Social Media: Is Your Brand Talking or Listening

Many social media icons have said it. For business, social media is about listening and not talking. Interacting and responding has always been the role of social media, but for many businesses they treat their business social media presence the same way as their personal social media presence. And that is why social media fails many businesses. An <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-airlines-social-networking,0,4759369.story">excellent article</a> came out of the Chicago Tribune on Monday. Low cost carriers, the only profitable airlines these days, talk about how social media has improved their customer relations and overall satisfaction. The “big” carriers such as Delta, United, etc. still haven’t embraced social media by only using Facebook, Twitter, etc. as broadcast towers and not their true function—listening. From the article: “A survey cited in a July report by Forrester Research showed that 68 percent of U.S. online leisure travelers say they'd be willing to recommend carriers to family and friends if the company made them feel like a valued customer.” Nothing makes a customer feel more valued than being listened to, not just heard. Knowing there is a monitored line of communication open between the consumer and the brand. Not parked in a voicemail, not sending an email to a generic address, but knowing there is an actual person on the other end of a tweet or Facebook post that responds is what sets Jet Blue and Southwest Airlines lightyears ahead of their bigger competition. By listening, brands can turn everyday consumers into serious brand evangelists. While not every business has the personnel to monitor social media and not every business is in an industry effecting such a cross section of the world, every business does live in a world of interest communities. Small, or sometimes very large, knots of people and businesses interested in what you do or produce can make up your interest community. Tapping into that discussion is what can both elevate and endear your brand in that community. Two arguments come up. No one in my industry or interest community is on Twitter or Facebook How do you know? Have you looked? Earlier this year, Twitter opened up search.twitter.com allowing people to search all of Twitter for key phrases or topics. More recently, Facebook expanded their search function to go beyond people, groups or fan pages and look into specific posts. It is possible, with not too much research or effort, to discover others in the social media cloud who are interested in your brand. One these veins of interest are found, monitoring them has become easier than ever. Many social media aggregators such as Seesmic Desktop (or Web) and TweetDeck have built in search modules that will keep a running search of definable terms. From baseball cards, to manufacturing, to tourism, these running searches allows you to keep in tune with what is buzzing about the social media world. Age comes up time and again. Either young people aren’t using Twitter or older customers don’t embrace the new technology. Yes, the teenage crowd avoids Twitter for a variety of reasons ranging from not liking a running record of conversations (don’t want to get busted for last weekend’s party) and texting doesn’t have the “noise” that Twitter has. Older demographics may simply not have gotten on board yet—and may not, but Facebook is sure popular. Believe me, no one is more Facebook search savvy than my 75 year old Aunt when she is looking for a tweak to a chili recipe. The bigger point is that you won’t know what’s there until you look. We don’t need social media because our customers talk to us through our website, by phone calls or through our sales team Arguments like this take me back to the 90’s when the same stance was made about websites. “I don’t need a website,” I remember one business owner spouting, “the Yellow Pages have been around forever and when someone needs us, they’ll find us there!” How we search changed a little. Shouldn’t how we communicate change as well? I remember discussing the axiom that if you do right by a customer, they tell one or two people. You do wrong by a customer, they tell eight or ten people. Either way, no one tells you. People post reviews on Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Angi’s List and countless other places. Consumers complain on Twitter and Facebook to vent their frustrations, but never say word one back to the brand. Social media presents the most incredible tools for your brand to respond to this. Sales teams, solid web performance and phone calls are great tools for existing customers or consumers looking for your brand. However, what about the consumers who are looking for your product, but don’t know your brand? How many potential customers are you overlooking by not listening to that interest community online? Responding to consumers in this environment can go a long way. Social media, for business, is about listening. It’s about casting off the geographic binds of traditional views and listening via social media to your brand’s interest community. We are in an age of brands without boarders and there is no better way to succeed than to listen and respond. Whether your business is local or global, your brand’s interest community is out there talking. By showing them you’re listening can change everyday customers into brand evangelists. 2009-10-14T16:43:03Z

2009-10-17T15:27:15Z

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2009-10-17T08:26:59Z

2009-10-17T15:27:15Z

Business social media is about listening, not talking. Interacting and responding is the role of social media, but for many they treat their business social media presence the same as their personal social media. And that is why it fails.

Social Media: Is Your Brand Talking or Listening

2009-10-17T15:27:15Z