4 Ways Social Listening Can Benefit Your Business

Admit it, marketers. There are times we have a bit of trouble finding the right balance between talking about ourselves and talking with our communities. Are we truly listening to people that take the time to talk with us, write about us, spend time chatting about us and our brand? Are we really listening to what consumers are telling us, or are we listening while we think of a way to interject our brand into their conversations?

Social media listening is often also called social media monitoring. It is the process of finding out what is being said about our company, products, brand and team and analyzing that data. Done right, social listening can be one of our most important tools to gather intelligence from our customers. We then have the ability to take that intel and use it in our content, business development, R&D, customer service and real-time marketing campaigns.



Seen in San Francisco

But I’ve got a Facebook page! I tweet every day at the optimized times! Social listening is more than simply setting up a Google Alert to see what people are saying about us on their social platforms. It’s about finding where those conversations are taking place, and engaging with the people having those conversations: responding, delivering content to them that they have shown an interest in, helping them with problems where you can that they have mentioned, and giving them offers that will enrich their lives.



If our goal is to reach a targeted group of consumers, the way to their hearts is through relevant, personalized and engaging content. How many times have you shaken your head at an ad you’ve been shown on social media, wondering how you possibly were targeted by that brand? It happens to me almost daily, lately. Think of it in terms of your own life – if you had a friend that constantly tried to have conversations with you that weren’t based on anything you were interested in or wanted to engage about, how long would that friendship last? When you focus on social listening, you can avoid being tuned out by the people you are trying to reach, by getting to know what they want to talk about.

Here are 4 ways social listening can benefit your business:

1.      Get An Edge Up Over Your Competition

You can set up keywords to monitor words and phrases that relate to your product. My tip – do varieties of your product name, as well as common misspellings (if there can be any). You may find that people are complaining about a competitors product or customer service, then step in and ask them to explain what shortcomings they are finding. From there, you can show them that you are there for THEM, that they are important to YOU, explain your product’s benefits and that you are available to them. This can then lead to finding new customers for your business! People will see that your brand cares about the people that are building the brand, and that makes you more attractive to potential consumers, watching your interactions. I’m willing to bet your competitors are already monitoring your brand and what is being said about it, so it’s only fair for you to have the same advantage.



2.      Identify Influencers and Brand Advocates

Finding out who is sharing your information and organically spreading positive attributes about your product or brand is a great way to find relationships to begin building. Who are your brand advocates? Once you know, you can reward them for their unaided help in spreading the love for your brand. A happy customer that talks about you without being asked is marketing gold. Continue to build upon those relationships!

3.      Find Your Tribe

With social listening, you don’t have to guess where the best place to focus your marketing efforts might be. Guess work and lost time is saved by knowing what platform is best for your social media marketing. You can see where people are having the conversations surrounding your product and talk to them there. It might be on Twitter, or Facebook or Instagram…join those conversations and get to know both your current and potential consumers.

4.      Improve Customer Service

When you are focused on listening, you will hear both positive and negative feedback. It can easily be argued that negative feedback is better to find, because then you are being directly told how to improve. If someone is taking the time to complain, they are not yet a lost consumer! That is them showing you they still DO like you, your product or brand, and are open to being helped through a problem.

Social listening requires patience and empathy to understand consumers’ points of view. It might be hard at first, but try to listen with an open mind. Do not get overly defensive while you are gathering data and finding out what people are saying. There are a great number of additional benefits social listening can provide your business. So…let’s get out there and start learning!

 

 

 

10 Questions to Ask When Hiring A Social Media Consultant

Today, more than ever, people are leaving in-house marketing jobs, choosing instead to begin their own consulting business. Even I did it. After 12 years in corporate America, working in-house as a Senior Marketing Manager, I chose to break off on my own and open my own consulting company.

There are both pros and cons for small businesses looking to hire a consultant. The pro is that you can find people with years of experience and can hire them as consultants. Not bringing them in-house means you save money on their insurance, bonuses and at times, even equity. The cons come in when you realize there is a lower barrier to entry now; anyone with a personal Facebook page and a large number of Twitter followers can offer their services to you. While they might be more affordable, it is sometimes hard to discern if they have experience building brands, or if they’re simply good at promoting themselves.

Once you decide it is time to outsource, you will want to strongly vet potential consultants and/or agencies. Here are 10 things I recommend you ask or consider:

1.      Can they show you a proven track record? Ask what brands the person or agency has worked with and is currently working with (to ensure they are not working with a competing brand). Don’t be shy about asking for references. Ask about a brand they worked with where something did not work out – how did they handle that? Were they able to quickly adapt and change course? Do they have the necessary experience in your industry to properly advance your business? The more they know about your industry, the less of a learning curve there will be, and the more resources they will bring to your brand. What are their first steps when taking on new clients?

