On social media, your customers may already be telling you what type of information they want. It\u2019s up to your team to figure out how to translate it into content they will read.<\/p>\n
Use Social Media to Learn What Your Customers are Already Talking About<\/h2>\nThen Create Content on Those Topics<\/h3>\n\n- \n
Learn industry hashtags<\/p>\n
\n- Do your customers use different hashtags than you do?<\/li>\n
- Stay on top of trends and create content about them in order to benefit from increased search engine traffic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Check competitor mentions, hashtags, and misspellings<\/p>\n
\n- What questions are your competitors fielding?<\/li>\n
- Learn about what customers need and want to know about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Keep an eye on more than just the big platforms<\/p>\n
\n- Where are your customers talking about you?<\/li>\n
- Have your social media listening tool focused on anywhere customers are talking about you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Ask<\/p>\n
\n- \n
Who knows what your customers need?<\/p>\n
\n- The customers themselves<\/li>\n
- Your sales and customer service teams<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Use social media to poll and ask questions<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/10\/Content_Marketing_graphic1.png?strip=all&quality=95\")
<\/img> <\/p>\n
Learn Industry Hashtags<\/h2>\n
Some of the industry terms your organization uses may not reflect how your actual audience discusses your industry or company. Because any word or phrase can become a hashtag (there isn\u2019t a requirement on who can create them or who uses them), it\u2019s important to do thorough industry research to determine which hashtags and phrases your customers actually use on social media \u2014 not just the ones you wish they would use.<\/p>\n
It pays to follow industry influencers, or users who personify your perfect target audience. Take note of which hashtags they use. You should also regularly read industry publications and set up Google or Buzzsumo alerts so you can track when key phrases go out of style and are replaced with something else.<\/p>\n
If you stay ahead of the curve in your content by using trending hashtags<\/a> to guide content creation<\/u>, you\u2019ll get more website traffic. This is because searches for newer terms are usually higher \u2014 this is something you can track on Google Trends \u2014 and you can often earn more clout with your audience by using the new terms.<\/p>\nCheck Competitor Mentions, Hashtags, and Misspellings<\/h2>\n
Marketers need to know what people are saying about their company, but they don\u2019t properly track what customers are saying about competitors. Look for repeated questions asked of your competitors that could give your marketing team content ideas for your own blog.<\/p>\n
For instance, if your company offers LLC business setup, and your top competitor consistently gets questions on Twitter asking about fees for a specific type of LLC or the filing fee for a specific state, turn that topic into a blog post on your own site. Chances are high that if your audience is asking the question on social media, they have probably asked it in a search engine as well.<\/p>\n
If your competitors use special hashtags for contests, taglines, or campaigns, you should track them. For example, Nike uses #JustDoIt<\/a> as a hashtag (and their customers often do, too), so it\u2019s important for its competitors to track it with their social media listening tool.<\/p>\nFinally, when it comes to social media customer service<\/a>,<\/u> tracking misspellings is key for proper social media listening. You know how your company name and products are spelled, but sometimes your customers don\u2019t. Think about different ways your audience may be spelling your name or offerings, and track them on social media sites regularly. Some customers use a hashtag instead of a direct mention (using the @ symbol) for tagging a company, so be sure to check this for your own organization and competitors (e.g. @Nike versus #Nike). You won\u2019t get an alert about a mention for hashtags unless you\u2019re tracking them in your social listening platform.<\/p>\nIn addition to offering better customer service, you may get more insight into what customers are saying about you.<\/p>\n
Write BOFU Content that Converts<\/h2>\n\n- When you learn what customers at the bottom of your funnel are talking about, it\u2019s time to write content explicitly for them.<\/li>\n
- Six characteristics of content that sells change:\n
\n- It\u2019s direct and assertive<\/li>\n
- It starts with what your prospects already know<\/li>\n
- (which you can learn through focused social media listening)<\/li>\n
- It builds your argument linearly<\/li>\n
- It\u2019s supported, not swamped, by data<\/li>\n
- It asks for the order<\/li>\n
- It makes now seem like the ideal time to act<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/10\/Content_Marketing_graphic2.png?strip=all&quality=95\")
