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Why Social Media Listening is Important for Businesses

There is little doubt that social media has had a powerful impact on how we do business. From large corporationsall the way to entrepreneurs running their own websites, the very structure of social media has tapped into apowerful audience. This means that customer bases have been rapidly expanded thanks to the sheer power ofsocial media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and the like.

However, despite the overwhelming success, many businesses have also not been fully able to exploit this newfrontier because they use the same old marketing practices as they have for decades.

Social media is an interactive environment where listening is just as important, if not more so, than speaking. Toomany online businesses have failed to engage in proper social media listening which has hurt their prospects andactually caused their own brand to be diminished.

Why Social Media Listening Is Often More Important Than Talking

The art of social media listening is vital to understand for all types of businesses because it is a window into howyour customers think, feel and react to your own marketing efforts. Effective social media listening requirespatience, understanding and the ability to change from previous patterns in order to fully address what yourcustomer base is saying.

Listening is more than just an action, it is a skill because it not only requires you to hear what is being said, butalso to interpret it correctly and take the appropriate action.

Effective social media listening requires effectively assimilating the information and presenting an appropriateresponse, otherwise the ramifications for your business may be irreversible in the long run.

Arguably the most important reason to engage in effective listening is to appropriately address the concerns ofyour audience. While there will always be the random person who complains about everything and nothing, there

will always be concerns from a much larger group of your audience that will need to be understood and addressedin order to keep their trust. It is these larger concerns where your social media listening skills will be put to the test.

By not responding in the proper manner, you business can wind up looking tone deaf which is arguably worse thannot addressing an issue at all. Good social media listening skills provide a pathway towards effectively addressingissues of all types to the audience’s satisfaction.

Why Businesses Talk About Listening, But Often Don’t Themselves

The phrase “We listen to our customers ” may be one of the most overused in the business world and sadly notnearly as true as what otherwise is stated. Arguably, the main reason why social media listening in particular isnot what businesses do best is because it goes against their marketing nature.

As a business, you must be proactive in terms of your marketing which means writing content, managing onlineaudiences, running advertisements and generally reaching out to find new customers. The emphasis is on growthbecause the more customers you have, the bigger your slice of the pie.

Listening, especially when it comes to social media, is really a passive endeavor that requires not only stoppinglong enough to hear what is being said, but actually formulating a proper response that addresses the concerns ofthe customers.

This means a combination of listening, deductive reasoning and crafting a response that addresses those needswhich are skills that are not usually part of what a business offers, at least in terms of dealing with a wide numberof customer concerns and not the specific ones that they bring to a business.

How To Listen Effectively And What To Listen For

Building up effective social media listening skills starts by reading what people are saying and locating patternsthat indicate that an issue should be addressed. This means cutting through certain individual comments fromthose who seemingly always complain and discovering what general trends can be found among the audience ingeneral.

Seek out trendsRemember you should be listening for both negative and positive comments in finding particular needs that youraudience wants addressed. Quite often, they start as singular concerns that may get overlooked, but will start tobuild as other customers join into the fray.

By quickly spotting what needs to be addressed on a general level, you can effective short circuit a trend fromgrowing and help build up your brand in the process.

Answer concerns quicklyA good way for your audience to know that your business has good social media listening skills is answering aspecific concern that you are aware of quickly and directly in a friendly manner. As long as the answer is directand meaningful, you can stop negative trends before they start.

Address comments in a direct, but broad mannerIn preparing your response, the focus should be on answering the concern as if everyone shares it in somemanner.

For example, if a growing trend is about your business being late in delivering products, then a proper responsewould be along the lines of, “We have listened to your concerns about how fast our products are being delivered. ”

In this manner, you recognise that this is a concern shared by more than just those who have spoken out.

Be truthfulThe old saying that ‘telling the truth is better only because it’s harder to remember the lie’ may sound cynical, but

there is actually a lot of truth to it. Customers will always want be told the truth and it delivers a consistentresponse.

Trust is hard to build and easy to lose, so make sure you stay true to your business ethics.

Business Practices For Social Media Listening

Source: Lardistrategy

1. Always start with an objective. Know what you want to listen for and the reasoning behind it before jumpingin.

2. Determine which channels, platforms or audiences to listen to.

3. Use software to assist in the social media listening process.

4. Establish a structure to analyse, filter and take action when necessary.

5. Social media listening is not a one-off job. As long as you are active in online spaces, you should belistening to your online audiences.

Effective social media listening takes practice and arguably can never be perfected, but it does offer yourbusiness a way to address concerns quickly and discover new means to reach your customers even better thanbefore.

You may find that a customer has a really good idea that can be implemented to your business that helpseveryone, or that a concern that is affecting one person may affect others unless you act quickly.

In any case, the health of your business and your brand rides in large part on your social media listening skillswhich provide the path to better serving your customer base.

Do you listen effectively to your social media audiences?

Do you have a listening structure in place as part of your social media management and customer servicestrategies?

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