Your Analytics Are Already Out There....You Just Need To Read Them

If you like my blog for the fashion and the gadgets, you can probably skip this post but I'm at the Online Marketing Summit in Denver (by the way, the cab problem that I had in Minneapolis? Happened again this morning in Denver. I didn't get kicked out but the 2 cab drivers were about to get into a fistfight over who got to drive me the 8 blocks to my conference. Someone should look into this...).
Anyway, I've been talking to a lot of companies big and small, people who want to start a community or a blog and there's a lot of talk about analytics going on here. There's a lot of apprehension as to where to start on the road to the perfect social media effort. If you are one of those people you should know one thing:
Some of your analytics are free and already out there just waiting for you to start analyzing them. Go to Twitter, go to Google Blogs, go to Yacktrack.com and find out what people are talking about when it comes to your brand or your industry.
Why do you need to know this?
So you don't waste time and money trying to figure out how your audience wants to hear from you. They are already having the conversation, you just need to listen.
Maybe you are a hotel chain and you're wondering how you should use your dollars to expand your services. You might decide that you should have extended room service hours and menus. You might then do some buzz searching and find out that a lot of people are really upset because they are waiting up to 30 minutes to get their cars back from valet. There could be a lot of people complaining on blogs, Twitter, or review sites about this topic. By changing your plan to respond to complaints you will ensure that your guests have a better experience with you.
Plus, you'll seem like a hero when a satisfied guest posts that they have not had this problem at your hotel.
Once you start listening, you'll wonder how you ever came up with a plan before. It's like having a mini focus group at your disposal, use it!