<\/img> <\/p>\n
Go Outside Facebook and Twitter<\/h2>\n
Your marketing department have likely mastered social listening on Facebook and Twitter, but are you checking other social platforms where customers may have conversations about your brand? Finding mentions of your industry terms, company name, or product offerings on sites such as Instagram, Reddit, Yelp, or Quora could help you earn more engagement from more users in your audience.<\/p>\n
Without being salesy or self-promotional, your social listening team should monitor the platforms where your customers are, even if they don\u2019t have an official company account. Just because you don\u2019t regularly publish content on Reddit doesn\u2019t mean no one talks about your business on the site.<\/p>\n
Review sites including TripAdvisor or Angie\u2019s List can also provide a wealth of content ideas<\/a>. Many reviews point out specific examples of customers\u2019 experiences with your company, which can then be turned into different types of content.<\/p>\nFor instance, the Hampton Inn chain of hotels offers guests warm chocolate chip cookies every day. This inspired a thread on Flyertalk.com<\/a>, a travel forum. If Hampton Inn was looking for content ideas, they could publish their famous cookie recipe or hold a contest for the next cookie recipe to be used in their hotels. Pull what people are confused about or love from your company reviews and think about expanding it to give your content followers more information or clarification. You could also just engage and have fun.<\/p>\nAsk the Audience<\/h2>\n
Learning what your audience is already interested in is one of the primary benefits of social listening. However, you can take a proactive approach thanks to efforts made by social platforms to allow brands to engage more with their audience. For instance, Twitter Polls<\/a> were introduced in 2015. They allow Twitter users to create polls for followers and other Twitter users to answer. Polls run for a set time period (up to seven days) and can have up to four answers (but respondents can only pick one).<\/p>\n5 Reasons to Include Polling in Your Social Media Strategy<\/h2>\n\n- Receive free feedback<\/li>\n
- Gain a deeper understanding of your customers and community in real-time<\/li>\n
- Build your community<\/li>\n
- Generate more content\n
\n- The poll itself<\/li>\n
- The results of the poll<\/li>\n
- Content created around the topics the poll presented<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Drive traffic to your blog<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- \n
- \n
Learn industry hashtags<\/p>\n
- \n
- Do your customers use different hashtags than you do?<\/li>\n
- Stay on top of trends and create content about them in order to benefit from increased search engine traffic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Check competitor mentions, hashtags, and misspellings<\/p>\n
- \n
- What questions are your competitors fielding?<\/li>\n
- Learn about what customers need and want to know about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Keep an eye on more than just the big platforms<\/p>\n
- \n
- Where are your customers talking about you?<\/li>\n
- Have your social media listening tool focused on anywhere customers are talking about you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Ask<\/p>\n
- \n
- \n
Who knows what your customers need?<\/p>\n
- \n
- The customers themselves<\/li>\n
- Your sales and customer service teams<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
Use social media to poll and ask questions<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/img> <\/p>\nLearn Industry Hashtags<\/h2>\n
Some of the industry terms your organization uses may not reflect how your actual audience discusses your industry or company. Because any word or phrase can become a hashtag (there isn\u2019t a requirement on who can create them or who uses them), it\u2019s important to do thorough industry research to determine which hashtags and phrases your customers actually use on social media \u2014 not just the ones you wish they would use.<\/p>\n
It pays to follow industry influencers, or users who personify your perfect target audience. Take note of which hashtags they use. You should also regularly read industry publications and set up Google or Buzzsumo alerts so you can track when key phrases go out of style and are replaced with something else.<\/p>\n
If you stay ahead of the curve in your content by using trending hashtags<\/a> to guide content creation<\/u>, you\u2019ll get more website traffic. This is because searches for newer terms are usually higher \u2014 this is something you can track on Google Trends \u2014 and you can often earn more clout with your audience by using the new terms.<\/p>\n
Check Competitor Mentions, Hashtags, and Misspellings<\/h2>\n
