The Power of Listening & Social Media

We've been big fans of social media here at Orange Bus for as long as we've been around, the reason? Not so we can simply push our client's messages via another channel, but also so we can listen to the conversations already happening, about our clients brands specifically, or maybe something related. The reasons for this are simple, we like to hear what people are saying about our clients, so we can react accordingly. It really is the most brutal market research as you are dealing with the end user on each occasion, and people tend to be more vocal when things go wrong than they are when they go right, but it's certainly worth doing.

An example of how we plan to do this is for new client, North East Access to Finance (NEA2F), who are broadly responsible for helping to match money with need in the North East business community. Our aim is to listen to the conversations already taking place on the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn and ensure NEA2F can react accordingly, or perhaps join in if appropriate.

A fantastic example of how this works can be found in this article from industry magazine The Drum about our client, Ringtons Tea & Coffee.  We had been monitoring the Twitter stream for some time on behalf of Ringtons when we heard about a young Russian student who had chosen their products to create new packaging for as part of his Masters Degree.  We thought the results were stunning and passed them onto Ringtons, who promptly contacted the student in question and invited him to visit their head office in the UK to see if a relationship could be forged.  The story has since been retweeted countless times, driving traffic and brand awareness for Ringtons (and increasing online sales), whilst they also have the added benefit of a potential new range of packaging! 

Not a bad result for a little listening...