In building relationships, we all know that active listening is key to understanding who your customers are. In social media, using listening technologies allows you to bring together the full picture of not only the who, but where the communities are that they engage in, what conversations they have and why. This full picture facilitates your ability to be more relevant and thus, create a stronger bond with your customers in the short and long term.

Identifying who your customers are, where the communities are that they engage in, what conversations they have and why. All of this provides the strategic approach to defining a social media strategy.

The following criteria below is a sample outline on setting up your social listening strategy for your business so that you can define a sound conversation analysis.

SOCIAL LISTENING INPUTS

• Company – The trademarked and branded names of your businesses along with those within your business
• Customers – The names of your clients and customers so you can begin to have an understanding of what conversations they are having
• Competition – The known competition you have in your industry or sector so you can track those conversations and understand your share of voice
• Categories – These are the industry topics that relate to your business

The combination of this intelligence defines the key conversational sections that your business needs to monitor for the following benefits.

OUTPUTS FROM SOCIAL LISTENING

• Why – Define the goals of your customers so you can work backwards to support their goals
• Who – Understand who your audience really is vs. who you think they are
• What – Creating relevancy by creating conversations that support the development of relationships with your customers.
• Where – Identifying where the communities are that they have their discussions so that you connect where they are
• When – Analyze the best times to have conversations with your customers

Actively listening allows you to solidify your social media strategy to better position yourself for stronger relationships with your customers.