Social media is a means to be social, not to have one-way conversations. But are brands really having two-way conversations with their customers? Are they really listening instead of talking?
Using social media as a means to broadcast or push marketing messages will automatically make customers tune them out. Listening to online conversations and acknowledging the opinions and concerns of your customers will help get your brand right on track to be able to quickly respond to your customers.
But which type of data is valuable to create meaningful conversations? And how can brands truly make sense of it?
To make sure you already have a good view on which data is important to you, here are some crucial questions brands should get an answer to:
What kind of issues are my customers struggling with and talking about online?
When are people are people talking about me?
Who is complaining about what?
The answer to uncovering this data is easy: monitoring your entire social media presence is essential to get a firm grip on what's being said about your brand. Although most brands often have access to that pool of information about their customers and are pulling in information, it's often difficult to structure it, let alone interpret this mass of data correctly.
Step 1: Listen First Before Replying
Develop an understanding of your brand's reputation, who your customers are, and when your community is most actively talking about you. Don't just track '@-mentions' but monitor every relevant conversation. However, don't take immediate action, and listen before you even think about structuring the way you are going to reply in real-time.
Step 2: Structure the Incoming Questions
Divide the incoming questions in logical categories by adding tags to individual social media messages in order to identify the most important pain points about your product (complaints, questions, positive buzz, etc.). This will help you take actions proactively. From that point on, it's a lot easier to start creating response flow sheets.
Step 3: Create Reports and Bring Your Management Up to Date
Create reports for your management to inform them about the bigger picture and acquaint them with the general sentiment of your incoming messages, your community's demographics, when your community is active, your community's tone of voice, etc. This usually is a true eye-opener: this type of information opens up new perspective, which is incredibly useful to starting creating or adjusting your social media strategy.
How should your brand move forward from these 3 steps? Discover it here.