What is Social Listening?
According to Hubspot.com, social listening “…is the monitoring of your brand’s social media channels for any customer feedback and direct mentions of your brand or discussions regarding specific keywords, topics, competitors, or industries, followed by an analysis to gain insights and act on those opportunities”. In simpler terms, it means paying attention to what people are saying about you. That said, it’s a powerful way to make connections or grow an audience.
Why You Should Care?
For medium to large organizations with staff and resources dedicated to social listening or community management, that’s great for them. However, for a smaller company or a one-person service provider such as a small plumbing company, a real estate agent, or even a dentist’s office, dedicating resources to social media may sound like a waste of time or simply out of reach.
That’s understandable. Many businesses struggle harnessing the value of social media because they don’t see much return from it. That isn’t because Facebook or other platforms don’t work. It isn’t enough to build a page and post content once a week. On average, brands post 5 times per day. With almost 3 billion users online and millions of business pages and groups, the effort and investment to compete with big budget brands can be overwhelming. It’s like, what’s the point? So, why should you care?
Every week, 75% of Facebook users visit a business page. People use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to find recommendations for all sorts of products and services. These platforms know and rely heavily on this and have done well to create a variety of ways for businesses and people to connect. For example, Facebook’s “Recommendation” feature allows users to create specific posts to ask friends for recommendations on local services. While posting 5 times a day or dedicating staff to managing your social accounts may not be a reality, posting once or twice a week and engaging with people on any platform can yield worthwhile results.
How A Local Painting Company Leveraged Social Listening
My client owned a solo painting company serving high-end homes in the Seattle area. He had a strong customer base and enjoyed good word-of-mouth advertising for new and repeat business. However, he wanted to grow and knew and understood that a large digital footprint is compulsory for growth.
We worked together to build that footprint with a new website, SEO tactics, social media, and paid ads. All of these efforts were successful and necessary to build trust, authority, and findability online and we were rewarded year over year with increased leads and revenue growth. However, when examining the most successful marketing channels, we were surprised that the most qualified and highest converting leads came from social listening. By a mile.
The strategy was simple. The owner joined groups on Facebook relevant to his industry. As a painter, he joined local home improvement groups, garage sales, yard sales, real estate groups, etc. When group members asked questions he could answer, he offered his expertise. If they needed more information, he encouraged them to send a DM (direct message). From there, it was pretty easy to book an appointment or provide an estimate. Direct communication with people already looking for his services opened opportunities to build rapport, qualify the lead, and close deals. In some instances, people may not have hired him but were so happy with his help that they referred him to their friends or family.
Unlike the high volume and high-priced leads he received from online advertising sources, these free, highly qualified leads converted at a high rate. We approximated that for every 10 questions he answered, he was able to send a bid to at least 2 or 3 potential customers. Consistency with how often he was online and responding quickly to questions and inquiries, direct messages, mentions, and any other content he could appropriately interact with were keys to success. It may sound time-consuming, but in reality it wasn’t too much for him to manage. An hour a night or interacting on the go was enough to garner new business. The time spent yielded an ROI to call home about and because many of the leads from Yelp or other platforms were not a good fit, he invested time instead of money for business growth.
What Can You Do?
As your business grows it is a great idea to implement this social listening strategy. There are plenty of social media management platforms that can help manage content and identify opportunities for social listening such as Hootsuite or SproutSocial. It may be worth while to hire a part-time social media coordinator to post content and respond to inquiries. Or, take the DIY route as my client did and take the time to join groups and get involved with your local community online.
If you need help getting your social media up and running, contact me today!