Social Media & The Value of Listening

We all know that a brand exists in the minds of the market. The overall impression your audience has about your product or service is the only one that counts. We also know that despite all our best efforts, a brand’s impression on the market is only partially within the control of it’s marketing team. Much of that impression has to do with external forces such as current events and competitor efforts.

Brand awareness is a valuable first step in almost any sales cycle. “While 80% of advertising and marketing professionals say they are “strongly aware” of their brand’s positioning, only 25% of them can clearly articulate their company’s brand position”.1

A well planned and executed brand strategy aligns a company’s corporate objectives with marketing, sales, customer service and R&D and has them all marching to the same beat. More importantly, it gives customers a song to sing along to as well. The problem is that very often, a company thinks they are delivering one message, but the audience is receiving something entirely different….and sometimes contrary.

Social Media is an important and easily accessible tool that allows a business to “play back” what their customers feel about their brand, whether they are using social media as a marketing medium or not. It’s also very effective to understand public sentiment regarding their competitors brand as well. It can easily determine if a brand strategy is believable and relevant to the market and if the message being received as it was intended.

Results from a listening program can and should be reflected in all media, not just Social Media. By utilizing an integrated marketing approach, these results can be reflected quickly across a broad range of media, reaching the widest possible audience and once again, aligning your brand strategy from the very top corporate levels all the way through to  your customer.

What do you think?

1. Louws Management Corporation Survey, 2007

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