So now you’ve built a listening engine, or maybe you have purchased a subscription to a professional social media monitoring tool. What next?
The purpose of listening
One purpose of listening is simply to be informed about what’s going on in your industry. Another is to know what people are saying about you. And even another is to hear what people think about your customers.
But wait…there’s more!
Listening isn’t just the process of identifying, that’s only the first step. The real purpose of listening is…ACTION!
If all we are doing is listening to feed our ego, or dismiss the haters, or simply to know what’s happening then we will only gain so much value from any tool. The real purpose of listening is to gather information directly from clients and prospects to inform next actions. After a successful series of listening sessions, we should have questions, regardless of whether the feedback we’ve witnessed is positive or negative.
- Should we change our product or service?
- Who is our top asset?
- What should we do about competitor X?
- What do our clients want or need?
- Where can we improve?
- How can we activate our most passionate and loyal fans?
…the list goes on and on.