In a previous blog post, we briefly discussed social intelligence and its value in inbound marketing.
While the post was short and sweet, it was far from enough to point you in the right direction when it comes to the uses of social intelligence for inbound marketing.
To better illustrate the impact of social intelligence, let’s focus on three specific areas where social intelligence can rock your inbound marketing world: monitoring/measuring, learning, and implementation.
1. Monitoring and Measuring “Social Engagement”
Well it is social intelligence after all, so this should be no surprise. Obviously, you should be listening in on the social buzz created by and centered on your brand. You can learn how engaged and therefore, how far into your marketing cycle your prospects and clients are by monitoring their levels of interaction. The Global Web Index created a graphic called the social engagement benchmark that displays the impact of social media on digital marketing endeavors. It includes three segments:
“Participation” – when users post on forums, use social platforms, leave a comment, or something similar
“Creation” – when users “create” social content such as when they upload photos and videos or write blog posts
“Brand” – when users interact with a brand by “Liking,” reviewing, or in some other interaction show a measure of approval or “sharing” that brand
It’s a good place to start, if you haven’t already, to identify which areas of your social campaigns can and should be benchmarked. For instance, prospects who have reached the brand segment of engagement with you are much more likely to become leads, and can be active points of marketing for you as they share your content.
2. Determining which Touch Points Matter the Most
Given a sufficiently complex sales funnel, your marketing channels can sprawl out to multiple touch points where your target clients find and reach you. If you know which touch points bring the most value to your business, you can focus your inbound marketing efforts on them.
A good example of this is Reevoo (http://www.reevoo.com/) a cloud-based social commerce site, delved into the social touch points that their European online shoppers used the most. From the wealth of social intelligence that Reevoo accumulated, they learned quite a few valuable insights for their inbound marketing efforts.
One valuable insight was that Video is the most consumed type of content on thier client’s sites, but nearly one-third of their online European shoppers were more influenced by the ratings and reviews their clients received from customers. Reevoo determined that ratings and reviews are weighted much higher in prospects minds and are most typically consulted when doing research for a purchase. So Reevoo advises adding and managing customer feedback options on clients’ sites as a result of these findings.
Now, you obviously will need to do your own social intelligence mining to find your own insights. But the message is clear: social intelligence contributes greatly to understanding critical touch points for inbound marketing and the buying cycle in general.
3. Turning Insights into Buyer Personas
We all know that an offer is many times more effective if you know who you’re making the offer to. This is what makes creating buyer personas so important. You may not know each and every potential customer personally, but with some basic research (such as online behavior learned from social intelligence and demographics) you can create avatar personas for your ideal clients.
Summary
Social intelligence, especially given the reach of social media today, contains a goldmine of precious online behavior and demographic data you can use to help create your ideal buyer personas.
The buyer persona or personas you create can then guide your inbound marketing strategies to effectively woo your target audience into making a purchase or taking the next step in the buying process.
Clearly, there is a real, tangible, and invaluable link between social intelligence and your inbound marketing efforts. The question is: how will you use it?