Marketers need to know what people are saying about their company, but they don\u2019t properly track what customers are saying about competitors. Look for repeated questions asked of your competitors that could give your marketing team content ideas for your own blog.<\/p>\n
For instance, if your company offers LLC business setup, and your top competitor consistently gets questions on Twitter asking about fees for a specific type of LLC or the filing fee for a specific state, turn that topic into a blog post on your own site. Chances are high that if your audience is asking the question on social media, they have probably asked it in a search engine as well.<\/p>\n
If your competitors use special hashtags for contests, taglines, or campaigns, you should track them. For example, Nike uses #JustDoIt<\/a> as a hashtag (and their customers often do, too), so it\u2019s important for its competitors to track it with their social media listening tool.<\/p>\n
Finally, when it comes to social media customer service<\/a>,<\/u> tracking misspellings is key for proper social media listening. You know how your company name and products are spelled, but sometimes your customers don\u2019t. Think about different ways your audience may be spelling your name or offerings, and track them on social media sites regularly. Some customers use a hashtag instead of a direct mention (using the @ symbol) for tagging a company, so be sure to check this for your own organization and competitors (e.g. @Nike versus #Nike). You won\u2019t get an alert about a mention for hashtags unless you\u2019re tracking them in your social listening platform.<\/p>\n
In addition to offering better customer service, you may get more insight into what customers are saying about you.<\/p>\n
Write BOFU Content that Converts<\/h2>\n
- \n
- When you learn what customers at the bottom of your funnel are talking about, it\u2019s time to write content explicitly for them.<\/li>\n
- Six characteristics of content that sells change:\n
- \n
- It\u2019s direct and assertive<\/li>\n
- It starts with what your prospects already know<\/li>\n
- (which you can learn through focused social media listening)<\/li>\n
- It builds your argument linearly<\/li>\n
- It\u2019s supported, not swamped, by data<\/li>\n
- It asks for the order<\/li>\n
- It makes now seem like the ideal time to act<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/img> <\/p>\n
Go Outside Facebook and Twitter<\/h2>\n
Your marketing department have likely mastered social listening on Facebook and Twitter, but are you checking other social platforms where customers may have conversations about your brand? Finding mentions of your industry terms, company name, or product offerings on sites such as Instagram, Reddit, Yelp, or Quora could help you earn more engagement from more users in your audience.<\/p>\n
Without being salesy or self-promotional, your social listening team should monitor the platforms where your customers are, even if they don\u2019t have an official company account. Just because you don\u2019t regularly publish content on Reddit doesn\u2019t mean no one talks about your business on the site.<\/p>\n
Review sites including TripAdvisor or Angie\u2019s List can also provide a wealth of content ideas<\/a>. Many reviews point out specific examples of customers\u2019 experiences with your company, which can then be turned into different types of content.<\/p>\n
For instance, the Hampton Inn chain of hotels offers guests warm chocolate chip cookies every day. This inspired a thread on Flyertalk.com<\/a>, a travel forum. If Hampton Inn was looking for content ideas, they could publish their famous cookie recipe or hold a contest for the next cookie recipe to be used in their hotels. Pull what people are confused about or love from your company reviews and think about expanding it to give your content followers more information or clarification. You could also just engage and have fun.<\/p>\n
Ask the Audience<\/h2>\n
Learning what your audience is already interested in is one of the primary benefits of social listening. However, you can take a proactive approach thanks to efforts made by social platforms to allow brands to engage more with their audience. For instance, Twitter Polls<\/a> were introduced in 2015. They allow Twitter users to create polls for followers and other Twitter users to answer. Polls run for a set time period (up to seven days) and can have up to four answers (but respondents can only pick one).<\/p>\n
5 Reasons to Include Polling in Your Social Media Strategy<\/h2>\n
- \n
- Receive free feedback<\/li>\n
- Gain a deeper understanding of your customers and community in real-time<\/li>\n
- Build your community<\/li>\n
- Generate more content\n
- \n
- The poll itself<\/li>\n
- The results of the poll<\/li>\n
- Content created around the topics the poll presented<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Drive traffic to your blog<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- \n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/10\/Content_Marketing_graphic3.png?strip=all&quality=95\")
<\/img> <\/p>\n