Social media is a great place for businesses to learn what customers want, what competitors are up to, and keep a pulse on current industry climate. Companies big and small are turning to social listening to garner important information previously left to customer surveys and focus groups. But with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn (just to name a few of the many social networks you might be using), it can be hard to keep track of what’s being said where, let alone keep up.
How do you sift through the noise so you can focus on what matters to your company?
The key is to narrow your scope – know what you are looking for, and put practices in place to help you keep an eye on your audience.
GREMLN’s dashboard offers several features to help keep you organized and on top of your social listening game. In this post, we’ll not only be sharing social listening tips (helpful for any kind of business) – but we’ll also be showing you how-to videos to make understanding and setting up your GREMLN Dashboard even easier!
If you’re just getting started with GREMLN, or aren’t quite sure what we’re about – here’s a video that will teach you how to set up your dashboard for the very first time. Having an organized dashboard will keep you breathing easier while you manage your various social media accounts.
First, let’s get your audience in line with Twitter Lists.
Twitter Lists are useful for keeping your audience organized. When you have several hundreds (or thousands) of followers, keeping up with what they are saying can be exhausting. However, if you organize your followers into segmented lists, you can monitor their comments with ease. Twitter Lists are also helpful for keeping an eye on your competitors, spotlighting brand advocates, and keeping up with the latest from your industry’s leaders.
To create a Twitter List, you’ll need to start by signing into your Twitter account via www.twitter.com. Then, go to the icon in the top right corner featuring your Twitter avatar. From there, select “Lists” from the dropdown menu. This will bring you to a page showing the lists you are a member of, and the lists you have created. You’ll need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to click on the “Create New List” button to start a fresh one!
A pop-up will appear, asking you to give your new list a name and a brief description. You can then decide if you’d like your list to be Public (meaning anyone can find it, and follow it, if they wanted to) or Private (meaning only you can see the list).
Once you’ve created your list, you can return to GREMLN to start adding users.
From the dashboard, select the action wheel from any Twitter user you’d like to add to your list. Select “Add/Remove from Lists” from the drop-down menu, and select the List you’d like to add that particular user to. Once you’ve added a handful of users, you can then create a new panel to keep an eye on your Twitter list feed.
Another great GREMLN feature that will help your social listening is “Advanced Search”. “Advanced Search” allows you to create panels for a variety of purposes: monitoring hashtags, specific Twitter users, keywords or phrases (like your company name), your Twitter mentions, or particular product names – to name a few. You can also add geo-targeting to return location-specific tweets!
Hashtags are incredibly useful in social media in order to follow specific topics, products, and brand-specific campaigns. They’re also the key component of Twitter Chats! If you’ve created a brand-specific hashtag, you’ll definitely want to create an advanced search to monitor how often people are using it online – people could be talking about your company, and you may want to jump in on the conversation.
Setting up an advanced search to monitor your Twitter mentions is paramount to your social listening game. You absolutely need to be aware of how people are talking about your company online. By setting up a dedicated panel to monitor your Twitter mentions, you can be sure to respond quickly and appropriately. If people are complimenting your company, thank them. If they’re having an issue, get in touch with them immediately to see how you can help. If they have a question, make sure you reach out with an answer.
You can learn how to create an Advanced Search on GREMLN by watching this video!
Remember — you don’t only want to focus on Tweets that directly mention your company or products and services. You want to pay attention to key influencers – what they’re talking about is likely on the minds of many of their followers, who may become your potential clients. Your current customers may be asking questions about services that you provide – but they don’t know about! So if you pay attention to what others are saying, you can respond to them with how your company can help.
Social listening offers a myriad of ways for you to get to know your clientele even better – it just takes a little front work on your end to set up the proper searches. Then you can schedule regular monitoring to make sure you’re keeping your finger on the pulse of your social audience.
For more tips on how GREMLN can help you take your business’s social media to the next level, be sure to follow us on Twitter @GREMLN!