2.      Where can I find current and past examples of your work? Anyone with experience will be readily able to show you a portfolio of work as well as links to initiatives they have run or been involved in creating. Look for campaigns that have been repeated. You know things are working when you keep doing it! Have the campaigns led to brand exposure? Sales leads? Will this experience help your market?

3.      Who will be handling my account and what background does this person come from? The background of each person working on behalf of your brand is important. If you are looking for marketing, PR and/or social media help, you want people that have leveraged those skills working with prior companies. Do these people have knowledge and experience with trends in these areas, or have they recently realized how easy it is to call themselves a consultant and pitch for your business?

4.      How will we track ROI? We know that not everything will have immediately ROI that is trackable when it comes to social media, but most is. You want to know that this consultant or agency isn’t simply looking to add likes, followers or fans, but is actually able to analyze conversion rates. Brands that hire an outside agency will want to know that the agency or consultant is consistently monitoring results, and is being held accountable. You will want to know there is a standard monitoring and reporting process in place that works for both you and the agency or consultant.

5.      What is their process for reporting? How often will you meet with them? How often will you be provided status updates or check-ins? If the agency doesn’t have a method to suggest immediately to you on how they will communicate, it might be a red flag that the agency isn’t as connected with their clients as you will want to be, or that they haven’t even thought of this yet.

6.      What will you do if something goes wrong? How would you handle a social media crisis? Marketing campaigns that look great on paper can go wrong in application, no matter how seasoned the consultant is.  How will they react? How do they respond to negative reviews? Tweets? Negative Facebook comments?

7.      How do they come up with strategic plans? How much does writing content figure into their experience and plan for your business? A good consultant will have a workflow that works for them and you. They will know how to integrate social media with PR and traditional media. They will want to talk to your sales team and find out what plans they have and will know how to integrate them into all they are doing.

8.      How will content be developed? And, will you have to approve all of the content written on behalf of your brand? Will it all have to be planned, or will you trust this person or agency to create on-the-fly content for you? Does this person have the experience necessary to understand the nuances of writing content specific for each platform? Content developed for your brand needs to be likeable and shareable. A consultant or agency should be able to show you examples of previously created content for other clients, as well as their content calendar, or what their content creation process looks like.

9.      What does success look like, and how will we measure it? Brands that are investing in consultants and agencies must have clear goals in mind when starting this process. An agency should be able to help you achieve your KPIs. The consultant or agency you choose will help you establish these KPIs and will (with you) write strategies and tactics to hit those goals.

10.   What will this cost? Outside of the monthly retainer or fee you agree to with the consultant or agency, you want to know that your budget is being kept in mind in all they are doing. Are there going to be additional costs in monitoring brand mentions? What is the process for getting additional budget approved, before this consultant agrees to something? Do they have a plan for ads on Facebook and Twitter? What will that cost?

By no means is this an exhaustive list. Choosing a consultant or agency is a big decision for every brand. You are entrusting your baby to someone outside the “inner circle.” You want to know what influencers they are friends with and for how long, what their personal social media profiles look like, how they conduct their networking…What other questions would YOU ask? Are there any questions you wish you’d asked prior to hiring a previous agency or consultant?

 

 

Marshmallow Dreidels for Chanukah

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah! Here is one quick and super easy dessert I will be bringing to my family's Chanukah party this evening.

What you need:

• Wax or parchment paper
• Cookie Sheet
• Microwave safe bowl

Ingredients:

•  1 1/4 cups chocolate chips or candy melts (I used chocolate chips)
• 12 large marshmallows
• 12 thin long pretzel sticks, salted or unsalted
• 12 chocolate kisses
• 1 tube white icing for the Hebrew letters

Directions:

