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Why your social listening strategy is good for business

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Social media success doesn’t come down to ad spend or product promotions. Pay attention, listen closely and serve your customers.

Ok. It’s not Christmas. I’m not the grinch, but I can’t help but hear all the noise, noise, noise when it comes to listening to stressed out entrepreneurs who don’t understand why the money they invested in digital advertising isn’t generating a return in business dollars. NOW.

Stop throwing money around and hoping something sticks

If you’ve been pouring money into ads that are about selling your product or telling your customers to care about your product, it may be time to pause. Do you hear crickets when you target “everyone” age 18-65 and then get no engagement? Are you so focused on your landing pages, conversion rates and ROI that you’ve forgotten about your customers?

Here’s what you’re going to do:

  1. Stop selling and pushing your product or service.
  2. Start listening. Start conversations.
  3. Understand your customer and help them. Make their life easier.

It’s nearly impossible to do this by spending money on a single ad. Delivering value and building trust take time. It’s supposed to. Take your customer on a journey with you — share your values and build genuine connections. Tell a story. Become the trusted source of truth that your customers can’t live without.

Start paying attention

Be consistent, be different, be genuine. You wouldn’t slam the door in your customer’s face, right? You wouldn’t hang up the phone, would you? Shoving an ad in your customer’s news feed or not responding to comments on your Facebook business page is doing just that.

As a business owner, you don’t have money to waste. Your customers don’t have time to waste. It’s a noisy noisy marketplace and it’s getting harder to stand out in the crowd. I’m telling you — it’s going to take some time, but it’s going to be worth it.

Slow down and listen

Figure out how to be relevant in a way that’s uniquely yours and get your customers talking so they start telling their friends that they can’t live without you either. That’s how you win.

Kelly Thibodeau

Kelly Thibodeau

Founder & Lead Consultant, Squarely Social

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories that you tell.

Seth Godin