As an affiliate, you need to be constantly searching for new ways in which you can sell your program to potential customers. One set of tools that have been emerging recently have been those connected to the concept of social listening. Let’s take a look at this theory and how you can use it to better sell your affiliate program.
What is social listening?
Social listening allows brands to monitor and analyse conversations about them that take place online. They can then take the information gathered from this analysis and make changes to the brand to best fit what customers have been saying.
While this might seem no different from monitoring brand mentions and industry trends, it actually goes one step further. You are being asked to consider the mood and reasons behind the trends and take actions that should make a difference.
Why is social listening becoming more important?
The COVID-19 pandemic has really changed the way businesses across all industries operate – far beyond affiliate marketing. Owners and marketers have had to turn to their social media to be able to find raw insights. In July alone, we saw a 10.5% rise in the number of people using social media.
This gives marketers a massive audience to pull from, and allows them to easily keep tabs on trends and moods as they evolve in real-time. They can then use these to identify consumer needs, and develop further marketing beyond that.
How this can benefit affiliates
Affiliates should be aiming to create a customer culture that listens to and responds perfectly to the mood of their customers. This will make an authentic and attractive brand. Social listening is going to be a key part of nurturing these changes, and it allows marketers to create brands that customers actually want to engage with.
51% of marketing leaders worldwide have chosen to turn to social listening to be able to get rapid updates about their consumers during the pandemic. This shows how quick and effective social listening platforms can be. This is just one way in which they are used too. A smart affiliate marketer will be able to work with a wide range of data to determine the changing needs of their customers precisely.
This will then allow them to make changes to their brand as needed to drive conversions and fulfil the needs of existing customers. A customer can change their preferences at the drop of a hat, and social listening is a key tool that allows affiliates to prep for these shifts.
Engage with social listening today
If you have an affiliate program, you need to look into the merits of social listening soon. This is an incredibly important area that will only grow in the future. If you are searching for new ways in which to attune to the needs of your customers, social listening is going to be a great place to start. Take a look at the data from your social media feeds now, and start to think about how you could incorporate the analysis into your program.
