(801) 810-9426
How to Listen to Your Customers Online
You know how when you’re eating in a restaurant and you don’t like the food, and the waiter asks you “How is everything?”
What do you say? “Oh, everything is fine, thanks.”
Your customers are doing the same to you — they’re not telling you what they don’t like about you to your face.
But with the rise of social media, they’re going home and sharing their negative (and positive) experiences with their online connections.
What if you could overhear what your customers were saying about you?
How could that improve your business? What would it highlight that you’re overlooking? How much power would that give you?
Yes, this is possible. It’s called social media monitoring.
Simply put, social media monitoring is using technology tools to identify what people are saying about your company online.
Social Media Monitoring Tools & Resources
Here are a few free and simple ways to do this:
1. Twitter Search
Click here and enter keywords relevant to your business, particularly your company name.
2. Google Alerts
Click here and enter your relevant keywords. Google will email you any time in encounters those keywords online, based on your preferences. (You need a Google account to set this up.)
3. RSS Feeds
Set up a Google Reader (or other RSS reader), then set up RSS feeds from social media sites as generated by searches.
For example, when I search for “KGaps” on Twitter, you’ll notice the RSS icon on the top right. A specific RSS feed is generated for every search.
4. Facebook Page
Set up a Facebook Page for your business, then simply check the wall daily for comments.
Read this introduction to Facebook for business.
5. Free Monitoring Platforms
There are a number of free social media monitoring platforms to take advantage of, such as Addictomatic, Socialmention, and Tweetdeck.
There are also tons of companies who offer social media monitoring services, such as Spiral16, Radian6, and Trackur, but I wouldn’t recommend these for most small businesses; it’s simply unnecessary.
This social media monitoring solutions wiki lists every available tool.
Here are a few more great articles on the subject:
- How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 10 Minutes a Day
- 10 Steps for Successful Social Media Monitoring
- The Problem(s) With Social Media Monitoring Technologies
Your Customers are in Charge
Knowing what your customers say about you is vital. It tells you what you’re doing wrong and right and how to improve.
As we write in our e-book, Hub Mentality:
“Not only has power itself changed, but also who controls it has shifted. In the past, it was business that wielded power to achieve its ends. Now, the power lies with customers.
“It is customers who dictate the creation and disposition of information. It is customers who determine not only what things get produced, but also how they get produced (note the rise in social-oriented and environmentally-friendly businesses).
“Customers are firmly planted on the new throne; businesses are their servants. Those that understand and adapt will survive and thrive. Those who don’t will disappear, leaving only a memory.”
*****************************
Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and persuasive writer with KGaps Consulting, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the New York Times best-selling co-author of Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.
He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.
Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela. Stephen and Karina blog about their magical life on Palmer Journeys.
Connect With Stephen:
Email: spalmer [at] kgaps [dot] com
« Front Stage Versus Back Stage | Home | 6 Rules for Ensuring High Open & Click-Through Rates With Your Email Marketing »
Easy RSS Subscriptions
Get Our RSS Feed (What is RSS?)Free Downloads
Download our 100-page book, Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interaction, to learn the right way to market in the Information Age.
Complete the form below. Your personal information is never shared.
*Downloading the e-book subscribes you to our mailing list. You'll receive about two emails per month, including our monthly newsletter. It's easy to unsubscribe.
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- johnmartin: Twitter Advertising has been a big plus to everyones business in todays...
- Brady: I had the pleasure to listen to Robert Richardson of Zappos Insights today....
- Michele Miller: Stephen: Thank you so much for the fantastic review! Boy, I can tell...
- Craig Roumey: Thanks very much for the links. As a Wizard Grad myself, I go to the...
- Sean Elcock: That was awesome. I loved how the brand was the vehicle through which...
Topics to Explore
Comments
Stephen – Thanks for mentioning Spiral16 as a social media monitoring solution. While I wouldn’t say that online brand management is for everybody (you mentioned small businesses in particular), I would say that there are other ways to make great use out of online monitoring besides brand management. Many of our clients are gathering competitive intelligence and identifying sales prospects with our platform, for example. Great article and thanks again!
Eric Melin
@Spiral16
Eric, great insight, I appreciate you sharing.
Leave a Comment