Each quarter Snoo.ws tackles a new series topic to provide our audience with insight, intelligence, examples and ideas. This month is Monitoring Month where we will cover everything from basic monitoring 101 to the top monitoring tools to monitoring’s role in your overall strategy. So, stay tuned – there’s plenty to come.
No matter what product you are selling or what service you are offering, rest assured that your brand is being discussed in some capacity across the social web. Listening to these conversations through social monitoring is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘must have.’ The brands that are getting it right aren’t just listening to what’s being said about them, they are hearing it and using it to generate meaningful conversations with their customers. The more conversations generated about your brand across the social web, the more opportunities you have to learn and adapt.There is really no limit to how you can use social monitoring insight to help your brand, but here are five ways to get us started.
Understand How Your Customers Really Feel About Your Brand
The insight gained from listening can help your brand better understand what aspects of your product or service are most appealing to your customers. Where do you need improvement? What else can you be providing your customers that will make them want to stick with you rather than going with a competitor?
If there is something you want to know about your brand, don’t be afraid to ask. You might not always like the honest answers coming from your social community but look at their responses as opportunities to improve your brand and your relationship with your customers.
Know Where You Should Be Across the Social Web
Facebook. Twitter. Google+. Pinterest. So many social platforms yet so little bandwidth and budget. Where do you start? Use social monitoring insights to find out which platforms your customers are utilizing the most. When you are starting out, it’s important that you build your community where your customers are already congregating. Sure, Twitter has a massive user base, but if the microblogging platform isn’t being used by your specific audience or demographic,then why waste your time and resources there. Conversely, maybe your audience isn’t talking about you on Facebook or Twitter at all. Perhaps your audience is congregating in a specialized online forums. Know that and look for opportunities to connect with your audience where they are rather than spending time, effort and dollars building communities that people have no interest in visiting. You can build and grow your social presence across different platforms over time along with your customers.
What Value Can You Bring to Each of Your Social Communities
Once you know which social platforms are right for your brand, look to social insights to help you understand how you can provide value to your community across each specific platform. Pushing the same content or messages across all your social platforms is really discounting the needs and wants of your audience while making it all about you and your message. Leverage social insights to understand what each social community needs, how they want to interact with you, how often they want to engage, and how your brand can add value across each unique platform.
Ensure Your Marketing Efforts are Resonating with Consumers
Brands invest an inordinate amount of time and effort planning cross channel, integrated marketing campaigns. Social monitoring can provide you the insight you need to truly understand how the brand campaign is being perceived by the intended audience – your customers. Did they like the new creative? Is the new celebrity spokesperson the right fit for the brand? Often the true insight comes from what people are not saying. Did your new campaign make any kind of impact at all? People not talking about your new marketing campaign should be considered an indicator that you might have missed the mark.
Influence Aspects of Your Digital Strategy
The learnings from social insights shouldn’t be restricted to just informing or influencing your social strategy. Look at opportunities to apply this new social knowledge to other aspects of your digital campaign. Perhaps your social monitoring efforts led to new insight that consumers really love your hotel chain’s pet friendly policy. How can you leverage this important insight across your digital presence? Think about building out specific content on your website and optimizing it to help with your SEO efforts. Consider altering your PPC strategy to capture the attention of consumers looking for pet friendly hotels. Look for display media opportunities to ensure that the message that you are a pet friendly hotel is being seen by animal lovers. Don’t limit yourself by thinking social insights are just relevant to your social efforts.
There are so many ways to leverage social media monitoring insights to better your organization, your brand communication and your relationship with your customers. Don’t limit yourself.
How have YOU used social insights to transform your business? We’d love to know
Rss Feed