The PR Geek

Listening And The Social Web

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Today we live in a world that lives as much online as it does offline. We can engage with our peers across counties, countries and continents at any time of the day or night and this is now easier than ever before with the advent of the smartphone. With this in mind companies are more conscious than ever of the impact these conversations can have on their brand and their business, therefore listening to the social web has become a key part of their PR and corporate strategy.

So what is listening in the context of the social web? Listening, or social media monitoring as it is more commonly known, is the process of searching for the relevant key words and key phrases being used in conversations online to monitor what is being talked about in relation to your brand or business. This monitoring can cover what is being said about your brand or business specifically as well as what is being said about the wider industry in which your brand or business sits. This includes what is being said about your competitors.

Listening is important. A researched and well planned listening strategy provides the solid foundations for your social media strategy and as with any kind of strategy planning is key.

The main question I get asked when talking to companies about social media is “What should we be listening for?” With so much information and so many sites out there it’s important to plan your listening strategy like you would plan any other area of a campaign or initiative. I personally believe a three pronged approach works best. These three prongs cover brand, competitor and industry focussed listening. This way you can cover all areas without becoming too overwhelmed, it also helps to organise the information into these three groups for analysis later. You can also classify the conversations within each groups as questions, complaints, compliments or leads which will help when it comes to measuring your progress and engaging with your audiences.

Another important consideration in the social web listening game is where to listen. There is no ‘one size fits all’ plan, as different consumer groups congregate in different places online just as they do offline. Social media goes way beyond Twitter and Facebook, it’s anywhere you can contribute, create and share content online, it’s everything from forums and message boards to blogs and fan sites so it will be your initial listening that will help you to pin point where your audiences congregate.

The main thing to keep in mind when you start to listen to the social web is to start with more general terms and a broad search. This way you will be able to find where the relevant discussions are focussed and then move on to more specific, targeted searches.

So how do we listen? This is where a basic knowledge of key words will really help you out and a great tip that I have always found useful is to think like your consumer. If you were searching for a product or service online what search term would you use? So when it comes to brand focussed listening you need to be searching for conversations that mention your brand/business name, your brand/business’s products and services and key search terms associated with these, key search terms associated with recent campaigns, the names of key stakeholders within your brand or business and abbreviations and misspellings of all of the above (remember, not everyone has perfect spelling or knows your brand and products like you do).

The key aim here is to understand what is being said about your brand/business online, or whether people are talking about you online at all. If they’re not then this is not to say they are not talking at all. If you are a new brand/business then the conversation may not have started yet. If you are a well established brand/business your tribes may not yet be congregating online, but only by listening can you gather this information which will help to inform your future strategies.

In terms of competitor focussed listening you will be searching for the same kinds of conversations that you would be for your own brand/business. It is through these conversations that you will learn what is happening at competitor HQ, what new products and services they are planning to offer etc. These conversations will tell you what your competition is doing but also what they are not and it is always an advantage to be aware.

Finally, industry focussed listening is intended to help you to listen to conversations that discuss the larger environment within which your brand/business sits. Listening at this level will allow you to understand where you sit within your industry as a whole. It will help you to identify trending topics and issues that are emerging online and what the different communities or tribes are saying about them. Terms and phrases you will want to focus on here will be those related to your industry and it’s products or services as a whole, those related to professional organisations which endorse your industry and it’s products or services, names of industry pioneers, those related to emerging technologies or processes.

And that is listening and the social web. Once you have your listening strategy in place and have started to collate and analyse the data that is derived the next thing to do is to start measuring. If you are ever going to know how far you have come or how much of an affect your social media strategy has had on your brand/business you need to know where you started, so in my next instalment we’ll be talking about measurement and the social web.

XoXo
theprgeek

To be or not to be? Isn’t that always the question?

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Whatever you’re thinking about, it seems to always come down to one thing, to be or not to be? To be or not to be good, to be or not to be brave, to suck it up or not? I don’t think I need to go on.

When Shakespeare penned this famous line do you think he realised the resonance that it would have with people throughout generations? That it would be as relevant today as it was many hundreds of years ago? The poignant context of this question today is to be or not to be social. It’s the question that so many business owners ask day after day. Do I need a facebook page, do I need a twitter account, should I stumble? Really the questions that these people need to ask is are my audience engaged with social media? PR in the 21st century is about communicating with people where, when and in a way that they want to be communicated with. Social media is a platform to do this but there are a number of other considerations that need to be made before you go gung ho and jump on the social media band wagon.

There are three main stages within social media strategy, Listening, Measurement and Engagement, and I’m going to be talking about all three in more detail over the next week. So before you get yourself in a twitter over your social media strategy, come back and learn more.

XoXo
theprgeek

What would you do for your dream job?

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Well I would give up Christmas. Forever! And no, I’m really not joking.

I had an interview on Friday at the most amazing agency I have ever had the pleasure of stepping inside and I can honestly say I would give up Christmas in order to get the job.

As a student who graduated post credit crunch and pre slight economic recovery I’ve be thrown into a PR job market that has been over subscribed and under nourished with the entry level jobs that graduates dream about. Because of this we have been left to either grab whichever job comes up first in order to pay the bills or hold out and continue to work in unpaid internships until we have enough experience to really wow the best agencies.

Unfortunately my financial standing at the time didn’t allow time for unpaid work so I was forced to take the first job that came along. All of this to be able to continue to pay the bills on the ridiculously over priced apartment that myself and a friend had signed a 12 month contract on. Why did no one tell me that it should be dream job first, dream apartment second. So stuck in to a 12 month contract I found a job in my local area. I had my dream apartment which I was struggling to afford the bills on, no social life and far from what I would call my dream job. Like the British economy, I was left wondering where things had gotten so off track.

Things have changed a little since then. I am no longer paying sky high rent on my dream apartment, I am back living at home and searching for my dream job. That dream job is a PR Account Executive and I had an interview for the role on Friday at an agency where I instantly felt at home. Great people, great offices and a great ethos. Forget the dream apartment, in PR you probably spend more time at your desk than at home so a good working environment is way more important than the dream home at this early stage.

I should know in the next couple of days whether or not I have been shortlisted for the position and every time my iPhone pings to tell me I have an e-mail my heart skips a beat and then pounds through my chest. I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous. In fact I don’t get this nervous when attempting to sing the high E flat at the end of Defying Gravity in front of an audience. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something so much. For me this really is the stuff that dreams are made of, but what would you do for your dream job?

XoXo
theprgeek