints and queries are answered in a timeous manner. Your customer service will improve and you will also be able to bring in more targeted and valuable leads.Â
If you would like to improve your digital marketing strategy and reach a wider audience, contact NetMechanic today to find out what we can offer you.
