For any company or individual who wants to keep up with the pulse of social media, engaging your followers, customers, or fans is one of the most important requirements for success.  In order to facilitate this, however, some good old-fashioned eavesdropping may be in order.

In this regard, eavesdropping can be called “social listening,” and it includes being aware of what others are saying about you on social media, and then responding in an appropriate manner.  At the heart of it, social listening is just good communication.  Social Media Examiner explores this technique in depth, and offers some very helpful advice:

Listening and responding have several important benefits. For example, you can find out how the public perceives your products and services and improve them when needed. When you take suggestions seriously, you’re building stronger brand loyalty.

Being able to take your cues from feedback is an important human social tool, and as such it can help humanize your social voice, building report with a user base.  Good listening skill is something that needs to be developed, although it must be stressed that engaging consistently does not require constant conversation in all instances, this can be seen as annoying or incessant.

According to the folks at Social Media Examiner, there are several stages of advancement in social media listening, each one a step of from the previous.

The listener always begins by monitoring, and then builds up to deeper levels of engagement. At their most advanced level, social listeners treat each social participant as a unique marketing channel and concentrate all social components to bear upon a single point.

To get started as a social listener, you’ll need to have the proper tools in place. […] There are a lot of options, but you only have to select a [few] to be a successful listener. Of course, tools are great, but if you don’t use them for more than metrics, you’re missing out on essential conversation opportunities.

Being a listener doesn’t happen simply by deciding to be one. It’s critical to allocate time in your schedule (I recommend daily) to use your tools to listen and engage with your social media tribe.

This is all great advice to get started, but in order to see your social media efforts take off, a lot of time and dedication is required, from constant monitoring to strategic responses.  Take a gander at Social Media Examiner’s full article, and get busy engaging!