In business, the Listening Gap includes all the different ways we fail to listen to the customer to understand their needs and wants. Research is a way to overcome the listening gap. In this presentation, I look at social media as a way to engage in “service failure detection & service failure recovery.” This presentation focuses on what is the listening gap, monitoring by using social media, customer decision journey, how to analyze how a company is listening, and tools companies use to listen. The modern art exhibit the Listening Post by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin on display at the London Science museum is showcased to discuss how people communicate on the Internet and further analysis pulls it all together to show that today we are in a new age where ordinary people can communicate in extraordinary ways - it's up to company's to listen to their customers to find out how to satisfy wants and needs.

1. The Art of (Social Media) Listening
Susan Chesley Fant
www.susanfant.com / scfant1@cba.ua.edu
Created for University of Alabama – Marketing Department – Spring 2014
These slides are being used for educational purposes only.
Image: Paul Hudson – Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Listening_Post.jpg

2. Closing the Listening Gap
The Listening Gap - all the
different ways we fail to listen to
the customer to understand their
needs and wants.
Research is a way to overcome the
listening gap.
We’re looking at social media to
engage in “service failure
detection & service failure
recovery.”
French acoustic aircraft locator WWI
US Public Domain Image http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:French_acoustic_aircraft

3. How do I Close the Listening Gap
with Social Media?

4. Closing the Listening Gap
• Social Media’s Core Functions:
1. Monitor
2. Amplify
3. Respond
4. Lead
• Listen = Monitor

5. The Risk of Not Listening
• When not paying attention, companies run
the risk of the following:
– Aiming at the wrong targets
– Wasting time & money
– Failing to harness potential power
– (Alienating potential & current customers)

6. How Do Companies Influence Conversations?
Gatorade Mission Control @ Pepsi Co.
The Pioneer of Social Command Centers
Screens include visualization of tweets
that are relevant to Gatorade: brand,
competitors, athletes, sports nutrition
and sentiment analysis of blogs.
Reported an increased engagement
by 250% and reduced exit rate from
25% to 9%.
Uses Facebook to engage customers
and answer questions. Creates cover
photos for fans’ profiles.
Other social media command centers:
Cisco, National Australia Bank,
Clemson University, Dell Computers,
American Red Cross.
Photo / Information: Fast Company

7. Listening = Understanding Decisions
• When companies listen to their customers on
social media they can influence conversations,
make suggestions, provide customer service,
and better participate in the customer
decision journey.
Source: McKinsey Quarterly

8. Source: McKinsey Quarterly

9. How do I know if a company
is monitoring social media
“effectively”?

10. How to Analyze a Company’s Listening
Skills on Their Social Media Pages
•
•
•
•
Who is the target audience?
What are these pages trying to accomplish?
When is content being posted?
Where are they posting it (newsfeed, about,
timeline, apps in Facebook)?
• Why are they posting this type of content?
• How are they interacting with consumers?

11. How Do We Tell Online
Fact from Fiction?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNV4yIyXXX0

12. What are (some of) the tools for
social media listening?

13. A Look Back @ Twitter
FILMED FEB 2009
http://www.ted.com/talks/evan_williams_on_listening_to_twitte
r_users.html
Image: www.ted.org

14. Hootsuite
Manages social media accounts:
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,
WordPress, Google
Analytics reports & the team
management facility: delegating
tasks, sending private
messages.
"HootSuite is an essential tool
for managing social networks by
allowing teams to efficiently
track conversations and
measure campaign results.” Pete Cashmore, CEO, Mashable
Image / Information: Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com)

15. Tweetdeck
Twitter based tool: monitor accounts, schedule tweets, turn on alerts,
searches, timelines, multiple accounts, real time information.
Image / Info: https://about.twitter.com/products/tweetdeck

16. Google Alerts
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.)
based on your queries. You can keep an alert set up for every company or account you
are managing.
Image / Info: http://www.google.com/alerts

17. Facebook Analytics
https://www.facebook.com/foresighteducation

18. Pinterest Web Analytics
Image / info: http://business.pinterest.com/analytics/

19. The Future of Listening: Even More
Focused Tools / Dashboards
Adobe and Salesforce debuted products that are competing with Hootsuite
and are worth a look for large social media campaigns.
Image / Info: http://www.salesforcemarketingcloud.com/products/social-media-listening/

20. The Art of (Social Media) Listening
Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin Listening Post
Listening Post I/III
2003
Modern art using live data,
electronics, speakers, copper
wire, computer systems
“Pulling text quotes from
thousands of unwitting
contributors' postings, Listening
Post allows you to experience an
extraordinary snapshot of the
internet and gain a great sense of
the humanity behind the data.”
– London Science Museum
Image/Info: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/smap/collection_index/mark_hansen_ben_rubin_listening_post.aspx

21. How We Communicate Online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns4Nm4G1l_g // http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD36IajCz6A

22. Conclusions
• The listening gap can be solved by utilizing social
media’s core function of monitoring.
• We monitor to be a part of the customer decision
journey.
• Tools are always evolving and can help display the data
– it us up to analyze the data.
• Online listening is a current reality. Until right now,
ordinary people have not had the opportunity to
exchange views themselves on a large, global, and
complex scale. This affects our society, our
consciousness, and how companies monitor when they
listen for information regarding themselves throughout
social media platforms.

23. Comments &
Questions?
Diagram of the ear trumpet
US Public Domain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ear_trumpet.jpg