I previously looked at the urgency to explore customer expectations when attempting SRM initiatives and touched on the need for social monitoring. This relates to firms capturing and analysing information about their brand, which will enable them to become closer to consumers to strengthen brand image, offering and CRM (Dan, 2013). Nonetheless, in regards to the privacy of consumers and financial investment, Dan (2013) recognises that social listening is not without risk.

social-listeningWindels (2015)

It is important to note that Dan (2013) does not consider social listening in relation to competitors. It could prove wise to listen to conversations that users are having about your competitors, or the industry in general, to enhance your digital marketing strategies and adapt your own offering.

In his article for Forbes, Dan (2013) suggests that a vital capability is to develop speedy response rates to engage with consumers over social networks. The way firms interact with customers online is as important as ever, and a personal response is expected to authenticate the brand. Organisations are therefore, as suggested by Dan (2013), shifting importance away from messaging and onto technologies that put emphasis on social monitoring.

Although I agree with Dan (2013) in regards to the emphasis of social listening, I believe that messaging –both content and ‘who’ is behind the message- is equally important. For example, after Matt Fisher’s blog about the way that Progressive (insurance firm) handled his sister’s tragic car accident, Progressive did not demonstrate any authenticity or empathy when mentioned by users’ online. Matt Fisher called out Progressive on his Tumblr blog for firstly, failing to pay out insurance on his sister’s automobile death, and secondly (more outrageously) for later defending her killer in the court of law to save themselves the pay out, implying that the woman had been negligent and caused her own death. Furthermore, despite monitoring conversations online, Progressive disrespected Twitter users’ by sending repetitive, automated responses to the concerned online community. See figure 1 below.

Figure 1 Examples of Tweets

Progressive Twitter
Dugan, 2014
Click here to see further examples of twitter fails (may contain explicit content)!

This suggests that a mixture of both listening and messaging tools are essential to perform well on social media, which Progression just didn’t seem to get right. Keeping track of conversations is important, but it is apparent that skilled and knowledgeable employees should be running the social accounts and monitoring them effectively.

With customer expectations ever increasing, as noted in my previous blog post, it is not as simple as creating a Facebook account or a series of YouTube videos without actively engaging with the social network.  Social listening applies to what is being said about both your online and offline activity and managing the extensive amount of data collected, not just your response rate and conversations over social media (Dan, 2013). Kanshige (2015) stresses this point further, arguing that many firms do not perform social listening well as they fail to see that listening must be active (something Progression failed to note).

In his article for CIO.com, Kanshige (2015) suggests that organisations fail at social listening because-

  • The technology is costly
  • Firms are not competent at converting data
  • It is difficult to measure revenue as a result of social media initiatives

Kanshige (2015) makes a rational conclusion- converting masses of data into revenue is not easy and monitoring tools are costly, but Dan (2013) would argue that the price is worth it. This is the age old debate between marketing and finance departments. It could be argued that marketing efforts, both online and offline are essential to explore customer needs to create a demand for your specific product/service and gain brand exposure. However, in many cases, it is difficult to conclude explicit correlations between marketing efforts and return on investment (ROI).

As suggested in Neathery’s (2014) article for Social Media Today, ROI is of course a primary objective in marketing, and if an organisation can manage customer concerns early, deliver marketing in real time and reinforce positive brand perceptions, long term relationships and profitability should follow. It is a case of performing these factors well, and Progressive learnt this the hard way. It was suggested that many customers ended their policies with the firm and shopped for insurance elsewhere as a result of the viral blog and evidence of poor customer service executed via Twitter.

It is apparent that aligning the right listening platforms to your firm’s resources and capabilities is imperative to ensure success at this activity. Such listening tools include Simply Measured, Social Rest and Sysomos, all platforms that allow for analytics and data management  (Neahthery, 2014). The question of measuring ROI still stands, and as discussed in an article by Fisher (2009) for the Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Service Management, firms should instead concentrate on the fact that a customer should be valued as more than the initial spend. Organisation’s need to account for customers’ future purchases and influences that they may have through social media. By using social monitoring tools, organisations can sieve through essential data to better align marketing strategies to the overall business mission and goals (Neathery, 2014).
Aisha Merrick

#BBSDIGMARKET

#SOCIALLISTENING

 

 

Dan, A. (2013) ‘When It Comes To Social Media, Consumers Tell Brands To Only Speak When Spoken To’ Forbes, 31st March 2013 [Online] <http://www.forbes.com/sites/avidan/2013/03/31/when-it-comes-to-social-media-consumers-tell-brands-to-speak-only-when-spoken-to/> [accessed 17 March 2015]

Dugan, L. (2014) ‘Three Brand Fails That Prove Auto-Replies on Twitter Are A Bad Idea’ Social Times, 1st February 2014 [Online] <http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/brands-auto-replies-twitter/496033> [accessed 16 March 2015]

Fisher, T. (2009) ROI in social media: A look at the arguments, Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management. Vol 3, p189–195

Kanshige, T. (2015) ‘Why Social Listening Platforms Are Failing’ CIO, 27th January 2015 [Online] <http://www.cio.com/article/2876295/social-media/why-social-listening-platforms-are-failing.html> [accessed 17 March 2015]

Neathery, B. (2014) ‘Top 8 Listening Tools That Do Way More Than Listen’ Social Media Test, 27th June 2014 [Online] <http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/top-8-social-listening-tools-do-way-more-listen> [accessed 16 March 2015]

Windels, J. (2015) ‘Marketing: The Top Free Listening Tools Available’ Brand Watch, 2nd March 2015 [Online] <http://www.brandwatch.com/2015/03/top-free-listening-tools-available-online/> [accessed 16 March 2015]