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Today, everyone is hit with information through new technology, news media, social media and word-of-mouth.
Technology – I just had a new air conditioner and furnace installed at my house and I was left with a device I need to plug into my router and download an app so I always know what the temperature is in my kitchen. Do I really need this information?
News Media – Just flip channels and you will see a few things: really bad news about a person makes the headlines, certain court cases become the focus for the whole country. Do I need to say more?
Now I understand there are also good uses of technology and the news media does present information that we need to be aware of. My point here is that just like these mediums, we can spend way too much time reading conversations on social media or worse yet, not finding out more from our clients and their particular expectations.
Here are some tips to help you maximize your time and efforts.
Google Alerts – With Google Reader officially gone, this tool is the choice for me. I can select the key words that I want to focus on and Google does the rest for me by selecting articles specific to those words. I can always stay up to date about news regarding my competition, new marketing trends, content marketing, linkedin marketing, twitter marketing and so on. The information is delivered to me and I decide if the content is valuable or not.
Ask your clients how you are doing – Place a special link on your site and ask for people’s input. Right now, people are sharing information about you and your company on social media sites. Why not have people post that same information directly to you. This is very valuable information.
Ask your clients how they heard about your company – More and more people maybe finding your company online. Find out if your company name is mentioned on a particular site or directory.
Check your analytics – Google Plus or Get Clicky are two great ways to monitor who and where people are finding your information. Dig deeper and look at the information. You don’t have to check this information everyday, but over time you might see some trends.
Make sure you get data that assists you in your job and be careful about spending your time with another rss reader or reading everyone’s update on Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook. Find tools that help manage data for you so you can spend your time more productively.
Image courtesy of jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
