Social Listening Can Tell You Everything for a Better Digital Marketing Campaign

The online world and wide availability of tech devices has opened up B2B digital marketing possibilities. In fact, some of those marketing possibilities don’t even require immediate action on your part, or even for you to create content. There are a few remarkably simply digital marketing techniques that are surprisingly effective.

One of the most simple and the most important is simply listening to conversations about your industry. The B2B world has a lot going on. Because it's so competitive, conversations in the online world are typically more active than ever.

While much of this conversation is coming from buyers, it is also coming from your competition. Listening to these conversation will tell you a lot of what you want to know about your buyers, and it will keep you informed about what your competitors are doing. You should know what people who influence the industry are saying.

All of these people are worth listening to, so that you get a better picture of your demographic and what the best marketing tactics are.

Your only challenge is finding out where these conversations take place. Depending on who the people are, the online locations sometimes vary widely. And when you join in on those conversations, how you interact matters. Here are some tips for getting the most from the groups of people having conversations about your industry:

Listening to Conversations of Potential Buyers

Other than creating customer personas, one of the best ways to understand what your buyers want is by watching their conversations online. This might be on industry message boards or on social media.

Either way, it's a good barometer of understanding buyer pain points and whether these people would actually buy from you. Understanding the problems of the buyers you market to is the backbone of creating targeted content. Feel free to join in on the conversations you find, if you have something to say.

The important thing is to start a natural conversation and not one using hard-sell approaches. Show your expertise, and prove that you know the ins and outs of your industry. Being a helpful participant in a conversation like this with buyers will likely gain you a few followers on social media.

After the conversation, take some time to think about what the takeaways were, so that you can integrate that information into your marketing plan. When you have a full understanding, both your marketing campaign and future conversations will be more targeted and focused.

Listening to Conversations of Competitors

You should always know what your competitors are doing and talking about. In these cases, listening is probably better than joining in on the conversations. Again, industry message boards are plentiful and a good place to frequently find your competitors discussing what works for them and what doesn't.

On places like Twitter, simply doing a hashtag search lets you watch conversations unfold. By studying these discussions, you can better hone your own marketing content by doing something your competitors ultimately didn't do.

Listening to Conversations of Industry Influencers

In your B2B industry, you probably have numerous industry influencers who set precedents for how you approach your marketing or how a business gets run. Those people are likely holding conversations somewhere in cyberspace as well. It pays to find out where they hang out and listen to what they're saying.

Whether you choose to interact with them or not is merely an option, though you can frequently learn more from them if you talk directly. They may even send you a personal email or a private message with valuable information when you prove your credibility.

Keep in mind that you also have thought leaders out there who are possibly outsiders, yet help shape the B2B industry. They can even be politicians or business investors. Find out what they're saying and take notes on how it shapes the way your marketing content ultimately turns out.