Listening is one of the most important things that a brand can do online.

If you are using your presence on the net simply as a platform to advertise, there isn’t really much of a conversation and your (potential) clients will not engage with you.

To run a successful business, you need clients to accept your product or service and for this to happen, you need to know what your customer wants. All you have to do is ask and Listen!

It’s quite simple really. Or is it?

Over time we cultivate poor listening habits by choosing expediency over attention. Most people listen to reply rather than to understand. In our haste, we overlook the important cues in communication and we can’t respond to that which we did not hear.

Today there is so much chatter on online media that a business would ignore what is being said about it, at its own peril.

Social media listening is an effective way to determine what consumers are saying about a product or service and what their overall experience has been. There will be some people who unreservedly adopt a product and others who are less than enthusiastic. Observing social media feedback is a great way to make an assessment on your brands acceptance. It gives you an accurate view on what’s going right and what’s going wrong and allows you to take timely corrective action. It is a lot harder to stay at the top than it is to get there, and a business can never rest on its laurels, it has to keep responding to ever changing needs, evolving to stay relevant.

Being receptive to feedback and making key adjustments to meet customer requirements builds loyalty and creates a positive image of the business. The secret of longevity in business lies in a keen and clear-eyed understanding of your business’s strengths and weaknesses and constant innovation. This builds brand equity and sustained client buy-in.

The success of industry titans such as Microsoft, Apple and Google is also due to their receptiveness to feedback and agility in product development, both of which have been the offshoots of social listening. Once a business understands customer aspirations, it can stay ahead of the curve and develop products that delight the customer and create long term brand loyalty.

KPMG understands the power of social listening and trend intelligence and is on the forefront of harnessing it and converting it into insightful analysis that our clients can use to shape and augment their business strategy.

KPMG is using the analytics platform to demonstrate to clients the depth of information and accuracy of projections that can be attained through social listening. Business success is a factor of listening to your customers, identifying trends and positioning your business to gain from that knowledge. The business environment is dynamic and customer preferences are always in flux. Social listening allows you to stay close to the noise so you can tame it to your advantage and build brand equity, loyalty, and revenue.

Social media can play a big part in building a brand. Social listening helps achieve this by linking you directly with your customer and they let you know how they feel about your product. Having been intimately connected with a product or marketing activity, it is possible to develop tunnel vision and interacting with your clients may lead to you seeing something from an entirely different perspective.

If misinformation is being spread about your brand, being an active social listener will allow you to take quick corrective action, address the complaint, and showcase your responsive customer service which in turn builds brand loyalty.

Social media will also tell you what is being said about your competitors. Are they doing something better than you? Then you need to sharpen your offering. Are customers unhappy with them? Increase your visibility and gain a stronger foothold in your market. You can take your cues from social media and ensure that your business is optimally positioned.

I admit I am not saying anything particularly new or novel but it is a timely reminder that listening is ever more relevant in today’s constantly wired world where our clients are opining 24x7.We need to be all ears!