Listening is one of the most important elements of any successful businesses. There are hundreds of business books preaching the importance of listening and how to do it effectively. Nevertheless, a great number of businesses have their ears plugged or are trying to listen in the wrong places. However, with the help of new social technologies it is now easier than ever to listen to what your clients are saying about your brand, product, service, experience and even YOU.

People are also offering suggestions and solutions for your business at no cost (your time to listen may cost). In addition, there are millions of potential customers looking for products or services online BUT at the same time are having a hard time finding exactly what they want. Your goal is to help them and add value to their experience.

In comes twitter. With its simplicity, Twitter has become the listener’s tool of choice. With applications such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and Seesmic Desktop listening in on what customers are saying has never been this easy.

At this point you might be asking this question:

“How do I listen on Twitter and how is this going to make me money?”

The search function on Twitter is equivalent to your ears and it will help you listen to what people are saying about you, your brand, products, services, or any other interest of yours. Search has become such a significant part of Twitter that it is now included on Twitter’s homepage.

For demonstration purposes I will be using Tweetdeck as my listening tool of choice and small case study using some of these tactics will be posted tomorrow.

How to Listen on Twitter (The Basics)

Step 1: Download Tweetdeck – It is a free Twitter client that enables to have more control of your Twitter experience. 

Step 2: Read the Beginners Guide to Tweetdeck (It will answer all of your wildest questions including to how to get started)

Step 3:  Create a Search Column

• Click the Search icon at the top-left.

• You will then be prompted to enter a keyword you want to search for.

Step 4: Choose Your Strategy (Target Your Keywords and Using Search)

• Brand Monitoring – If you want to know what people are saying about your company or brand then just add your business name into the search keyword in the step before and that column will give you an idea of what people are saying about your brand.
• Customer Service- Similarly to above, enter your company name and you may add a spicy keyword like “sucks” or “service” using smart search column feature. Tweetdeck recommends using the following parameters in the keyword prompt to search for more than one keyword:
  • AND will search for both search terms (or more if used).
  • OR will for either one or the other search term (or terms).
  • Use ‘quotes’ to search for a specific search phrase.

Note: When using AND or OR they must be used in CAPS.

However, you may search without these parameters at times getting even better results.

Example search: Starbucks service

This will give you all the results of people who are talking about Starbucks’s service in a 140 characters. Listening in on what people are saying about your brand will enable you to improve your product, service, or improve the overall customer experience.

Should you respond to negative commentary? This will be covered in a future post.

(Here is one perspective)

• Listening in for Potential Business – Set up your keywords to reflect the product or services your offer (example: destination weddings). You may also mix the keywords as described in customer service (example: planning AND “destination wedding”). When your search term comes up, you just got yourself a lead. HOWEVER, be cautious as you may be intruding another person’s space. You may choose to respond and help the person who is looking for help planning their destination wedding or any other service that you are offering.
• Competitive Intelligence - Your competitors may already be implementing many strategies and you can learn from them by being a little snoopy. Follow your competitors and see how they are using Twitter

Do you believe your business can benefit from listening  on Twitter?

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Thanks for visiting and keep in touch ~ Alex.