Evian ran a promotion to give away bottled water during August in New York. People had only to tweet using the hashtag #evianBottleService to get free water delivered to them on the streets.
To pull it off, Evian coordinated its social listening efforts and its marketing strategy -- a valuable combination for brands that want to make use of what they hear online.
"Social listening is the ability to monitor activity on social networks, whether that be by setting up keywords to track, focusing on a specific hashtag or brand handles, or using listening as a channel for customer service," explained Aaron Everson, cofounder and president of Shoutlet.
"Often, it's all of the above and then some," he told CRM Buyer. "It's important for companies for a lot of reasons, and ultimately should inform a brand with actionable insights that are based on fan behavior."
Monitoring social media for mentions and hashtags does more than simply alert companies to potential crises that must be managed. It also gives insights into who customers are, what they're thinking, and how the brand's relationship with them can best be managed.
"With a smart social listening strategy, brands can get a real-time look at how they are perceived in the market by competitors, and by customers or potential customers, so they can both keep the momentum going or shift strategy to stay on course for positive sentiment," said Everson.
The fact that social media encourages the sharing of information -- positive and negative -- makes it an invaluable source of feedback and insights. Active social listening makes sense of what people are saying and uses that information to enhance customer relations.
"People on social tend to be very candid. They share their experiences, both good and bad, very openly and very honestly. This is important when it comes to both crisis identification and social customer care," said Everson.
"Brands are paying particular attention to how they listen for brand-related conversations, and building processes for when and how to respond," he said, "in order to ensure the customer relationship remains positive and customers looking for a resolution to an issue receive it promptly."
On social media, people tend to have public conversations that feel private -- making them more honest, open and accessible than they would be in traditional kinds of focus groups.
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Hear, Hear: The Rise of Social Listening