Two weeks ago, we did an evaluation and analysis on social media listening. Since that time, I have become obsessed with the idea that companies are lurking on social media, measuring and watching our thoughts, reactions and reflections. I have become even more in tune with advertising on social media, and also consumer reaction to advertising. This blog entry will showcase some of the more interesting concepts and examples related to social media listening. Recap: What is social media listening?Social media managing business Hootsuite defines social media listening in its article Social Media Listening, What it Is, Why You Should Care, and How to Do it Well,. According to Hootsuite, social media listening is "the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of a business' brand, competitors, product and any other themes that are relevant." Of important note is that social media listening is different from social media monitoring. While social media listening and monitoring are similar, listening goes beyond monitoring. The SproutSocial blog What is Social Listening and Why is it Important? emphasizes that the goal of social media listening is to extract key insights from social conversations that a business can apply to its overall strategy. While monitoring collects every social mention, listening requires reflection and analysis. Listening can help a company track overall brand health.Having a good social media listening program is important to businesses because social media can be a barometer for overall brand health. In the Infomart article "How to Improve Brand Health with Social Listening," social listening can help businesses establish a baseline for branding challenges and opportunities with the business. Next, the business can use that baseline to set goals regarding brand image, and set values for key social media outcomes the business would like to see regarding change to brand image. Perhaps the business would like to see the brand image become stronger, or more well known, or the business has to do damage control for a recent public issue. Social Media Examiner evaluated 9 companies who were effectively using social media in their branding efforts. Of the list, Ford Motor Company stands out as the largest company with the most effective social media listening campaign for strengthening brand image. Ford created a blog called "The Ford Story, and it starts by showcasing viewer comments that can be reviewed even before customers see the main article. Ford specifically asks customers to share stories of their ownership of a Ford vehicle, and Ford also asks customers to share the blog through their own social media. This format also makes it easier for customers to interact with one another in a positive way, give feedback to the company and share the overall brand image. Listening can help a business create new product its customers want, create new marketing campaigns, and improve the consumer experience.In the above example of using social media listening to strengthen branding, Ford Motor company also used social media listening to collect new ideas for cars for future development. Ford used these ideas to improve technology of their cars and also shape the development of future cars. Shoe company Zappos used Twitter in 2008 to help generate a new confirmation email for the company. Following the contest, customer feedback was overwhelmingly positive about the redesigned confirmation email, as it made customers feel like the email was personalized to them and it raised Zappos status of customer service in their minds. Also, Vitamin Water developed its latest drink flavor from customers on the company's Facebook fan page. Businesses letting customers have an active and integrative role helps customers feel more connected to the business, which is an improvement to the customer experience as a whole. And that doesn't even cover voting on new and unusual potato chips flavors.... Social media listening can also be applied to marketing as well. In 2016, Taco Bell proved as an example in using social media to reflect on customer feedback in designing a new menu item, and then Taco Bell used SnapChat, Twitter and television as channels to promote a blind preorder of a new menu item that was not yet announced! After the preorders were made, Taco Bell then announced the menu item on television and social media channels during the SuperBowl. Listening help further a business' strategic plan.To survive in today's market, businesses must have a healthy social media marketing program. According to the Pew Research Center, 79% of all Americans consumed some form of social media in 2016. Of the platforms, 79% of all Americans use Facebook, with 68% of all American adults using Facebook. This is a 14 point increase over 2015. Also, in 2014, one in six American adults were active on Twitter. With stats like this, businesses must be involved and engage in social media in order to stay in the forefront of relevancy in the market, forboth current and potential new customers. Forbes has also developed a guideline for best practices as to how a business can use social media monitoring and listening to involve the strategic plan. Businesses can identify customers and set goals relevant to social media outcomes, and then measure progress towards those goals through the use of social media. Companies like Unmetric can help businesses integrate social media listening and intelligence as part of an overall strategic plan, and illustrate their services in the following chart below: Listening toolsSeveral key tools have emerged as leaders for social media listening. Hootsuite can be configured to monitor multiple streams of social media content across multiple platforms. Hootsuite is a market leader in social media listening, and has a number of tools that can be used to magnify listening evaluation. Talkwalker expands listening to blogs, forums, reviews, videos as well as social media. It is designed to produce deeper analytical results, especially when combined with Hootsuite. Audiense helps marketers identify target audiences, and listen to those audiences and evaluate conversations by group. It is also a powerful tool in analyzing customer feedback and opinions. Brandwatch monitors over 70 million traffic sources and allows companies to make real time decisions based on how product and branding is being discussed on the internet. Google Alerts, Mention, Addictomatic, Social Mention are also free, comprehensive social media listening and monitoring tools that work independently from Hootsuite. Reddit Keyword Monitor helps companies monitor social media mentions on Reddit, the 4th most popular website behind google, YouTube and Facebook. Mentionlytics will scan for mentions, keywords and customer feedback in multiple languages. Also, a business might take it upon themselves to create their own platform for organic social media listening. For example, in early 2017, the Disney Vacation Club timeshare organization recently created a seemingly unmoderated Facebook group called Disney Vacation Club Neighborhood. In the 6 months since it was created, nearly 37,000 people joined the group, and discuss everything Disney and Disney timeshare related, as well as perks, complaints and accolades. In my earlier blog post, I detailed the communication balloon about renaming Disney's Hollywood Studios. Most recently, in the Disney Vacation Club Neighborhood, the members engaged in a heated discussion on whether or not DVC should change some of the timeshare rooms so that pets would be allowed. That September 14, 2017 posting generated within a few days time 855 reactions and 806 feedback comments. In fact, the reactions to this idea were so strong that the anonymous administrators decided to turn comments off. Prior to the creation of the internet and development of social media groups, businesses would have to hire market research companies, impanel costly focus groups and wait for weeks if not months for public opinion to be analyzed. Now, through the use of the internet, companies can receive valuable feedback in days. ConclusionSocial media listening is an extremely useful tool for businesses in many different ways. The explosion of internet use, and social media involvement has created another avenue for businesses to connect with customers for product development, feedback and even promotion of the business' overall strategic plan. Since studying social media listening, I have been fascinated with seeing business attempts at listening. So, the next time you are on FaceBook SnapChat, a blog or YouTube and you are asked for your opinion on something... just know that the business might actually be listening.
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