In the year 2017, immediacy has become the heart of social networks. Their format and functionalities have accelerated the pace of life in society, which has produced a widespread need to demand that we be the fastest when it comes to publishing content on social networks.

This trend has led institutions, leading international brands and public figures to commit serious errors, which have resulted in subsequent crises of reputation, because they prioritized speed over accuracy. And these mistakes, today, when the relationship with the customer is one of the fundamental cornerstones on which most companies’ business strategies rest, are very costly.

Therefore, it is no surprise to see that more and more companies are focusing on relationship marketing. One of the main objectives of CRM, Customer Relationship Management, is to facilitate and improve relationships with our customers, followers and fans.

How can we make our consumers feel that they are a key part of the brand?

When it comes to customers, as well as life in general, it is very important to value others and their perspectives, to make them feel heard and respected. This step is key to building loyalty and making them the best ambassadors of the brand. In this regard we have in our possession one of the very best Marketenian tools: Social Media Listening.

Joost van Nispen, president of ICEMD-ESIC, was one of the pioneers in introducing these concepts in Spain and revealing the importance of listening to the customer by monitoring conversations.

Therefore, in the midst of the dizzying pace of today’s life 3.0, it is crucial that before sending tweets like crazy, or posting on Facebook, we stop to listen to what our followers think of our brand and our products, which requires us to reinforce our communication strategy, or redirect it.
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What benefits can Social Media Listening give us?

  1. Very valuable information from our followers or consumers. Thanks to monitoring, we can have an exhaustive record of the mentions that have been detected related to our brand, strengthen our relationships with customers, and have greater control over the our brand’s reputation.
  2. Monitoring of the competition and its business strategy. Knowing what they are doing and the impact of their actions, and things that work on the market and those that do not; that is, what will and will not help to detect problems and new business opportunities.
  3. Have a full perspective on the whole sector. All this information (Social Media Intelligence) can include more efficient segmentation of the market, detection and access to new market niches, as well as being able to predict real situations through retrospective analysis studies.
  4. Engaging opinion leaders. To know who the influencers in our sector are is the key to reaching communities composed of hundreds of followers that we would otherwise not have access to. This is, today, one of the best advertising resources that the social networks do offer.
  5. The opportunity to turn mistakes into learning. When negative opinions are expressed about organizations, they must also be broadcast. Silence is not an option, as it often says more than a thousand words. When a company decides not to deal with a reputation crisis online, and to continue as if nothing is wrong, it projects a negative image by not valuing consumers’ opinions.

Good listening is an art that makes us smarter and better communicators

The tasks of monitoring and active listening that contemplates the social media listening are the best prelude that any user (brand, institution or public figure) can carry out in its strategy of digital communication.

Knowing how to listen is an intelligent process that brings us closer to other people, enabling us to put ourselves in their shoes and understand them better. This increases our level of empathy and is reflected in our way of communicating and creating community, the elements key to a company’s success or failure.

Ideagoras Social Media

By Ideagoras Social Media