Remember earlier when I mentioned the beginning of what we do is listening? Well, it’s still true and being that we love helping out, we want to share one of our biggest weapons in the listening game and why we use it.
Part of my day is scheduled around using this tool, TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a desktop Twitter client with some really powerful social media tools built in. Not only can we link up all our profiles like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Buzz, we can set these filters or what we call ‘Listening Stations’.
The application allows you to create a column of tweets, status updates, etc. containing any specific phrases you want. It sorts them out in a simple interface and bolds the words you are looking for. For us it is words like social media, online marketing, inbound marketing, social media management, etc. In this way we can see who and where the subjects were involved in are being actively discussed.
This allows you to insert yourselve into the conversation, get exposure in the community, and spread the word through experts, people with bigger blogs, entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, professionals, you name it. Not only does it help you connect with individuals, but you can also see tweets from all of the big companies, their employees, anyone tweeting or updating, and you can get some great insight into the industry and be ahead of the curve on emerging trends or news.
If they are discussing it online, TweetDeck can help you find it. Light the way to the groups of people that will most likely identify with your business. You don’t have to mass spam people to find the one interested person, just take a minute, listen, and integrate with the online communities you know you want to be a part of.