Posts Tagged ‘passive social media’
Are You Listening?
Listening to the customer is the core of every sales training manual and customer service seminar, yet companies often fail to hear what is being said.
I recently attended the IIR Social Media conference, and heard many times over that corporate leadership didn’t want to hear about negative feedback from customers.
With social media playing a greater role as a resource to provide instant feedback, the customer voice is becoming more and more difficult to ignore.
- Betty White appeared on SNL two weeks ago due to an outpouring of support from fans on Facebook (probably the most entertaining SNL episode this season).
- Nestle recently announced a zero deforestation policy, after ignoring organizations like Greenpeace regarding their sourcing of palm oil
- IKEA’s typeface change caused an uproar that IKEA wasn’t aware of until Lisa Abend, a reporter for TIME International (and my sister), brought it to their attention
Even if your company is not actively participating in social media, here are some ideas to monitor what your customers think of your company, your industry and your competitors:
- Yelp, Kudzu, Citysearch – Regularly monitor these rating sites
- Search.Twitter.com – Twitter’s search engine. Just type in what you are interested in or use hashtags (#) before your word to see what comes up
- Social Mention, Alterian SM2 – free tools that give you a nice snap shot of what it is being said across social media channels
- Ripoff Report – when people are very unhappy, they’ll post it here
Social media may not be the right marketing tool for your business, but it is the right tool to help you listen to what your customers are saying.
Are You Treating All Your Social Media Channels The Same?
Social media marketing is getting easier every day, especially with great tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck that simultaneously spread your message across all your social channels.
A recent study by ad network Chitika suggests that broadcasting the same message across the various social networks may not be the most effective way to engage your customers.
The study noted that the type of information consumed on four popular social networks – MySpace, Digg, Facebook and Twitter – varied by network.
Twitter users were significantly more interested in news, while MySpace users had a penchant for gaming and entertainment. Digg users had the greatest interest in news, celebrity & entertainment, and gaming, while Facebook users were interested in news and community.
Just like your audience varies on different social channels, the information they desire is different as well. So if you are treating all the channels the same way, you may be missing the opportunity to truly connect.
Social media is about creating a forum to communicate with your audience, listening to them, and providing them with information they want to receive. Doing so creates interest, trust and ultimately evangelists.
By engaging your audience with relevant messaging, you can learn what they what they want from your company, what you are doing well and where you can make improvements.
Passive social media gives you the ability to listen to your audience and understand their wants and needs. Listening can help your company become more efficient, more innovative and more customer-focused. And when that happens, both your company and your customers win.
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Want to learn how companies like Zappo’s, P&G, Burt’s Bees and others are improving their business through social media? Attend IIR’s Social Media & Community 2.0 Strategies conference. To learn more visit http://bit.ly/d7mUWG and use code XM2205SMB to save 15%.
How Do You Handle Online Criticism?
We’ve discussed the role of Passive Social Media (monitoring social media) as a way to gain consumer insight about your company. The most difficult part (by far) is hearing criticism, but one that is important to your overall growth.
The February issue of Inc. has a great story on the social review site Yelp and the impact of consumer reviews on business. Inc. senior writer Max Chafkin lists the five steps in handling online criticism:
- Register – “Registering [on sites like Yelp] allows you to correct inaccuracies, receive alerts when you are reviewed and respond to your critics.”
- Breathe – “If there’s no way to respond to a review without being angry, profane or aggressive, don’t do it at all.”
- Be Gracious – “Apologize for what the customer didn’t like and offer to make it right.”
- Complain – “[Yelp] removes reviews in cases where there is a conflict of interest.”
- Avoid The Courts – “If you decide to sue, be ready for more attacks”.
The points Chafkin makes are great for handling negative reviews. It is equally important that you are not so blind to your business that you classify every negative review as wrong.
If you are a restaurant and you get negative reviews every Monday night, is there a staffing issue that needs to be addressed?
Are people frustrated with your return policy? If so, determine if you need to change your policy or just communicate it better at point of purchase.
If you see the same point come up review after review, recognize the trend and correct it quickly. When you communicate your changes, be sure to give credit to the people who brought it to your attention.
Doing so will go a long way to endear your audience and have them defend you against unwarranted negative comments.
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IIR’s Social Media & Community 2.0 Strategies conference will address “Cashing in on the Conversation”. To learn more visit http://bit.ly/d7mUWG and use code XM2205SMB to save 15%.
Making Social Media Work For You
Social media remains a hot topic for businesses, especially in regard to measuring the return on investment: whether that investment is money, hours or a combination of the two.
Most companies measure ROI in increased sales or revenue, but that only looks at social media from a marketing perspective and not the full potential social media can have on a business.
I have written in the past regarding Passive Social Media, using social media as a listening tool. By listening to your customers you might discover a new product line, a way to improve customer service, predict sales or the impetus for a marketing campaign, all of which can have a positive impact on ROI.
Companies like Procter & Gamble, Burt’s Bees, eBay and Dell use social media to gain insights and will be talking about it at the Social Media & Community 2.0 Strategies conference put on by IIR, May 3 – 5, 2010.
I have been invited to attend this conference and report on it, so I will be providing updates before, during and after the conference.
I encourage you to check it out if you are interested in taking advantage of everything social media has to offer.
The Power Of Being Passive In Social Media
To me, marketing through social media falls into two camps: Active and Passive.
Active is when a company disseminates information through channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs.
Passive is about spending time listening to what consumers are saying about your company, your products, your competitors and your industry via social media.
In their efforts toward active social media marketing, companies post press releases on Facebook, put commercials on YouTube and talk about how great their service is on their company blog.
The greatest challenge, however, is making sure you have a large enough audience to warrant implementing a social media marketing plan. Spending hours on your company’s Facebook page to market to 75 “fans” is not a good use of your time.
Creating a strong passive social media strategy, on the other hand, can provide you endless insight into your audience and help you develop a more strategic active strategy.
Tools like Tweefind, Technorati, BlogSearch, plus searching YouTube and Facebook, can help you find out what is being said about your company in social media.
Passive strategy is also monitoring your competition. Techrigy and Vitrue can provide you a picture of what your competition is doing in social media.
This type of social media monitoring will bring you closer to the consumer. You see trends being created, identify problem areas and monitor consumer reaction to product changes.
This information allows you to improve your products and will drive your active strategy when, for example, you respond to consumers to help educate them on why you may do certain things.
Passive social media marketing in action:
A client of mine manufactured clay poker chips, so we monitored blogs, forums, etc. and found out people liked the chips, but didn’t like the powdery residue on the chips. The powder was there to protect the chips during shipping and went away after playing with the chips a few times. Upon our recommendation, they began including a note in the poker chip case explaining the residue and those comments went away.
If your company wants to develop a social media strategy, start with a passive strategy first. Figure out what is being said and who’s saying it. Once you have that knowledge your active strategy will be more compelling and successful.
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