In my last post I talked about the importance of integrating social media into your small business strategy. Social media is not just changing the face of marketing, advertising, or media - it is also impacting the way small businesses qualify leads, drive revenue, even create and sell products. Today I focus on one of the key elements of this brave new world: listening. In the new vernacular it's called social media monitoring. I prefer to think of it as a technology solution to what my mother told me growing up: God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.
Small and large businesses alike frequently fail to comprehend how social media can be used to hear the subtle, vital nuances of the market or worse yet, the not-so-subtle screams. They get caught up in amassing huge numbers of Facebook likes, Twitter followers, and high generosity scores. They forget to actually listen to what is being said. What does this look like in the real world? Take these two infamous examples from Domino's and United Airlines.
Lagging sales at Domino's inspired the company to get involved with social media. According to DailyFinance.com, the effort breathed new life into Domino's, more than doubling the company's profits, and increasing revenue by 8.1%. What made the campaign successful? They listened! They recognized and capitalized on the basic human desire that everyone wants to be heard and to feel like their opinion matters and built an entire campaign around it. They tracked things like nation-wide service ratings, taste preferences, and customer complaints and suggestions. They didn't bury them, they didn't cover their ears, they publicly listened and embraced what they heard, made changes to their product, and then incorporated the fact that they listened into the new marketing message.
Isolated instance? Still not convinced? Consider "United Breaks Guitars." The song, essentially a complaint from an angry United Airlines passenger, was viewed over 9 million times. Four days after the video was posted, United's stock price fell 10%, or about $180 million dollars in value. Can you afford that? Of course you can't. And the opportunity doesn't stop there. Listening is a must for defense, but it's also good for playing offense. But you have to understand the context.
According to Steve Ennen, President and CIO of Social Strategy1, a company that specializes in monitoring social media opportunities, "The technology itself isn't that important. It doesn't matter if people are talking on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, or any other site. What's important is that they're talking about brands, products, and competition. It isn't about the light bulb. It is about the illumination." So, while Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin may be good starting places, don't neglect niche social media sites like Yelp, OfficeArrow, and the various groups on Ning and Quora. Just go where people are talking.
Search these sites for keywords related to your brand, products, services, and other vital aspects. If you bake and deliver cookies in Portland, search for "cookie delivery Portland." Read all the good and bad comments, and be on the lookout for potential customers, unaware that you even exist. Maybe an events planner is looking for a new vendor to give her an edge. Maybe an office manager is looking for a treat for his front-line staff. But don't stop there. Search for your direct and indirect competition. In our example, this might be "vegan cookie delivery in Portland." Read comments by and about your competition, and use the intelligence to look for your competition's weak points. The end result will be a significant increase in lead generation, networking and business opportunities and, of course, sales.
If this all seems a little overwhelming, it is. But know that we're in the middle of a change and this presents opportunities for those who choose to play, a threat for those who cling to the old ways. Small businesses have an advantage here: we are nimble. Those of us that start listening now will quickly grow accustomed to the new way of doing things and integrate it into their entire culture. Those who don't, even the big companies, are at risk of extinction. If you don't believe me, do a Netscape search on your Commodore computer and let me know what you find.
Follow Robert Ball on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBOA
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The typical small business would be wasting their resources - and badly - if they all obsessed with social media. Don't get me wrong - social media can be vital. Its just your hairdresser/fitness/accounting/donut shop entrepreneur probably should be dealing with live customer service rather than updating Facebook.
Small business thrives on loyalty. Rather than becoming social media experts, these companies need to become 'customer resource' experts. The fantastic sweep that cleaned our chimney and dryer vents had heard of Twitter - and knew enough to ask for a review and referrals. If you are a small business, ask your biggest fans for help. If I love your business or your service, I'm happy to tweet/blog/face about you. Tap into your fans - have real live conversations, and ask your best customers to look out for you online. A lot of these examples seem to lose sight of the fact that this is a "social" media - make it about your customers and fans.
I used big company analogies because they also apply to small business. You make the great point that small business thrives on loyalty (guess what, so do big ones). You then go on to show how social media (that is, tweets/blogging/liking) can help the local sweep.
Your last points are spot on: "Tap into your fans - have real live conversations, and ask your best customers to look out for you online.... make it about your customers and fans." It IS a conversation, and listening is one part of that mix.
Millions of people each day are performing searches for business names, brands and even employees. Many are looking because they want to buy, some are look for more information about the company, and others are looking for service. It’s so important that as business leaders, we know what people are finding online about our companies, and begin to treat the outcomes of social media monitoring as business assets (or liabilities).
It's my opinion that placing an appropriate value on a company’s goodwill is just as important as valuing its other assets. It shows people trust the company and are more likely to buy long-term. Of course tangible assets have a direct impact on business, but without the intangible (like intellectual property, effective reputation and trusted customers) businesses are not likely to be successful. By investing in these intangible assets like online reputation management, with people and platforms used specifically to monitor, engage and measure, business see higher and more positive results (and for a relatively minimal financial investment - a great ROI).
As we know, good reputations take years to build and minutes to damage.
He will feel it one way or another during the primaries.
http://www.firecrackercommunications.com/site/do-you-need-to-shut-up-and-listen-tough-love-tuesday/
Interesting article but I would have to disagree on a couple of points. The examples that you gave (Domino's, United, etc) are great examples of brands that should have been listening to what people were saying online. However, the problems were broader than that ; they started at a customer service level. I work with Synthesio, a global social media monitoring and analysis company, and we are working on integrating online and offline customer data to avoid this break between social data and customer service data. It's where social media tools should be heading, towards a link between all consumer data.
As for the tool, of course the technology is important ! For some brands that just want to have a surface view of what is going on around their brand, the tool is less important ; Google Alerts may just be fine. For brands like a telecom service, however, that wants to search through forums for all comments about their brands for customer service, it quickly become more difficult.
Thanks in any case, some definitely interesting news :)
Michelle @Synthesio
Not sure where I see any disagreement, and you make a great point that it's not about online or offline, it's about both!