Brand

Product

Industry

Key personnel

Intent

how

At any social event you want to be part of the conversation that most interests you. In social media, that means listening to those who are talking about your business. So you need to listen for the conversations before you can find the people.

Breaking your listening program into five key segments can help you manage your focus and also provide clear escalation paths within your business. Create a list of keywords related to each segment.

Brand: Clearly you want to be aware of any specific mentions of your brand. Also include mis-spellings

Industry: You want to keep track of your competitors, right? Create keyword lists of your competitor brand and product names. Add to this list the top 5 trends facing your industry. You want to be across these.

Key personnel: Do you know what your boss is up to online? What about your CEO? Don’t be the last to know! Make sure you monitor key executives and social media participants.

Intent: Do people love you? Do they not? Consumer conversation can be robust, so make sure you monitor keywords related to your brand, your promise and your products with appropriate (and inappropriate) modifiers. For example, if someone really doesn’t like my blog, they may write servantofchaos sucks. And I’d like to know about it.

listento

socialmedia

What you’ll hear Why

Questions Awareness

Qualifications and fit Interest

Competition Consideration

Complaints and compliments

Trial

Intent Purchase

Responsiveness and engagement

Service

Influence Loyalty

who1

what2

Product: Create keyword lists of your products and services. Add to this list a short descriptions of the problem that these products/services solve.

how3

Setup keyword searches in a variety of search engines and import the RSS feeds into your Google Reader account. Use iGoogle, NetVibes or Feedly to display your aggregated Google Reader information in an easy-to-read format.

Learn more:To turn social media into business insight, subscribe to www.servantofchaos.com