The water cooler is lonely. In today’s world, the “water cooler” conversations have moved into the digital realm of forum posts, blogs and social media. Tapping into and listening to these conversations should be a key piece of your store’s marketing strategy.
I joined in on an American Marketing Association webcast today titled “How Innovation in Social Listening Ignites Marketing Success, which was sponsored by Netbase.”. In this post, I’ll highlight some takeaways from this webcast which can help increase your customer engagement and overall satisfaction.
Social monitoring vs social listening
When it comes to tracking digital conversations, there are two approaches today. Social monitoring, is the traditional method of reacting and responding to topics made by users online. Social listening, a newer technology, allows for exploration and discovery of insights to gain a better understanding of who your audience is. The insights gained about your audience can be leveraged for customer acquisition, customer retention and increasing your overall brand value.
Specifically, social listening can help you understand what your current customers are talking about online. Now, you might be wondering, ‘why would I care what my customers are talking about on their Facebook?’. Because the number one rule of marketing is to know your audience. When you truly know who your audience is, you can connect with them on a whole new level.
Learn new insights about your social audience
For example, let’s say you’re analyzing what your customers are saying online and you discover they are craving a certain type of food (tamales, ice cream, pears, etc.) that information could help shape your posts on social media or cause you to look into updating your product selection for a type of food.
Find new ways to target your customers
Additionally, social listening could help you determine new ways to target customers. The above image is an example from Taco Bell. They discovered their audience of potential customers used the navigation app Waze, which lead them to place ads on that app to drive traffic to their stores.
This type of social technology is new and upcoming, and can greatly help you learn more about your customers than ever before. Businesses who truly know their customers and take a customer-centric approach, are better prepared to meet the needs and wants of the customers, which is the underlying success of any business.
