Does your business have a Twitter, Facebook and Linked In Profile? Do you know how it's benefiting your business or if it is at all?

Used correctly social media can be a powerful tool. One thing to remember is that Social Media is not a strategy, it's a set of tools used to implement strategies to achieve business goals.

@frankeliason who spoke at the recent Social Media Success Summit #SMSS11 put it like this:

1. Listen
2. Analyze
3. Engage
4. Measure
5. Adapt
6. Listen

How Will Listening Help Your Business?

Because listening is the first in this list, and is repeated at the end I thought we’d explore why listening so important, and how you can align it into your business strategies.

Today’s consumer is different from 10 years ago, they are a lot more connected, they’re smarter, they have access to more information and their online behavior is changing rapidly. Before people buy they go through a process and one of the steps in this process is TRUST. Your goal should be to develop trust and rapport with your online audience. Listening is the first step in building trust with your audience. You need to know what people think about your brand, company, industry and competitors, before you can begin to engage and communicate and expect them to take action.

Listening to your prospects:

• What are they looking for?
• What are their questions and frustrations and how can you help?
• Listening to your customers: what are they saying about your product or service?
• Are they happy or frustrated?

Listening to your competitors customers:

• Are they happy or frustrated?
• Are they looking for an alternative?

Listening is a strategy that can help businesses:

• Improve their product or service
• Improve delivery
• Improve customer service, post service and follow up
• Identify new lead opportunities
• Improve customer retention
• Increase advocates, customer loyalty and word of mouth.

@steffymarx shared this Listening Process: Monitoring is the Discovery Process, then move onto Engagement, and then finally Track and Measure. 

How To Listen

There are many different tools out there to help you listen and it can become overwhelming. To start I recommend the following:

• Use the advanced feature on Search.Twitter.com to search for keywords.
• Use tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck to track #hashtags.
• Set up Google Alerts and track keywords
• Monitor your Facebook page daily.
• Use the Questions and Answers forum on both Linked In and Facebook.

Recommended reading:

5 Things Every Small Business Owner Needs To Know About Blogging

Does Social Media Confusion Have You Paralyzed? Want Solutions?

Simple and Effective Facebook Marketing For Small Business

Social Media Marketing: Understanding the change in psychology