Ten Ways to Listen to What Your Customers Are Saying About Your Company

I often talk about the fact that social media is fundamentally different from traditional media because it allows you to build relationships by engaging in two-way conversations with your customers.  Having an engaging conversation involves listening.  Otherwise, you just have two people talking at each other, which doesn’t do much to further the relationship.  The advantage of social media is not that it lets you talk at more people, its that it lets you talk with more people.

If you are listening carefully, you can also find more potential customers with whom you can engage in conversation.  People who are already talking about your company, your services and your industry – and they would probably welcome what you have to say.  Listen carefully and you can find these people.  So how can you listen to what people are saying on the internet?  Here are some things you can put into practice:

1. Set up an RSS Reader - RSS stands for real simple syndication.  As we evolved into a world where websites are constantly adding new content, it’s become difficult to keep up with it all.  How can I possibly keep on top of the daily onslaught of new New York Times articles, YouTube videos and TechCrunch blog entries?  Once upon a time, you had to go to each site individually to read the latest information.  RSS allows you to gather all the latest content from multiple sources into one place, called an RSS Reader, so it’s easy for you to find.  I read about 20 different magazines, blogs and other sites a day and it doesn’t take me more than half an hour because I use an RSS Reader.  An RSS Reader can drastically improve the efficiency with which you are able to “listen” to what people are saying.

First you’ll need to set up your reader.  There are a number of different ones out there; I happen to use Google Reader.  Once you have your reader ready, you need to subscribe to the RSS feeds from your favorite sources.  RSS is usualy represented by an orange icon with little white radio waves.  Some web browsers, like Firefox, let you know if a site has an RSS feed by placing this icon in the URL bar – all you have to do is click on it to subscribe.  Often sites will have multiple RSS feeds.  For example, the New York Times has different feeds for different sections of the paper.  Set up your RSS reader, visit your favorite sites and subscribe to their feeds.  Then come back for more, because we’re going to use RSS for a lot of our listening.

2. Google Alerts - You probably use Google to search by typing terms into the box and clicking the button.  Or perhaps you use the built-in search box in your browser.  But you don’t have to search for everything manually.  Did you know that you can set up Google to constantly perform searches in the background and alert you when it’s found something new?  It’s called Google Alerts.  If you don’t already have a Google Account (such as the one you use for GMail), set one up.  Then go to Google Alerts, enter your search terms (remember to use quotation marks around your terms if you want exact matches), enter the type of content you want to search (blogs? videos? I tend to opt for “Comprehensive”), and tell Google how often you want to receive alerts.  Finally, you tell Google you how you want these alerts delivered to you, by email or as an RSS feed.  I favor the RSS feed.

3. Twitter Search – Searching Google is like searching through a library.  It’s as if you could walk in and search through every single book and magazine article for particular words.  (The terms you are searching for are called “keywords.”)  With Google, you search through documents – web pages, articles, etc. – items that people invested time into thoughtfully writing, editing and publishing.

What makes Twitter powerful, and so radically different than the social mediums that came before it, is that it allows you to search through conversations, not just documents.  It’s as if we all spoke with cartoon word bubbles and you could sift through these word bubbles for keywords.  Moreover, you can search through these conversation in real time, as they are happening.  We are no longer limited to searching through what people have written; now we can search what they are saying.  When Kanye West was on Jay Leno a few weeks ago, you could log onto Twitter and see that it was the hottest topic of conversation, and you could see exactly what people were saying about it.

There are a number of ways to search Twitter.  You can do it from the Twitter site itself, and most of the third-party applications for Twitter like TweetDeck have incorporated the search function.  Use Twitter to search for your company to find out what people are saying about it. Conduct a search on Twitter by typing your keywords into the search box and clicking the magnifying glass.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could constantly run this search in the background so we don’t have to come back to Twitter each time?  We can – using RSS!  Just click the orange icon next to “RSS Feed for this Query” and you can now follow all the Twitter conversations about your company in your RSS Reader.

You can also find out what people are talking about in general.  Twitter shows you what keywords are being mentioned most frequently.  You can also view hot topics on sites like TwitScoop.

4. Blog Search – There are a number of search engines that specialize in blogs, such as Technorati.  It operates in the same ways as Google, but it only searches blogs.  After the site retrieves your results for your company, click the orange RSS  icon that says “Subscribe” and add your blog search to your RSS Reader.

