Since social media continues to grow exponentially in terms of its audience, how any 2 people use social media can vary widely.

For example, does your audience prefer Facebook or Twitter? Or perhaps Google+? Does your audience prefer to access social media through a desktop computer or a smart phone? Does your audience use social media primarily to share information or are they primarily content creators?

These are just a few of the questions that can pop up. And the answers will impact how your brand will engage in social media.

So how do you discover the answers to these questions about your audience?

That’s where the all-important phase of “Listening” comes into play in the planning of your social media program. In fact, listening is such an important aspect of social media marketing that we’ve devoted an entire video to the different ways and strategies for listening in The Social Media Road Trip Workshop.