1. Line a baking sheet with the wax or parchment paper
2. Insert a pretzel stick into each of the marshmallows, you will want the pretzel to go in almost to the bottom of the marshmallow. I then cut off the top of the pretzel stick so the "dreidel top" wasn't too long
3. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips or candy melts. Do not over heat or they will begin to burn.
4. Stir the chocolate chips or candy melts, then dip the bottom of a chocolate chip into the melted chocolate and stick it onto the bottom of the marshmallow, on the opposite side of where you have inserted the pretzel stick
5. Place the marshmallow on its side on the wax or parchment paper to allow the chocolate kiss to set. Repeat with the remaining marshmallows
6. Place the cookie sheet into the fridge for 30 minutes to ensure the kisses stay attached to the marshmallow
7. Reheat the chocolate chips or candy melts so that it is soft again. Using the pretzel stick as a handle, dip each of the treats into the chocolate so that it is coated up to the top of the marshmallow
8. Place the dipped desserts back onto your lined baking sheet and repeat with the remaining marshmallows
9. Put the cookie sheet back into the fridge for 30 minutes so that the outer shell of chocolate can set
10. Taking your white icing tube and add Hebrew letters onto one side of the dreidels
11. Let the dreidels set for 30 minutes
12. Serve and enjoy!
    
    
     

Tis The Season

Many businesses realize that affiliating themselves with charities are not only a great opportunity to get involved in giving back, but it is also a powerful marketing tactic. The business gets to develop a larger network and it helps others at the same time. Consumers like to associate themselves with businesses that support causes – while they may not have the means to donate regularly to a charity (even if they wanted to) it makes people feel good that they are giving back while purchasing something they need.

This idea is nothing new – the idea of companies “giving back” goes by many different names and uses a variety of marketing slogans: Social Corporate Responsibility (CSR) and “Voting With Your Dollars” are the two I tend to hear most often. Simply put, CSR refers to the idea of participating in initiatives that benefit others.

As a marketing or brand manager, it can be confusing and overwhelming to decide what charity to align with. Once you have done your research and found charities that are worthwhile, transparent with where the donations they receive go and have similar views and visions, how do you pick one? When I do this with clients, I tend to choose charities that I am personally drawn to, and also ones that seem to be close to my consumers’ hearts. It is more important that the chosen charity would be one that my current and target consumers would support, than if I would support it with my own money.

The next criteria to choosing a charity from a brand standpoint, is one that gives the brand a broader reach than they would get on their own, and brings a meaningful and engaged community to your brand. This is a win-win for both you and your charity. Charities, like brands, are interested in building their membership base. Partnering with a charity not only brings their community to you, but it also allows the charity to get their message out to all the people your brand interacts with, with the goal being to bring new members to support them, as well as your brand. Cause marketing is actually no different than any other partnership you might form between your brand a for-profit business. You are looking for another like-minded company, where by coming together, you both will have the opportunity to amplify your messaging with a shared voice.

As you build up the relationship between your brand and the charity you have aligned with, you will want to get in front of the employees that work with the charity and explain your product or services to them. Most charities also have people that follow the charity or support the charity in some way. These people are all target consumers by indirect association. As the relationship deepens, you can look to these people to become brand ambassadors, as their charity will also benefit from your brands success. Perhaps you are donating a specific portion of your brand’s sales to the charity- you can invite the charity to help get the message out that they will be the beneficiaries of sales during a specified time period.

While you are working on a charity marketing initiative, it is important to keep your motives clear. I would suggest that the end goal is always helping people, making a difference.

Chicago Cubs' Postseason Dreams Unite

We are a Cubs family. When I was in elementary school, we were season ticket holders for years. Dad and I would go to games, but Mom never had much interest. As I got older, I got to bring my friends from school to the games with her ticket. My dad spent a week in Arizona at Cubs Fantasy Camp, my parents have an “A Cubs Fan Lives Here” sign in their front yard, and my dad has had CUBZ FAN on his license plates from the day you were allowed to go from 6 characters to 7.

Mom doesn’t understand any sports. She listens to me when I go on and on about stupid plays Jay Cutler made, or when I rave about Aaron Rodgers, and she spends time reading every article I write for NFLfemale.com although I imagine for her, it’s the same as if I were to hand her an article written in another language. Yet, she is absolutely glued to each Chicago Cubs game, since the Postseason has begun. She texts me throughout the game with comments and anxiety and thoughts on the plays. She doesn’t understand the rules, but that doesn’t matter. We can still watch the games together in our own homes and share the excitement of the chance.

It’s not easy to be a Cubs fan. We haven’t won a World Series in any of my family members’  lifetimes. Chicagoans like a challenge however, and we’re up for them and aim to overcome. It’s not like Southern California is some mythical place, we know it exists, we recognize that there’s no snow there, yet we still stay in Chicago despite freezing pipes, cancelled school days and brutal winters.

