Social Intelligence™ is more than just understanding the place for your Brand among the millions of others online. It’s about the life of your Brand that involves effective storytelling, honesty, and the ability to encourage clients to consciously choose your Brand over another. When you’re a small fish in a veritable ocean of products and services, finding your voice is essential and remaining relevant just might be what keeps your Brand alive online.
The intention of Social Intelligence™ is simple: To have your Brand stand out and be readily identifiable to your target audience. To have Social Intelligence™ is to speak openly and honestly with your current and potential clients in a voice that emulates your Brand. Online reputation, an integral aspect of Social Intelligence™, is not only about how you represent your Brand but also about how your Brand is perceived. To truly understand this is to comprehend the purpose and meaning behind the Social Media phenomenon which is all about human behavior and the psychological effect our communications have on people, especially our target audience.
Today’s Internet users are highly sophisticated and know exactly how to find what they are looking for. And, with the tracking and analytics tools available online, you can discover what your potential clients are looking for and then provide it. How? By customizing the user experience. But first, understand that users can search multiple sites for reviews, comb through forums and blogs for people who have used your product or experienced your services, and even listen to the chatter on a multitude of Social Media channels. They may know a lot about your business before they even come to your website.
Word-of-mouth marketing has evolved from telling your neighbor about the great experience you had with a business to informing hundreds of thousands of individuals online across the globe with a single post that gets shared. Users are opinionated, and rightfully so. The key here is to tune into this user or customer sentiment. What is your customer saying, and how is that likely to affect your Brand?
Sentiment can be hard to gauge, especially online. The Internet is an enormous network of data and information and being able to really hear your customers takes careful “listening” and doing so can have a significant impact on your Brand.
Social Listening differs from traditional Social Media in that it’s a system that picks up comments about your Brand through sophisticated queries. The right query will span the entire Internet, from blogs to Social Media channels, and provide you with not only a look at what people are saying about your Brand but the sentiment of the comment (negative, positive, or neutral) as well.
Why is this so important? Social Listening gives you insight into your overall success. It also gives you the opportunity to comment or respond to users whom you might not have responded to otherwise. Imagine for a moment being a business that provides parenting advice for teens. Your business is booming, and you’ve taken to all the social channels to engage with your crowd and potential customers. You are staying relevant, and your Social Media engagement is great because you also strive to understand what your customer wants. With the addition of Social Listening, you have the opportunity to read what customers or potential customers are saying about your parenting products and services, not only from your Social Media channels but from all across the Web.
Customers are your greatest champions and ambassadors. Therefore, it’s important to understand their needs and uncover who they are, how they feel about your products or services, why they made their purchase, and most importantly, what they are saying about it. When you do this Social Listening, it will inform your responses and guide your ensuing communications and messaging. Mastering Social Intelligence™ gives you the ability to develop a consistent online voice, one that is filled with personality and emotion. It provides a sense of camaraderie between you and your customers, makes them feel special, and solidifies their interest in engaging with you.
Effective engagement is priceless, so is understanding how your efforts make the right impact. Social Listening can provide your business with a firsthand look at how your Brand is perceived online, and Social Intelligence™ will enable you to easily navigate the media channels to get right messages to the right people in the right voice. That way, you cultivate a tribe of loyal followers—the people who become the lifeblood of your business.
