SCORE Minnesota

Social Media: Are You Listening?

June 8, 2010

As entrepreneurs and small business owners make the decision to become involved in social media marketing, the first question they ask is, “where do I start?” For some, social media can be a bit intimating.  Over the next few weeks I will be posting articles on social media that should help make it less intimidating. In my experience, once someone understands social media, starts using it, and sees what it can do for them, they love it.

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So, where do you start? Well the first step is to LISTEN. I don’t mean you should listen to me, I mean you need to start listening to what people are saying online. Allow me to share a quick story with you that will illustrate what I mean.

Back in the mid 1970s, while my car was in the shop, I car pooled with an associate to a meeting that was over an hour away. We were running late and my associate decided that since we were on a freeway, it was necessary to break the speed limit if we wanted to arrive on time. So, he stepped on the gas and then reached for a device that I later learned was called a “Citizen Band Radio” or CB. On our way to the meeting, we listened to many conversations over the CB radio that I never knew existed. In retrospect, I think this might have been the first social media device ever. Other CBers told us where the “Smokey’s” were located so we wouldn’t get caught speeding. There were many other conversations taking place, some were interesting to us, some were not. Some conversations were even about us. I was so impressed that after picking up my car, I immediately stopped by an electronics store and bought a CB for myself.

Right at this very moment, people are having conversations online about problems that your products or services can solve. Wouldn’t you like to know about these conversations so you could get involved and offer them a solution? In fact, some of your customers are online right now, talking about you, your company and your brand as well as your competitors. Wouldn’t you like to know what they are saying?

What if you had an unhappy customer and they went online and told others about it? It only takes a few hours for tens of thousands of other people to hear about it. How will that affect your business? What if you had more than one unhappy customer? What if you had 5, or 10? Imagine how fast information can travel with social media. Wouldn’t it be advantageous to be able to identify your unhappy customers, make them happy and turn them into brand ambassadors while the rest of the online world is watching? You can, just by listening.

Of course, you are probably wondering, “with hundreds of thousands or even millions of messages being sent online daily, how can I possibly sort through the messages I don’t care about and find the ones I do?” You’ll be happy to know that there are social media listening tools to help you with this.

Many of these “listening” tools are free. Other great “listening” tools are available for a small fee. I recommend starting with the free tools and once you become familiar with them you can consider the additional value of those that have a minimal fee. Here are some that are free.

• Google Alerts (for blogs, websites & public forums)
• GigaAlert (Similar to Google Alerts)
• TweetBeep (for Twitter)
• SocialMention (for Twitter, reviewing sites, Facebook, etc.)
• backtweets (when specific blog and web pages are tweeted on Twitter)
• UberVU (covers many of the ways people communicate online)

You should sign up and all of the free tools because they won’t catch every conversation. One may catch something that another one misses. You will then receive emails from these social media tools with the messages they picked up by listening online. Now that wasn’t too tough, was it?

Well, there is a little more to it as many conversations go on behind closed doors where these tools can’t “hear” them. These conversations are taking place in private “social” groups and forums. It appears that Yahoo now has 17 million groups (if that is even possible), Google has over 4 million and LinkedIn has over 600 thousand. Sound overwhelming?

Not really.  Close to 75% or 80% of these groups have less than ten members because anyone can start their own group for free and there is no guarantee that anyone will even join. However, there are some groups that have hundreds of members. Others have hundreds of thousands of members. You should only concern yourself with the groups that have a larger membership.

These online groups are categorized by industry, geography and special interest. All you care about are the groups where your prospects and customers are members. This will  dramatically reduce the number of groups you should consider joining. By joining the groups where your customers and prospects hang out, you will receive a daily email with information about the kinds of conversations members are having.

On the topic of groups, we started a LinkedIn Group a couple of weeks ago for Minnesota entrepreneurs and small business owners as well as SCORE counselors. This group is where business issues are discussed, where members can give and receive advice, and where you can network with other Minnesota business owners and SCORE counselors. It is called “Minnesota Small Business – Powered by SCORE” and we already have over 100 members. Why not come join us and check it out. We will make you feel right at home.

So, the first step in getting started with social media is to listen. In our next post on social media we will share the second step. If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to comment below.

If you would like additional help with social media and don’t want to wait for the rest of our series, why not join us for the big summer social media event, “Social Media & Internet Marketing Boot Camp”? This is an all day event on June 24^th at the Embassy Suites Minneapolis Airport. Our presenters are not only savvy about social media, they are highly regarded for their marketing skills and will be sharing their considerable knowledge with you. For more details on the seminar, our presenters, and the topics they will be covering, just click here. Seats are going fast!

If you are a marketing professional with proficiency in the use of online marketing and social media, I would like to encourage you to consider volunteering for SCORE. We are a non-profit organization that helps millions of new or existing small businesses succeed each year by sharing our knowledge and experience. Click here or the link on the right to the office nearest you to learn more.

Mike Clough, St. Paul SCORE
View more posts by Mike Clough

Filed under: Marketing,Online Marketing,Social Media

Tags: brand, brand ambassadors, gogle alerts, social media, social media tools, tweetbeep, unhappy customers