Listen to what your audience has to say!
Social Media Managers and Agencies have always put in their maximum efforts to know their audience completely before launching or categorizing content and activities.
Knowing one’s audience means not just being aware of it but learning their likes, dislikes, needs, and wants; like a friend and not acquaintance. Everyone likes to be heard and wants their opinion to matter. Most of the time this is ignored and not counted over by managers or team; else categorized as unimportant. This brings us to a very core topic of Social Listening, wherein you put effort and utilize tools available to match the audience's sentiments and emotions. This begins by monitoring keywords and involves the coherent working of the marketing team with the social media team.
Social Listening is an analytical technique to understand customers’ emotions, likes & dislikes, etc. These are segregated and ranked; upon which sales positioning and content strategy is designed so that new horizons are discovered for the brand. Usually confused with social media monitoring; social listening is proactive monitoring that involves continuous assessments. This helps to keep up with the updates for brands and generates a stream of updated content. So, what does social listening provide your brand with?
Relevant Hashtags, phrases, and buzzes- Keeping track of your audience’s behavior keeps you updated on what they are following and what course of action they take. These help to trackback suggested hashtags; which in return not only gives an insight to your audience but opens a wider variety too.
Finding influencers- Some firms out there with budget allocation to influencers generally fail to leave an impact on their campaign; these generally lack the presence and engagement of the audience in their campaign via influencers. By active social listening, this problem gets solved as major chunks of information drive give details of what they are interacting with and for what. So here it is, a group of engaging influencers for your brand campaign.
Demographics- A common term that is undertaken while in monitoring as well, but a deep analysis is given in social listening creates a whole new detailed version of the same. Sometimes the details need deeper attention, given by your listening activities.
Social listening doesn’t end at analysis and content strategy it evolves further into commenting, engaging, and maintaining positive sentiments throughout by responding and talking like a known human. So, as you already have details of a person; why not ask them for a coffee? For your brand though! Following are the ways by which you can leverage this opportunity to the fullest –
Talk like a friend- Comment and introduce your brand as a well-known friend to them. Consolidate efforts and make them feel comfortable by providing relevant responses. Keep them engaged and push them down their sentiments to qualify sales. This not only includes engaging inboxes but even content that goes up on your handles; content that feels familiar to them and should seem approachable.
Time your conversations- Make the best use of opportunities and a tailored message for each could be more than enough they are wanting. Attention is what it is all about. But remember, they are your clients; maintain a safe distance and privacy in the channel.
Find leads- Make sure to fill up surveys and details as much as possible. People usually engage with those who have similar mindsets or category interests. Use this opening and make them your friend as well. This not only improves lead generation but even unlocks the plethora of spaces where you were missing.
In the end, just remember to put your ears on the ground and communicate like a human; not like a bot. Social listening is what most agencies have been missing due to various reasons; but indeed, is one of the tools to make use of social media interacts, mentions and content. This is yet one of the unused techniques which require a specialized marketing team with social media experts but sure is a way to develop a path for your brand, decreasing competition.