Actual Social Media Community Managers at an Actual Social Media Listening Station
How to Set Up a Social Media Listening Station
One of the social media tactics that most people aren’t aware of, but many people love is to set up a social media listening station. It’s part of the social media training at CertifiedSocialMedia.com. By listening to your market, customers, prospects, competitors and your competitor’s customers and prospects, you’ll learn who is looking for your product or service (and what they think of it), what they think of your competitor’s product or service and identify people who know neither you or your competitor, which gives you a competitive advantage.
If you or your company were getting trashed online, you’d want to know about it, right? I’m amazed at how many people don’t want to know; either they’re afraid of the situation or don’t care what their customers think. Their competitors stand to benefit from this, both directly from the unsatisfied customer as well as anyone in their network who is listening.
This isn’t new, by the way. New technologies like Twitter, Yelp, blogs, etc are just new ways to spread word-of-mouth marketing, just as people have done, mostly in-person, for hundreds of years. Today’s social media, however, DOES amplify the bad things people are saying about you!
Or, amplify the Good things people are saying!
Businesses that go online and respond to criticism public, can actually help your reputation. People respond positively when you take an incident of criticism via the social web and deal with it!
Dodging the social media bullet because you’re afraid of negativity shoots yourself in the foot.
Which gives you an advantage over your competitors, who aren’t as media savvy.
Gatorade Social Media Mission Control
Hotel Social Media Marketing
By starting with a listening station, newcomers to social media can also learn how to become a social media marketer. For my clients in the hospitality industry, I recommend that they begin monitoring other flagged properties, who can be helpful when they begin talking on social media. They may also identify brand loyalists who would consider staying at their properties if they were aware. For instance a Hilton hotel in Chicago might benefit from Twitter conversations people are having with Hilton properties in Orlando or Seattle. A suburban Chicago hotel might snag travelers who normally stay in the city. (Play nice!)
Or the Hilton can hijack room nights from the Westin. (Take the gloves off!)
Whether you’re a hotel, manufacturer, optometrist or restaurant, the techniques of setting up a listening station are the same. Here’s how.
Social Media Marketing Training
1) Find people to follow and engage on Twitter by looking for people who fit your target persona profile. For a local business, you may want to target people who live in your town or surrounding communities. Sites like WeFollow or LocaFollow allow you to search for Twitter accounts by location. Our friends working in hotels might search for similar properties by searching on “Hilton” or “Westin.”
2) Follow your competitors and their customers and prospects. (Even vendors) It’s easy to click on their Follows or Followers and scan their lists for people of interest. Consider using Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to set up columns by interest or objective. For our Hilton marketing team, they might create a column of other Hilton Twitter accounts, a column of customers and a column of their direct competitors and their followers. There are powerful ways to engage each of these segments!
3) Set up Google Alerts for mention of you, your competitor(s) or market. You can specify the types of media to monitor and how often to deliver it to an email account. Bonus Points: In addition to setting up alerts for mentions of your business or competitor’s business names, set them up for your business and competitor’s names PLUS the word “sucks.” Super Bonus Points: Have the “Sucks” alerts get delivered to your mobile phone. You’ll want to jump on those quickly! 
4) Similar to Google Alerts, Social Mention allows you to set up free alerts focusing on the social web.
5) Addictomatic allows you to set up a webpage that resembles a Control Panel. (Your boss will think you’re awesome!) Track the latest buzz on any topic or look at their categories of what’s trending for ideas of things to Tweet, post on your Fan Page or blog about!
Social media is the ultimate canary in the coal mine about what’s broken in your business. Are you worried about negative feedback on social media? Do you hang up the phone when somebody calls to complain? Wouldn’t you like to be in contact with dis-satisfied customers of your competitors? Set up a social media listening station and get networking!
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