Chicago is consistently named one of the “Top 5 Friendliest Cities.” Chicagoans love to talk, and we especially love to talk about Chicago. Our city gives us a lot to connect on, we’ve got two Major League Baseball teams with their respective fans depending on where on the city map you grew up, we have the Chicago Blackhawks and their own winning records, and of course, we have the Chicago Bulls. Mention you grew up in Chicago to anyone over the age of 20 and somehow Michael Jordan’s name will still be brought up in the conversation. Walking through Chicago, you might think there is a game being played year round with any of our teams. We wear our pride on our clothing, with flags hanging from the windows of our cars, and many Chicagoans sport some sort of Chicago tattoo. We also connect around our city’s world-class food scene, the weather, and have you seen our architecture?

Social Media has facilitated the unity the Cubs postseason continues to provide. On social, we connect with like-minded people in various communities, and #FlyTheW has helped us to establish new communities, and find other Cubs fans within our existing communities in cities around the world. Maybe it’s a bandwagon, maybe people like to root for an underdog, or maybe hard-core MLB fans are just happy there’s still baseball being played in late October. I’m fine with it. Join us. We’re friendly, right? And just as welcoming. There will always be seats for new Chicago fans on our wagons. It’s fun to watch the Cubs games on Twitter. I enjoy seeing who is rooting for and against me, and I’ve even got some friends in New York that I look forward to smack talking with before each game and after each scored run. I’ve met more people online to chat with because of the Cubs. I’ve found I’ve got more things in common and more to talk about with friends, both online and off, because of the Cubs.

In what might be the ultimate literal symbol of unity, Mom has agreed that if the Chicago Cubs win the World Series, she will get a Cubs tattoo. I have 32 tattoos. 16 years ago, the day before I was going to get my first one, I asked her to come with me. Our family dog had just died, and I was going to take one of my mom’s photographs of him and get it tattooed on me in remembrance. She wouldn’t come. Throughout the years as I added to my tattoo art collection, I’ve asked her to join me and still, she wouldn’t come. I told her I would accompany her to HER first tattoo, and I, too, would get whatever Cubs image she chooses. More ways the Chicago Cubs Postseason will hopefully be uniting us. So, Cubs, win or lose, I’m already winning.

Building a Thriving Online Community

We have all heard the saying “Your vibe attracts your tribe,” and know that an engaged social media community is key to online success, but how exactly do you go about building an online community? What does it mean to have a successfully engaged community?

For a brand, your community is the number one reason to join social media. Not only is your community made up of current and potential consumers, but it’s also where you will find both brand advocates and brand ambassadors – people that will help amplify your messages to their networks, so your reach is spread way beyond just that of your own. More and more, you can find studies that show that people trust recommendations from friends and family over brands, so these social media advocates are gold for companies.

An online community is simply a group of like-minded people, that have gathered together around a common interest, idea or goal. It builds as people find your content and your brand, and begin to engage with it. Engagement can take many forms, depending on the social media platform. It can be simply following you, or deepen to include engaging with you, sharing and promoting the content you put out, and talking about your brand both online and off.

Most importantly, you need to keep open two-way communication with your community. I am a huge advocate of treating online and offline relationships in exactly the same way. When you meet someone new in person, you introduce yourself and find out what you have in common, how you can relate to this person. You take an interest in them and find out what THEY are interested in. There is no difference when you meet people online that are members of your same community. If you are running the social media for your company, you aren’t above or outside any of the community members, you are one of them, the same as everyone else is.

Creating meaningful relationships online means you will be doing a lot of listening in the beginning. You want to find out what is important to the other members, what they want to know, and then you are better able to begin crafting and sharing content that provides value to your followers and fellow community members. Yes, your content will sometimes talk about your company and your product, but the focus needs to go far beyond that. You will be focusing more on the personal interactions, rather than broadcasting information or talking AT people. You will need to be able to respond to all comments and questions that come from members of the community, not shying away from anything negative they might bring up. In fact, sometimes negative feedback is the best way to learn and grow! At first your followers will be just that – people that have gathered because they heard about your brand, or want to learn more, but if you nurture each relationship, they will turn into loyal community members.

What’s next? How do you keep your community interested and engaged?

Here are some of the tips I have learned:

1.     High Quality Content: The most important tip I have learned is that is not ever about you. It’s about the community. You want to consistently provide the highest quality relevant content possible. Content varies. Sometimes it takes the form of a how-to, or it can be something inspirational that will resonate with your community members, or something written or shared to entertain them – the key is to listen and talk with people long enough to find out what they want to know, and then provide that to them in a unique way.

