Are you using social media monitoring (SMM) tools and services tactically? Or maybe you're still not sure if you are using the right SMM tool(s) based on your specific business needs?

Social media monitoring offers digital marketers a wealth of opportunities for a more strategic approach. There is certainly plenty of conversation about these tools and services. So with so many definitions and nuances out there, let's start with a 3 step glossary: Social Media Intelligence: All aspects of social analytics inform your social media intelligence. This intelligence includes not only your own business but the wiser macro and micro environment, such as your competitors. Social Media Listening: This tool is for listening consumers and delving into customer personas and motivations to inform market research. Social Media Monitoring: Ongoing use of data-drive listening and analytics to shape your social media marketing strategy. Successful enterprises across all industries are continuously looking for the…

Managing your own social media accounts is one thing, but you need to pay attention to the social media presence of others as well

Social media marketing is sometimes overlooked by B2B companies. However, even when you’re targeting huge companies in your marketing efforts, it's important to remember that the decisions are made by people, people who - just like everyone else - use social media. Statistics say that 84% of C- and VP-level buyers check social media before making a purchasing decision. Social media for B2B companies can be a communication channel, a platform for raising brand awareness and even a source of leads. Managing your own social media accounts is one thing, but you need to pay attention to the social media presence of others as well. From your audience to your competitors, there are a lot of insights you can get from monitoring social media. [si_blog_banner_cta] B2B companies…

Both online and offline businesses are using social media to market their brands to their target audiences.

There are about 4.338 billion internet users. Out of these, about 3.484 billion people use social media, which translates to almost half the population of the world. This makes it one of the most important platforms to reach your customers. Both online and offline businesses are using social media to market their brands to their target audiences. However, with the right Customer Relationship Management software (CRM), you can improve your customer service through social media too. A presence on social media makes it easier for customers to reach out to your business for any queries. [si_guide_block id="5768" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – Social media marketing strategy guide" description="Our social media strategy guide will help you create an integrated social media marketing strategy that shows you how to…

Social listening can help improve your sales by boosting the awareness, interest, engagement and action stages

The sales funnel is the Holy Grail of marketing metaphors. For anyone who wants to have a successful business, a convenient scheme describing how to make people buy your product or service is extremely appealing. Social media typically fits at the top of a classical sales funnel - it is supposed to bring strangers into your sales funnel, with other strategies kicking in afterward. However, with the development of social media and the introduction of new tools, sales funnels have changed and evolved. [si_guide_block id="82119" title="Download our Free Resource –10 common social media marketing mistakes" description="Avoid the pitfalls that limit engagement with your target audience. Take a look at 10 common mistakes businesses make on social media to avoid them."/] Nowadays there are multiple ways to view sales funnels: as a reverse funnel,…

The best social media listening tools to use in 2018 to help you develop your social media strategy

“The success of a relationship is solely dependent on two factors: a man's ability to listen lovingly and respectfully to a woman's feelings, and a woman's ability to share her feelings in a loving and respectful way.” ― John Gray, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus The core premise of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is that men and women communicate differently and in order for a relationship to be successful, they each need to be aware of how the other works. Men, in particular, have to do a better job listening. [si_guide_block id="5676" title="Download FREE Resource – Digital marketing plan template" description="Our popular marketing planning template built on the Smart Insights RACE planning system."/] Not surprisingly, most brands suffer from the same shortcomings. Instead of listening to what…

3 examples demonstrating the benefits of social listening for financial services

In a decade, social media has gone from somewhere we share photos of our cat, rant about politics, get passionate about sport, and learn how to use eyeliner - to a vital part of a company’s marketing strategy (although there are still a lot of cats). While most industries jumped on board, according to Marketo, the Financial Services Industry (FSI) is still falling short.

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This post targets the finance sector, but, the real-life scenarios and advice apply to any industry. Take a look!

Where are Users Talking?

In general, the finance sector does at least have a presence on social media. But, it’s not engaging with its audience, so it’s wasting its time. 74% of consumers use social media to guide…

The difference between social listening, monitoring, and real social insights

In sixty seconds alone, 3.3 million Facebook posts, 66,000 Instagram photos, and 449,000 tweets are published. That’s an abundance of content, but in this sea of data, your consumers are sending signals about what they want and what kind of digital campaigns they want to see from your brand. By tracking these signals, you can better understand your audiences, identify influencers to partner with, and run campaigns that yield an increasing return on investment. Capitalizing on this intelligence, however, requires looking beyond your average engagement metrics. It requires digging into different levels of insight and forming a clear strategy based on their nuances. Here are the different levels of social insight that you need to be aware of. Consider which ones serve your goals best, and leverage those tactics in your digital marketing. [si_guide_block id="82119" title="Download FREE Resource – 10 common social…

5 ways to excel at social customer experience using AI

A recent McKinsey report suggests that as many as 70% of buying experiences are evaluated by customers based on how they're treated. No wonders that ‘voice of customer’ has been the concern for marketers from some years now.

[si_guide_block id="87369" title="Download Premium Resource – AI and Machine Learning for marketing" description="Today, now even smaller businesses can apply publicly available algorithms or off the shelf machine learning services to generate useful insights and create prediction models based on their customer’s behaviours."/]

However, social media poses a challenge to digital marketers because understanding and evaluating the voice of the customer across half a dozen platforms is an analytics nightmare. This is where social media listening tools came to the forefront and solved some of the problems. Top rated AI-powered social media listening and monitoring tools offer advanced sentiment analysis to help you make sense of the millions…

Conversational research takes social listening to the next stage

It is more important than ever now to raise brand awareness through conversations. Modern consumers are not as susceptible to advertising and product placement as in the past. Therefore, smart marketers generate brand awareness via influential social media strategies. Good social media marketing depends on how thorough the keyword research is. It is important to use the best keywords in context, and then monitor them to see how effective they are. Also, the strategy should also employ "social listening." It is a way of getting real-time feedback relating to keywords to perfect the long-term marketing campaign. The point of using the tactics mentioned above is to monitor your brand’s appeal and efficacy on social networks. Brand monitoring will help your company to gain a distinct leg up over the competition. Now let’s look at how you can monitor your brand through a useful tactic…

Using social listing to respond to your customers before they contact you

Let’s put the wonders away for now. Let’s talk business. How do you know what people say about your company? How do you detect unhappy customers who don’t tell you in your face that your product sucks, but make sure the universe (or, in most cases, Twitter or Facebook) knows about that? Finally, how do you find people interested in the subject relevant to your business in real time and engage them before someone else does? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to social listening.

What is Social Listening?

Social listening allows you to discover what people are saying online about your brand, product, competitors or any specific topic in real-time. You get instant notifications that allow you to act upon your mentions immediately. It’s super easy. …