What are people saying about you? Where would you fit in? In other words, where do you begin with social media?
Let’s begin just with these two goals: Locate where your company, product or service is already a topic of conversation and discover where your customers look for resources, guidance and support.
First review what you already know about your customers. What are the needs that lead them to you? What are they talking with your sales and customer service people about? Are there professional organizations they belong to? If you hosted a dinner party for your best customers, what would the conversation—even the idle chit-chat—be about? At this stage you can make some guesses; just get a list of subjects and possible locations to begin your research.
Now go to the following sites and search for your company name, the names of leaders at your company, your major competitors, the names of their leaders, your product or service and your suppliers: Google (search the Web, blogs, forums, and video; keep tabs with Google Alerts), LinkedIn, Twitter (keep tabs with Listiti), Facebook, YouTube, Socialmention. If you already know influencers such as analysts, publications, or review sites, be sure to search through their recent published work as well.
Just listen at this stage. Be sure to record the locations of any conversations you were immediately tempted to join in on. Make note of the sites or people or publications that you keep seeing referenced. Note where you find people who already seem to be speaking on your behalf and note their names. (You’ll want to discover what made them evangelists and be sure you’re keeping them happy.) Note where your competitors have already joined the conversation or begun one. Watch how they succeed or stumble. Listen for signals on how you could differentiate yourself from your competitors. Where are the opportunities for expansion of your brand?
You’ll discover where your customers and their extended communities are spending time online and who initiates and hosts the best conversations. You’ll learn about what the current concerns and interests of your customers/audiences are. You’ll discover if they are using different language than you to describe your products or services. You’ll find topics that you could be covering in a company blog or chatting about on a sales call. (Insights you learn through social media should be shared and not kept hidden inside the marketing team.)
It’s probable that you will assemble a great list of blogs/forums to keep monitoring and Twitter users to follow. Pare down this list down to a size that’s manageable for you to continue to follow. The discovering and listening process never really ends.
You’ll find out what your competitors are doing in social media or if they are absent. This will help you take the next step of coming up with your social media strategy.
