I blogged two posts are related to listening for social media marketing. The first post is Social Media Marketing - Listening and Joinning Conversations and the second is A Letter to Datuk Seri Najib on Social Media Marketing.

Why is listening so important on social media marketing?

1. What people say about your brand?
People out there may hate or love2. Understanding the latest trend of your industry

The world changes very fast, we need to keep changing our businesses in order to suit the world. By listening to your customers, you are able to do that. What is the latest technology has been developed for your industry? What are the latest social media that attractive a lot of people (new markets for you)? What people are talking now about your industry? Those are very important questions you have to answer for your company social media marketing.

Manage your brand by listening to your customers is the most direct way. If Brazilian brand theorist Ricardo Guimaraes is right, they your brand is whatever people say it is. You'd better quickly find a way to listen to them and listen to them carefully.

2. Understanding the latest trend of your industry
The world changes very fast, we need to keep changing our businesses in order to suit the world. By listening to your customers, you are able to do that. What is the latest technology has been developed for your industry? What are the latest social media that attractive a lot of people (new markets for you)? What people are talking now about your industry? Those are very important questions you have to answer for your company social media marketing.

3. Save research money and increase effectiveness
As I said, listening to your customers is the most direct way for your company brand, products or services. But other than using free tools to listen to your customers, doing survey is another way to listen to your customers. If your companies keep doing survey, it helps even more in listening to your customers accurately. You can save your money on researching and developing products or services that your customers don't need.

4. Looking for influencers in your industry
In the new world, word of mouth marketing is getting important. Companies need to look for influencers for their brands, products or services. A blog post can influence a lot of people, a video on Youtube can make a lot of people buy your products or service, a discussion forum thread can help you in increase your brand awareness, a Facebook wall post can bring you a lot of sales and a tweet on Twitter can help in you turning your companies bad image to good.
You have to look for those influencers online by listening to them first. They help you for your social media marketing.

5. Getting new products, new services or marketing ideas from customers
Sitting in the meeting room and brainstorming new products or marketing ideas doesn't help your if you don't go out and listen to your customers. It is customers who buy your products, services and your marketing ideas. By listening to your people's problem, you can produce great products, services and marketing ideas to solve their problems. Why not turn to your customers rather than depending on your marketing team only? your brand. In the new world, when they want to talk about a brand (regardless good or bad), they blog, they discuss on forums, they talk on social networking sites. How should you find out? Just listen to them by using Google Search, Twitter Search, Google Blog Search, Google Alert, Google Reader, etc. All of the tools are free. With Google reader, you can subscribe RSS feed to keep yourself updated.

Manage your brand by listening to your customers is the most direct way. If Brazilian brand theorist Ricardo Guimaraes is right, they your brand is whatever people say it is. You'd better quickly find a way to listen to them and listen to them carefully.