The diffusion of social media has totally changed the scene of marketing research, they can be an inexhaustible source of data that brands can translate into valuable information for their business.
It doesn’t matter if you run a small local shop or a big national company. Social media is an essential piece of your business marketing strategy.
Social media is now an important part of our lives. For companies it has become a tool of promotion, customer care, brand awareness and online reputation management.
It’s the place where brands can listen and get to know consumers: what they say and how they feel.
Social platforms help you connect with your customers, increase awareness about your brand, and boost your leads and sales.
Social media generates both influence and diffusion, characteristics that traditional media can not exploit.
The amount and quality of insight you can rely on in this way is much higher than traditional market research.
Managing the social activity of a brand means having more profiles to control on different platforms that need to be constantly published. To do this you would need to access every single social network individually.
You can automate these process and act in a much more organised and productive way using some tool like the social media platforms Hootsuite or Sked Social.
The data collected through a social media will allow you to improve your marketing strategy and the monitoring of the fundamental metrics for your business.
In short, here are the advantages offered:
- Full access to changing customer voice
- Find and engage your audience
- Identify and react quickly to conversations
- Find trends for future developments
Full Access to Changing Customer Voice
Consumers are at the center of your business: without them your brand would cease to exist. Listening to their wishes, needs, feedback and weaknesses should define the entire business strategy.
Monitor consumer behavior to understand how they want your brand to behave, so you can adapt your marketing strategy to their demands.
Digital channel monitoring will help you understand what consumers talk about, where they talk, how they feel and what they expect from your brand.
You can monitor consumer conversations about keywords, phrases, language usage, hashtags, emojis and industry-specific terms.
You will get an all-round view of how people are talking about your brand and your products.
Find and Engage Your Audience
Social media opens the conversation for instant interaction, relationship building, and customer loyalty.
Social media will show you where your target consumers are talking and what they are talking about. Whether it’s how they’re using your products, whether they’re favoring the competing products over yours, or asking for features you’re not providing, etc.
It’s a wealth of information that will help you guide your marketing campaigns in the right direction and convert leads into customers.
Identify and React Quickly to Conversations
Translate conversations into usable insights with AI-enhanced software analysis and solve business use cases with proven methodologies and flexible structures.
A seemingly simple social media post such as one promoting a pair of shoes, can receive several likes, comments and shares. People can even ask strangers in the feed if they have received their shoes, how long the shipping took, if they liked them, and other questions.
For that reason, it is really important that companies have the proper organizational structure to support social media profiles because it enhances personal contact and can exploit the virality of the network.
Find Trends for Future Developments
Social listening will identify trends and patterns in consumer conversations, which will allow you to make data-driven business decisions for future developments.
If consumers are unhappy with your latest product, listen to them and talk to them. What characteristics don’t they like? How could you make it better?
Similarly, if consumers complain about a competitor’s product, listen to them. Could your product also be a problem? Can you join the discussion and offer them your product as an alternative?
Social media generates both influence and diffusion, characteristics that traditional media cannot exploit. In order to gain consumer confidence, it is necessary to involve them in a genuine relationship and produce quality content.
Social media is a crucial part of your business marketing. Take the first step, create a profile, and start engaging with your customers.
If you want know more, read our article on 10 tools to help you build your business’s online presence!
