Now Listening… for Building Engagement
So my last post was about deconstructing some of the pieces around listening, specifically when you really don’t want to engage in the conversation. For a lot of Social Media people, this seems pretty counter-intuitive, but I think there is a lot that you can get out of simply listening. It’s the same reason that we have market studies and surveys. We just want to know what it is that people are saying. But this is not what this post is about…
If you want to listen to figure out where to engage with potential customers, there are a couple of major areas that we should keep in mind.
Channel Distribution- Understanding from a very high level where your brand, industry and products are being discussed, can save your organization a lot of time and money. We have found that not all great things come from those channels starting with “Twit” and ending with “er”. Sometimes they do, but not always. Based on whether the highest level of conversation is coming from blogs, message boards, microblogs, review site, etc., you should really take the time to understand where you want to begin engagement. While the final goal may be to be in conversations across multiple channels, take your time and start with the easy wins.
Domain Identification - Once you have narrowed in on the channels that you want to watch, think about the most influential domains that harbor conversations related to everything you care about. Follow these domains, and think about how you can make your organization a reputable and meaningful contributor to these conversations.
Brand Advocate Identification – This is similar to domain identification, but here you should look for individuals who are passionate about your industry or your products. Who is commenting the most, and what do you think about their opinion? Find brand advocates who have a real voice, and also truly believe in what your organization stands for. You don’t need to try to change minds here, but if people are passionate about your industry, you can show your transparency and honesty thereby earning points with industry advocates who can become brand advocates.
Geographical Distribution – With geo-location tagging around most Social Media conversations becoming commonplace, you can now understand where you need to engage both in an online and offline medium to reach your customers. Listen to where your customers and your competitors customers are talking, and you can make regional adjustments when you engage. While this is obviously true across countries, you can also begin to see disparities between states. Transparency and authenticity are great, but if you don’t speak differently across different regions you can alienate loyal customers.
Sentiment Identification- Paying attention to sentiment across services, products and brand can help your organization identify specific areas to engage. Of course, you will want to pursue highly negative and maybe even highly positive posts, but understanding what products have high negatives can help you engage with your potential customers to innovate positively. And in the same token, you can use positive sentiments with your competitors to drive the right path to innovation on your own products.
There usually obviously a lot to know about this. I think you created some extremely points in Features also.