Listening to the customers is the first among the number of things you do using Social Media. It is also one of the most important, if not singularly the most important of them all. Once you have succeeded in listening to your customers, you can then proceed in talking, embracing, and energizing them. All these functions and actions are essential and can help you improve your brand. However, the progression has to be natural. This is because you cannot talk to the customers if you do not first listen to them. As in a normal conversation, when you want to talk to a group of people deep in conversation, you first have to know what they are talking about before you barge in. Otherwise, they will either ignore you or, worse, think you are rude and simply out of placed. This is also how it works when you listen to Social Media; if you do not know what the people are saying about your brand and your product online, you might end up swimming against a very strong current.

In any case, listening using Social Media will definitely change your organization. This is become even more evident especially once your company begins actively listening to your customers using Social Media.. Here are some ways listening can change your company, the impact it can cause, and how you can remedy any negative effects it can have:

1.    Change in power structure. Before the use of Social Media as a means to listen to the customers, companies use their market research department to know the pulse of their consumers. They do this through a number of means, mainly through surveys. With the use of Social Media, it can be expected that the market research department’s role will be sequestered to the side in favor of the information garnered through Social Media. On the other hand, the department involved with listening to the Social Media will have a more central role in the company, especially in the development and marketing departments. Social Media will not entirely replace market research. All you have to do is use the information acquired in the Social Media in the proper venues.

2.    Add resources. The information acquired in the Social Media should be integrated in the corporate decision making. Hence, this information is an additional resource, giving the decision makers more choices and more materials to work with. The person involved in the listening process should now play a more active role in the other departments of the company due to the additional resources. The person involved and responsible for listening to the customers using Social Media should be more active in strategizing the marketing and advertising plans; after all, this person is aware of several factors other people in the organization may not even know. In a retailing business, the one involved in the listening should be part of the buying and merchandising efforts.

3.    Become more aware. Listening to your customers will make your company become aware about the preference of the consumers. This means you and your organization will instantly know if you are doing anything inefficient or inappropriate; in other words, you will know if you are doing something stupid thanks to the additional resources and information brought by the Social Media. Every company has a particular product that is considered stupid by the customers, or a particular rule or policy that consumers consider inappropriate to the business. These ill-advised products, policies, and quirks may seem so obvious to the outsider, but not to the people inside the company. Other times, they remain in the company because of the biases within the organization, or because they have been in the company for so long no one dared change it. Social Media gives you the opportunity to know about these blind spots and make necessary changes, which can surely cause a lot of reactions inside the company, especially if listening to the customers helped you realize what you think was effective is actually driving away new consumers. When customers complain, it can reveal your ineffectiveness. And when this happens, take the chance to measure the complaint and quantify it. Once you do it, it will be harder to deny your and your company’s flaws. It will be painful, but making changes is essential.

4.    Talk. Many think that using Social Media to listen is very easy. After all, you are not making your presence felt to the customers. But listening to the customers will naturally lead to talking to the customers. Talking may take form in many mediums, such as discussion boards or blogs. You might even set up your own blog too in order to address the pressing issues brought up in the Social Media because of your listening. If you are listening, or have started to listen, expect to talk to consumers soon, although it is always wise to talk within the Social Media. While you can respond to online concerns through traditional means, the results may not be as positive. Listening and talking through Social Media is like conversing with the customers in an orderly setting; using traditional means to respond to what you learned in Social Media is like using a bullhorn to respond to a whisper.