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Bob and Judy Dunn - Cat's Eye Marketing
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Listening as a Marketing Strategy:
5 Tips for Using Social Media to Get More Clients

big eared dog listening to Cat's Eye Marketing

Most social media advice is all about your message. How to craft it. How to speak to your audience. Your fans. Your tribe.

So much talk. We want to be heard. But do we listen? Not so much.

Guess what. Your third grade teacher was right. You should be a good listener. If you don't use social media to just talk, if you take the time to listen, too, you'll be amazed at the information you can gather. Who's having a problem. Who needs something. Which expert has spotted the next big trend. Who's talking about you.

5 Social Media Tips for Getting More Clients by Listening

1. Ask your blog readers questions and listen to the answers. I had a problem with this at first. I had so much I wanted to say that I forgot to listen. Now I make a point of asking a question at the end of some of my posts. It's a good way to find out what's on your prospective clients' and customers' minds.

2. Read blogs in your industry and regularly comment. You don't even have to have your own blog to use this great listening tool. Go to alltop.com and find three good blogs in your field. Subscribe to them and read them. Pay attention to readers' comments and make comments yourself. You'll be surprised at the new discoveries and connections you make.

3. Keep your ears open on Twitter. Now it's entirely possible to get carried away with Twitter because it's such an awesome tool. For starters, register for a free account. Follow some thought leaders in your industry who talk about the hot topics and issues. If you are a small business, visit Twitter Search  to search within a certain number of miles of your city. You get a real-time stream of local people. You can choose to follow them (and listen in) or not.

4. Find out what people are saying about you. With a free service called StepRep you can monitor your name and/or business name. It's an incredible tool for reputation management, but also to find out the positive things people are saying and use that information to make new connections and explore partnerships. My friend René Fabre wrote an excellent blog post  on Step Rep that said it way better than I can.

5. Tune in to the forums. Part of the task of finding solutions for clients is figuring out what they need. Depending on your business, you can gather lots of helpful information on social networking sites like biznik.com. Sign up for a free account and mosey on over to BizTalk. You'll find out what people are talking about.

For more social media tips for solopreneurs and small businesses, visit our Cat's Eye Marketing Blog.

© Marketing Hotspots - Cat's Eye Marketing 2009 - Vol. 2, Issue 34

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