The growth of eCommerce has been exponential, to say the least, in the last few years. While this growth is certainly beneficial for all the stakeholders involved, it also led to a raging war between eCommerce retailers.
We all can agree that the eCommerce retailer space has become crowded or overcrowded, to put it fairly, making it significantly difficult for retailers to stand out from the competition.
As a result, these retailers are competing for consumer attention and allegiance more than ever before. Naturally, the more customer-centric an eCommerce retailer is, the more likely it is to flourish in this competitive landscape.
This is where social listening comes into play. Social listening is the process of monitoring and analyzing customer conversations on social media. It’s that simple. But how can social listening help an eCommerce retailer? Let’s find out.
If you do not know about customer experience management
8 Ways Social Listening can help E-commerce Brands
The benefits of social listening for eCommerce retailers are many. We’ve listed out 8 of the top ways social listening can help an eCommerce retailer.1. Discover New Business Insights Related to Their Niche
The first key benefit of social listening for eCommerce retailers is that it allows them to obtain a better understanding of their specialty. It not only tells you what customers are saying about us but also why they are saying it and in what context. For instance, if an eCommerce retailer is selling cosmetics, they can use social listening to discover new trends related to their niche, such as the type of skincare tips that are popular with the target demographic, what kind of ingredients they favor, etc. This way, they can leverage such insights to create products that are well-suited for their target customers and increase the likelihood of a successful sale. Other use cases of using social insights to discover new business insights include:- Identify negative sentiment so that the retailer can take appropriate actions to address customer grievances.
- Discover new product/service ideas.
- Identify customer behavior patterns, including purchases, preferences, and interactions with the brand.
- Monitoring competitor activities and keeping an eye on their strategies.
- Uncover the brand perception among customers.
- Identify opportunities for engagement and brand building.
- Tweak/ adjust marketing strategies to better align with customer needs.
2. Analyze Fellow Ecommerce Competitors
As Alexis Ohanian, Reddit co-founder, rightly said, “The way you treat your users or customers, and how you personally present yourself through social media, is a way to differentiate yourself from your competitors.” Social listening can help eCommerce players better understand their competitors and ensure they stay one step ahead in the competition. They can:- Monitor their competitors’ activities,
- Analyze customer reviews and ratings of their products/ services,
- Compare prices with their rivals,
- Keep an eye on their marketing strategies and tactics.
- Keep a tab on the positive and negative mentions of competitors, and
- Identify the customer sentiment about the competitors and use it to our advantage.
3. Track Brand Mentions for E-commerce Brands
Nowadays, hashtags and account mentions are an easy way to find out what people think of a brand. Whether it is positive or negative, social listening can help retailers identify these mentions and obtain valuable insights that can be used to make their products better. Also, with the power of social listening, retailers are immediately aware when their brand name or product is mentioned in any form of conversation. With this, businesses can attend to their customers’ concerns, queries, and issues quickly and efficiently. In addition, social listening allows retailers to identify customer comments even when they are not tagged. This way, they always stay informed and up-to-date without missing out on any mention. Many top companies across different sectors are leveraging this powerful tool. Taco Bell, for example, uses social listening to monitor its brand mentions and track conversations across different platforms. They respond to customer complaints and feedback quickly, helping them build a strong customer base. Check out this hilarious yet effective way in which the restaurant chain engaged with its customers on Twitter.4. Discover Negative Reviews of their E-commerce Brand
No matter how hard a business strives for excellence, negative reviews are inevitable. Such feedback is beneficial, as it helps retailers understand their customers’ needs and make improvements in the future. Social listening can help eCommerce retailers discover negative reviews easily, across multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This way, any customer dissatisfaction can be addressed quickly, and necessary measures can be taken to avoid similar issues in the future. Retailers should not take negative comments personally or take them as a sign of failure. Rather, they should use them as an opportunity to grow and become better. For example, the lingerie company ‘Victoria’s Secret’ launched the ‘The Perfect Body‘ campaign in 2014 for the launch of its ‘Body’ lingerie line. It was, however, met with backlash as it was considered to be promoting negative body image. Users responded with the #IAmPerfect hashtag and launched a petition against the campaign, which nearly 30,000 people signed. The company used social listening to identify the conversations happening around their campaign and replaced the tagline with ‘A Body for Every Body.’ They listened to their customers and made a positive change. This helped them regain their customers’ trust. eCommerce retailers, too, can use social listening to identify negative reviews, understand customers’ needs better, and take necessary steps to ensure customer satisfaction. No matter how wrong the situation may look, social listening can help them make it right.5. Lead Generation for E-commerce
Every business needs to scale and grow. This is where lead generation comes in. Lead generation helps businesses identify potential customers and build relationships with them. Social listening can help retailers identify new leads through conversations and discussions related to their industry. For example, if an eCommerce retailer is selling apparel, they can use social listening tools to track conversations about their brands or industry by people who are not their current customers. They can identify leads who are interested in their products and target them for further engagement. Not only can retailers use social listening to identify potential customers, but they can also use it to analyze their competitors’ customers. This way, they can target potential leads who are already interested in products similar to theirs.6. Identify Trends for their Products
Every day, a new trend arises and goes viral. Businesses can leverage social listening to identify trends and incorporate them into their products or marketing campaigns. This can help them stay on top of the trend and reach a larger audience. Here’s what eCommerce retailers can do to identify trends for their products through social listening:- Paying attention to the voices of customers, prospective buyers, and target audiences.
- Utilize the knowledge of the competition and their devoted clients to gain an edge in the market.
- Launch their trendspotting social listening campaigns as early as possible.
- Keep an eye on products in their field that aren’t selling to gauge if they begin gaining traction and start trending.
- Analyzing customers into groups to reveal unique patterns in each one.