2.     Consistency: How often do you post? Do you disappear after posting an article, until the next one comes out? You want to build trust and let people see that you are someone to use as their go-to for information, so being consistent in your messaging and responses is important. Consistency goes beyond posting schedules. It means that all your messaging is the same, no matter who it comes from in the company. It means that you do what you say you are going to do and always follow through. You are credible and build trust through being who you portray yourself to be.

3.     Honestly Care About Your Community: What if suddenly everyone in your community jumped ship and went to follow a similar brand? You would have no company any longer. The people in your community are your brand’s life blood and if you look at them that way, it is easy to be grateful for each and every one of them. So let them know! Respond to each comment or post. Remember that people have millions of choices of what brands to support and they’ve chosen YOURS! We’re all busy, but they’ve taken the time to chat with YOU! Show people your gratitude. Maybe that means reposting a blog post they have written, or asking about their day when they’ve posted about having a tough time. Again, this is no different than how you would treat an in person relationship with a friend. Say thank you when someone shares a photo or a post. A simple acknowledgment can be makes someone’s entire day.

Remember that all relationships take time. There is no overnight success when it comes to building, nurturing and growing an online community. There are ebbs and flows and sometimes people leave. Prepare to work really hard at these relationships, but know that the time spent will be worth it.

What are some of your tips? Tweet me at @lucyrk78 and let me know!

Facebook Says Relax: No Dislike Button Is Coming

Mark Zuckerberg didn’t quite break the internet, but he may have broken some people’s hearts Tuesday. During a Q&A session at Facebook’s headquarters, Zuck said, “I think people have asked about the dislike button for many years. Today is a special day because today is the day I can say we’re working on it and shipping it….What [users] really want is the ability to express empathy,” Zuckerberg added. “Not every moment is a good moment.”

Previously, he has been adamant about not offering a “dislike” button alongside the “like” button, for fear of the negativity it could (and most likely would) invite. Is this truly something being given to the users because they (we) have asked for it? Or, is this new button going to be offered so Facebook can find out more information about it’s users?

It should come to no surprise to any user that Facebook is based on a series of algorithms that curate your News Feed. Each time you go to Facebook, the algorithm shows you top or “most recent” posts from your friends and brands you have liked, in order of what you’ve told the site you want to see most – what you “like” most. Posts that receive the most likes are shown higher up in your feed, because that is what the algorithm has determined will attract the most user engagement. What throws this off, is all the posts that express emotions you don’t want to necessarily be seen as “liking.” Think of the time your friend posted about something sad – you didn’t know what to comment, but you wanted that person to know you felt for them – wouldn’t some sort of empathy button have helped?  Perhaps you didn’t even see that friends post, because the algorithm had already buried stories of that sort, from lack of likes.

This new button that for now, we seem to be calling the “dislike” button, would help you balance out those posts that would be odd to “like.” I imagine that what Zuckerberg and his team is working on isn’t a “bully” button, to hate on people, but will be a way to still interact with posts you don’t want to hide, but also don’t want to “like.” These sort of posts will still be viewable and come up high in your News Feed, and you won’t have friends coming to you weeks later inquiring why you didn’t mention anything about their father passing away.

Who does this help the most? Us? Facebook? This early on, I’m still a bit divided in my own thoughts. I think this will give us a chance to see more of what is important to us and our friends, at the same time giving Facebook the chance to keep us on their site longer, and find out more about our feelings, which leads to more ads and more dollars in Zuck and Facebook’s shareholders pockets.

What will this new button look like? A thumbs down would provide the yin to the yang of the thumbs up “like” button, but that doesn’t seem to be what Facebook wants to portray. Perhaps what would be more helpful would be a button that signals to the person that put up the post “I saw this,” or “I hear you.” In my eyes, that would be more of an empathy button, whereas a thumbs down button (and we do not yet know that is what this new button will be) gives off more of a judgmental feel.

However, will hitting “dislike” really show empathy? Or is it the lazy man’s response? Will it be more of a show, like “I want people to see that I don’t like this. But I can’t take the time to write out a true comment or express my feelings, so phew! I’ll just hit this button.” Liking something doesn’t actually equal engagement. Sorry, but it’s true. Actually engaging, sharing thoughts and feelings – that is what creates engagement, not the push of a button. Even the most perfectly placed emoji seems to create more engagement and has the ability to show more empathy than a “dislike” button push.

Honestly, I think it’s too early to start hating on this new button just yet. I don’t think Zuck would take the chance of alienating the 1 billion users by giving us all something that could offend and hurt people, or turn the site into a negative Reddit rabbit hole. We just don’t know what exactly is being created right now, and it seems too judgmental to fully express opinions on it without having all the information.