I’m back, y’all, and fully caffeinated.
Okay, so if you’ve missed it, I was struck with inspiration and started talking about social listening vs. social media monitoring and went down the rabbit hole in my examples. (I blame my high-functioning anxiety, dismissive-avoidant, Scorpio sun, Taurus moon, and Aquarius rising for this).
Check out Part 1 and Part 2, or else the information below will greatly confuse you.
Que the lights! We’re rolling in 1…2…3! Action!
Previously in last week’s episode of I’ve had too much coffee, I present two results for social listening — the good, the bad, and the super ugly.
Each of these results yielded fruits that you can now use to further your strategy.
The Good: Woohoo! Throw a pizza party and ask your boss to give you a raise (kidding but that would be awesome :)), But seriously, it’s great that the new product launch went well, but that does not mean your job is over. I would recommend sharing this news with others teams and strategizing ways to use this to your advantage. Let’s say a few conversations were circling around green-washing regarding your product–let’s get ahead of it. When marketing your products across all channels, push the “science” of making your product, push the messaging of your company’s to stay true to their customers, have C-Level emplyoees speak about the product, publish articles, and overall do anything you can to get ahead of any bad press. So when someone accuses you of green-washing, you have all this content, speeches, blogs, and audience approval to buffer you.
Another example is to see how else you can push this wildly popular product. There can be more developed e-commerce and digital marketing efforts, influencer marketing, paid social ads, and even a fancier display in brick-and-mortar stores. It’s risky to put your eggs all in one basket, but if you’re noticing the popularity of a product, your company will be more inclined to throw more budget $$$$ into promoting it. (also, a side note, these are just my suggestion–a stranger off the internet, so please just take these examples with a grain of salt. I don’t know the circumstances of your business, and I’m highly caffeinated so…yeah lol).
The Bad and super ugly: Oh, noooo, the world is over! Sike, no, the world is not over, but now it’s crunch time. Sometimes, the most challenging times can teach you more than the highs. So before you breakdown into hysterics, let’s take a step back and wonder why customers are responding this way.
- What have our competitors been releasing? Have they changed their packaging as well? Are they using similar products?
- Should we have waited to release the product?
- What is the overall sentiment of anti-aging serums?
- What could we have done differently to prepare?
- Did we use focus groups? Performed enough surveys?
- Should you have pushed the product differently? Emails? Direct mail? Instagram? Influencer marketing?
As you are running damage control, you can use this time to reflect on those questions to ensure there are no other instances. And similar to The Good part, you can also lead with your science-led approach in output messages. It will be more of an uphill battle, but now you will know the importance of social listening and how it can save you a headache (and a panic attack).
What are your thoughts on social listening and social media monitoring? What you do in these situations?
Mecca-Amirah Jackson 