There is an old sales maxim that the most effective salespersons have two ears and only one mouth. The take away is they should listen twice as much as they speak. The challenge with many sales people, or entire organizations, for that matter, is they are in love with the sound of their own (collective) voices. Pontificating ensues.

In the world of online media marketing, it is easier than ever to communicate corporate messages out to the world of potential and existing customers. But then, it has always been relatively easy to broadcast marketing concepts. The real difference that social media marketing tools have made is the massive cost reduction of getting the message to the public.

Now more than ever, even in the face of nearly non-existent online marketing cost, companies need to spend the time and put into play, the tools required to make listening to their customers easy and effective. It’s really not that hard, but does require diligence, well thought out game plans, a way to track analytics, and the application of one or more of the following online social media listening tools.

Social Media Listening Tools

• Google Alerts: This search engine’s overriding goal is to index and archive the world’s knowledge. There is a lot of information which exists in the world, and massive amounts of new knowledge are generated every single day. As such, companies can bet on the fact that they are being talked about. Google Alerts provides anyone with the ability to tap into all that chatter with specific search queries. Whether monitoring keywords important to company directives, brand or product names, or a business unit, get any mentions delivered to the appropriate brand manager via email, RSS or even sent to a phone via SMS services.
• Twitter Search: There are a number of ways one can use the strong, built in search capabilities which Twitter provides its network. Whether doing one off searches at their site, or using any number of second party applications (like TweetDeck or HootSuite), relevant terms can be set up and automatically notify the monitor when someone, somewhere has mentioned the keyword, company, etc.

  The key here, of course is to do something when mentions are made. They will go stale, and if too much time passes from when a person talks about whatever interests a company until a meaningful response is made, the opportunity is lost.

• Technorati: Searching against the Technorati database will provide a company with an up to date sense of not only who is writing about them, but how many links to related blog sites and web posts those articles are generating. Using their search tools can provide a brand manager with the ability to go directly to where the conversations are starting and interact immediately with everyone participating. This can have massively positive effects on marketing a companies good will to its buying public.
• Paid Social Monitoring and Measurement Tools: There are a vast number of offerings available to most companies which can provide all inclusive tool boxes for both monitoring social mentions as well as measuring a companies effectiveness in its online marketing campaigns. While costs vary across a wide spectrum, so do the capabilities of tools. Careful assessment should be undertaken by businesses looking for a single solution to all of its social media marketing needs.

This level of listening can lead to more efficient target marketing. In order to be most effective with online marketing, companies must realize there are no one size fits all solutions. For many, one or more of the free online offerings can provide all the data and metrics necessary, especially for tracking analytics. For others, especially larger organizations with many internal stakeholders, paid single solutions can provide the uniformity of corporate marketing messages necessary to adequately support the client base.