You may think of social media as a time-suck - and you’d be right - but there’s no way to avoid it when it comes to business. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn remain invaluable tools to connect with your audience and personalize your brand. The trick is to understand how to use social media as a research tool to grow your business and better understand your audience, competition, and industry.
Social Media As A Research Tool
Every business owner wishes they could be a fly on the wall and listen in on their client’s conversations. Social media gives you that opportunity. You can be both an active and a passive participant. You can choose to participate in the discussions, or simply listen and extract valuable information to optimize your business and marketing goals.
Instead of making resolutions and promises to cut down on social media, you should be looking at how you can optimize your time spent on social media, making it productive and business-oriented. With a little self-discipline, social media can be an invaluable research tool.
Research Your Audience
Social listening allows you to gain insights into what your audience is saying, thinking, and feeling about an industry, products, brands, and services. Monitoring conversations related to the insurance agency can point out areas where you may be weak, or show you exactly how you need to pivot and tailor your services to meet the real-time needs of your audience.
Researching your audience shouldn’t be limited to their opinions about insurance or your business, but about their personal goals, aspirations, frustrations, and other trends that you can use to personalize your marketing and make stronger connections.
Research Your Competition
What your audience says about your agency is important. So is knowing what they are saying about your competition. Pay attention to the positive and the negative and see how you can use that insight to improve your own marketing tactics, services, and products.
Research Your Industry
Lastly, having your finger on the pulse of your industry should include understanding how your audience is perceiving your industry. Take the information you gain to make strategic decisions about your business and marketing goals and tactics.
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