It’s a real punch to the gut when some unknown Internet user lambasts your brand for reasons you can’t quite grasp. But as we all know, that unknown user has friends, who have friends, who have friends …
But even worse would have been to have not seen that user’s message at all, which is why social listening tools are indispensable in the world of online marketing. (Online customer experience management firm Tealeaf, offers an example).
Seeking defined keywords, the tools crawl a defined set of social media platforms—social networks, blogs, photo sharing sites—and provide feedback, positive or negative, so that marketers can refine communications, content, frequency of messaging and even the development of new products or the redesign of existing ones.
“Many brands think that opening a Facebook page is a low-cost, appealing entry, but you can make a misstep if you start posting content that no one really cares about, so first and foremost do some listening,” said Mark Evans, vice president of digital for Catapult Action-Biased Marketing, which ranked No. 31 on the 2010 Promo 100 with $33.7 million in U.S. net revenue. “If you don’t know what they’re saying or where they are congregating, how can you know how to engage them properly?”
Here’s a quick snapshot provided by Catapult of what you need to know about social listening.