5. Facebook Search – Since the introduction and explosive growth of Twitter, Facebook has adapted (and in some cases outright copied) by incorporating new features.  Facebook has placed more emphasis on the NewsFeed (the center column that updates you on everything your friends are doing).  It has  also begun to incorporate Status Updates from the News Feed into its search results.  Type the name of your company into Facebook and you’ll not only see the Pages, Profiles, Groups and Applications that match these terms, but also the posts by other people.  You can filter these results using the categories in the left column.  Click on “Posts by Everyone” and you can listen to what people are saying about your company on Facebook.  Unfortunately, Facebook does not provide RSS feeds for your query results.

6. Generate Keywords to Expand Your Search – So far, we’ve been searching for the name of your company.  Consider expanding your search terms when using the tools above.  Search the name of your competitors, the name of your industry, or the name of your products and set up RSS feeds for each.  I am working with a modeling agency that is participating in Boston Fashion Week, so I have search feeds for that event.  I am working with a musician who plays piano rock in the vein of Billy Joel and Ben Folds, so I am searching for both of those terms.  How can you expand your search to find more people who might be interested in engaging in conversation with your company?

7. Use Google Analytics – They say actions speak louder than words, so sometimes the best way to listen to your customers is to watch what they do.  Google Analytics (another tool you didn’t know Google had) is a great way to track the actions of people who come to your site.  It can be particularly powerful when coupled with Landing Pages.

The idea behind a landing page is simple – not all people come to your website from the same place or for the same reason.  They may come because they found you in Google, they clicked on a link in a blog or they typed your url directly into their browser.  I work with a Talent Agency that deals with models, actors and clients.  The first time a potential client comes to the site, should he be dumped onto the same homepage as the actors?  Or should the client come a page that advertises the company’s services, while the actor lands on a page that talks about the acting classes offered?  You can design landing pages for different people based on the words they search for in Google or the ad they saw on Facebook or the link in your email newsletter.  The basic concept behind landing pages is that different people should be led to different parts of your site.

Google Analytics lets you inserts a snippet of programming code onto your different landing pages  to measure the traffic that each one receives.  Insert the code and you can see how people are arriving at your site.  It allows you to evaluate the different methods of marketing your site.  Are most people coming from Google, Facebook or elsewhere?

Google Analytics lets you insert another snippet of code to measure your Conversions.  When people come to your website, what do you want them to do?  Make a purchase?  Fill out a registration form?  Sign up for an email newsletter?  When a person comes to your site and follows through all the way to your end goal, it’s called a Conversion.  Usually, after somebody accomplishes the desired task (such as making a purchase), your website will redirect them to a thank you page.  Insert the second snippet of Google tracking code here, and that’s how Google is able to track not only the number of people who come to your site, but also the number that actually accomplish the end goal.

Your Conversion Rate is the number of people who accomplish the desired task divided by the total number of people who come to your site.  Why is this important?  Maybe you specialize in food photography and a ton of people come to your site after searching the term “photography.”  However, not many of those people actually fill out a inquiry form for your services.  (Perhaps they were all looking for wedding photographers.)  You get far less traffic to your website from people looking up the term “food photography” because, let’s face it, there are just fewer people overall looking for that term.  But using Google Analytics, you can see there’s a much higher percentage of people coming to your site after searching for “food photography” who actually fill out an inquiry form.  So it’s worth your while to devote your resources to the more specific term.

Your customers speak to you when they act.  Google Analytics can help you listen.

8. Track your Facebook Page Insights – Facebook has its own set of analytics for companies hosting a Facebook page.  Click on “Insights” and you can see the growth of your page’s fanbase along with a demographic breakdown.  More importantly, you can also see how people are interacting with your page.  Are they posting on your wall, making comments or giving you a thumbs up?  Facebook Insights breaks down your fan interactions by time and demographic so you can gauge what’s engaging your customers and what’s not.

9. Send an Email Survey – If you’ve built an email database, survey your customers from time to time.  You can also post a poll on your website.  Unless your last name is Zogby, the results may not be scientifically accurate and you have to be careful how you word the questions, but if you’re looking for some quick and dirty feedback, this will work.

10. Post Contact Information on Your Website – This one is so simple, you wonder if it needs to be said.  But I’ve been frustrated by enough websites that don’t have contact information, so I think it bears repeating.  If you have a customer that feels strongly enough about your company that they are willing to contact you directly, make it easy for them.  Post an email address, a phone number or a contact form.  When you do receive an email or phone call from a customer, take the time to answer it – even if they are upset.  Strike that.  Especially if they are upset.  You build your customer base when you engage your customers directy.

Did I miss anything?  How are you listening to your customers?  Which method has been most effective for your company?