Who really uses social media listening and why?

Why should one be bothered about social media listening?
Why is there so much fuss about SMM?
Do you really have to be concerned about social media listening at all?
Well, the answer is: You need not be bothered about social media listening unless:
1. You care about what people are saying about ‘you’.
2. You care about learning what your ‘competitor’ is doing.
3. You care about what people are talking about in or about ‘your industry’.
4. You care to know more about what your industry is ‘doing’.
5. You care about branding and building trust and loyalty by ‘solving your customer problems’.
6. You care about understanding your ‘customer’s sentiments and their perception of your brand’.
7. You care about ‘improving, optimizing and upgrading your product and services’ based on what’s happening in the world.
Social media listening can be confusing for someone who is not acquainted with the industry. Here I have tried to keep it simple and explain as to who really uses Social media listening and in what way:
1. Brand monitoring:
Brand monitoring is required for tracking the online mentions of your brand- the positive, negative as well as the neutral stuffs. To be able to monitor your brand detractors, discover influencers, to find out what and where your customers are talking. Understand the most popular topics about your brand; monitor the perception of the public about your brand.
2. Customer service:
Social media listening will enable you to monitor the volumes of conversations around customer services issues, enabling you to respond to customers in real time. You will be able to identify and resolve a customer complaint more effectively. You can gather feedback from customer and build positive relationships.
3. Master competitive intelligence
Identify, learn and discover what your competitors are up to, at all times. With Social media listening, you will be up on your toes and keep a check on what your competitors are doing. Discover their online mentions; view their latest product releases and much more. Monitor and track your competitor’s insights, listen to customer’s comments on your competitor and gain an opportunity for a possible lead.
4. Monitoring industry
Check and compare where you stand against your competition. Be able to listen to the mentions of your industry, discover industry trends, industry issues, the influencers, and the perception of the industry by various communities. Listen to the current industry trends and upgrade your product or service.
5. Generating leads and sales
Monitor the requirements of a possible lead, indication terms, the recommendations, the discussions, questions, conversations and relevant content with prospects. Social media listening will help you discover competitive insights and jump into the pool of prospective leads.
6. Monitoring and managing crisis
Managing a crisis is one of the most important aspects of a Social media listening tool. With a SMM tool you will be able to monitor a negative conversation and deal with it before the fire spreads far and wide and causes a severe damage to your reputation.
7. Determining the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns
With Social media listening you will be able to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns: find out what’s working and what’s not so that you can leverage the positives and work on the negatives.
There are a lot more stuffs that you can do through Social media listening, we pointed out some of the most important ones.
What else do you do by Social media listening?
Do let us know your thoughts in the comments below.