As product managers, we are accountable to utilize our definition of product development to design products that meet the demands of our clients. To achieve this, we must perform a great job knowing what our customers want. The good thing is that more times than not, clients are willing to let us know. This is particularly relevant in the age that is dominated by social media. All we need to do is learn how to be able to hear the messages they try to communicate to us…
The Importance of Listening
In the school of product management, there is one thing that they do not spend the time to explain to us. We all have plenty of communication abilities. We can design marketing collateral, create presentations about our products, and we can also utilize social media to help get information about our products out to our clients. However, it’s apparent that the most important thing more than these capabilities is listening skills. Develop this skill, and it’s something you can include on your resume as a manager of products.
What makes this listening aspect so crucial? It’s quite simple, in fact. It’s through taking the time to talk to our clients that we are in a position to discover what they truly want from our businesses and of our goods. They’re unwilling to hide their wishes unspoken of by us. They are constantly telling us what they’d like to hear. It is our job to make an effort to listen and take note of the information they give us.
The social media’s world has provided a myriad of new avenues to connect with our clients. As we attempt to come up with innovative Facebook websites and Twitter profiles for our products, it can be easy to waste our moment contemplating how we would like to communicate with our customers. Another aspect of social media might be more crucial: how do we make use of it in order to learn what our customers’ needs let us know?
How To Pay Attention to Social Media
What you must recognize right from the start is that your clients already utilize their social media platforms to speak about your company and products. It’s just a matter of learning how to pay attention to what they’re talking about. The first step to do this is to establish search engines through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and different blogs to search for your business and the names of your products. It is also important to search for key terms related to your target market. While you’re doing this, you must include searches of your competitors and their products too.
There are numerous tools available to “listen” to what’s going on about your brand on social media. Some of these tools are at no cost (“Hootsuite”), and some could cost you some cash. However, you must evaluate your requirements and invest your time and cash to make these tools work for you.
Listening to the opinions of your customers about your product on the social media world is a kind that is called market research. What this research will provide you with is the terms your customers employ to describe their issues and the solutions they utilize to resolve their problems. By using this information, you’ll be in a position to change and alter the way you interact with your customers, and you’ll be more and more efficient.
What does this mean for What Does This Mean For
In order to design products that our customers are likely to be interested in buying, it is essential to be attentive to the needs of our buyers and be aware of what they would like. By using social media that our customers use, they are more than happy to communicate their desires with us.
Product managers, regardless of the job description states, must know the places they must conduct their listening to social media (where they are able to find their clients) and how to do it. Making an effort to map out the most important phrases customers are using to discuss your business and their products are a crucial element of this.
The fact that a lot of the social media listening process is automated does not disqualify a product manager from their duties. It’s reviewing the comments of your customers and then taking action in response to it that can lead to the success of your product. Make use of the tools and study the data, and you’ll become an excellent listener.
Discussion about this post