Social media offers an unadulterated view of issues and opinions that shape brand preference
When developing strategic communication plans for companies in the aviation industry, I always want to know what’s going on in the customer’s mind. Customer insight can be attained via several channels using different tactics. For example, insights can be gained from:
- Focus groups
- Questionnaires
- Surveys
- One-on-one interviews
- Social listening
Several of the above-mentioned tactics have been the staple for customer research for many years with documented pros and cons associated with each tactic.
Social listening is a relatively new tactic that relies on monitoring social media channels. Mining the channels brings forth an abundance of customers’ opinions and conversations about your brand and information about competitors.
Good social monitoring brings about actionable engagement strategies
Social monitoring goes beyond Facebook “likes” or Twitter “followers.” It provides an interpretation of the online conversation and how it relates to the purchase intent of customers interested in your brand. Think of it as an early warning system about product functionality, advertising messaging, and emotional connection which provides the ability to course correct marketing strategies before experiencing a decline in sales.
Forrester Research estimates that $1.6 billion will be spent this year on social brand tracking. For that investment, savvy airlines and aviation manufacturers will have a front row seat for ascertaining the tone of the conversation, what the interest levels are for their brand, and what brand perceptions are being formed in the customer’s mind.
What social monitoring brings to the table
Customer Insight – helps aviation companies ascertain purchasing intent, triggers for purchasing behavior, and specific communities in which to focus resources.
Brand Insight – aligns Key Performance Indexes (KPI) to understand how awareness, perception, and brand consideration are formed.
Category Insight – helps companies determine how to capitalize on opportunities in specific business segments.
Social listening platforms
It takes two to have a conversation. Blogs, websites, Facebook pages, Pinterest boards, and tweets invite customers to express themselves to you and to each other. These are global conversations about brand loyalty, customer frustrations, and service shortcomings that can identify areas for improvement.
Making sense of the conversations
Depending on the size of the company and resources available, social monitoring can be very simple or highly structured. There are several online providers that can supply you with platforms and dashboards incorporating a host of tools to acquire and categorize the conversations, bringing statistical significance to the information for actionable implementation.
Social media monitoring tools (paid):
A comparision of the above tools can be downloaded at pr2020.com
photo credit: afagen via photopin cc
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