How to Sell Social Listening to Your Skeptical Boss

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Selling social listening to your boss – or bosses? Your challenge is to show them that adopting social media is a no-brainer. Here are the strong arguments to make.

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“No one mentions our company so we don’t need to listen.”

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~ Your Skeptical Boss

Your Response:

Proactive social listening isn’t just about brand mentions. Listening on social media gives us insight into our competitors and industry, and uncovers key online in!uencers that could help positively impact our business. Understanding the opportunities for conversation and thought leadership within our industry will help us develop a content strategy that builds community and drives leads.

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“I can’t afford a new employee to handle this type of activity.”

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~ Your Skeptical Boss

Your Response:

Social listening and awareness is a distributed activity. By using tools such as alerts and executive reports in Salesforce Radian6, speci"c issues and topics are distributed to the right employee at the right time. Listening and responding is a shared responsibility across existing employees and teams: PR, Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, even top-level executives.

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“We have an agency that handles that type of activity.”

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~ Your Skeptical Boss

Your Response:

Our agency can use social listening for speci"c events and campaigns, and even reporting. Meanwhile, we monitor the day-to-day activity around our brand. In-house social listening will bring the Voice of the Customer closer to every one of our employees, from marketing, to sales, to service, even product teams. Working closely with our agency will drive greater effectiveness and understanding of our social data.

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“We’re a B2B company. There’s no value in listening for us.”

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~ Your Skeptical Boss

Your Response:

Social listening gives us insights into the market’s perception of our products and our competitors. We’ll spot service cases, sales lead opportunities, industry trends, and product feedback that may be otherwise missed. For B2B or B2C, social listening is crucial.

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“Even if we listen, we have no process in place to respond and engage right now.”

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~ Your Skeptical Boss

Your Response:

Start with listening for a general understanding of the sentiment of conversations taking place. We can identify in!uential voices and advocates right away, as well as any notable detractors. We start by simply acknowledging people saying good things about our brand, and slowly move into higher levels of engagement from there.

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“OK, I’m ready to learn more.”

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~ Your Not-as-Skeptical Boss

Your response: Download this free ebook to learn more about social media listening.

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