Did you know that 61% of businesses today employ social listening? Social listening is a powerful marketing tool. It helps you understand the general perception of your business and its products. But, that’s not it. There’s a lot more that you need to know to effectively manage your brand’s reputation on social media platforms. In this post, we’ll cover the following:
- What social listening really means
- Why is it crucial for your business
- How to use social listening to grow your brand on social media
- And, more
Let’s get started.
What is Social Listening in Marketing?
Social listening is the practice of tracking online conversations about your brand, competitors, and industry in general. Probably the most important metric every business should be tracking is brand mentions. You can use different tools to track these brand mentions. These tools can also tell you the sentiment behind a particular comment, helping you with reputation management. It also helps you understand your audience’s needs and concerns better.
How Social Listening Works?
A typical social listening strategy involves three main steps:
Monitoring
The first step is to track keywords, brand mentions, and industry-specific conversations on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Certain tools help you gather the required data in real time.
Analysing
Once you have the data, it’s time to study the sentiments, trends, and patterns in the conversations. This helps you understand whether the conversation is positive, negative, or neutral.
Acting
The last step is to do what needs to be done about the feedback. For instance, if you’ve received a negative comment about a particular product feature, the action should be to improve that feature.
You May Also Like: Social Commerce vs. E-Commerce
The Benefits of Social Listening in Marketing?
Let’s now talk about why you should have a social listening strategy.
Audience and Customer Insight
A major goal of a social listening strategy is to understand your target audience’s thoughts, feelings, and needs. With social listening, you can know what your customers are saying about your products, services, business, or marketing strategy. This helps you improve your strategies and offers.
Reputation Management
A single negative comment about your business can tarnish your reputation. You don’t want to leave negative online talk unaddressed. Social listening lets you identify any negative words used about your brand so that you can timely address the underlying cause.
Competitive Analysis
Another powerful benefit of social listening is understanding your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. It lets you see what people are saying about your top competitors, allowing you to identify areas where you can outperform them.
Discovering Industry and Social Media Trends
You can also use social listening tools to stay in touch with the latest industry trends. This can help you adapt your strategies based on what’s working and what isn’t.
Related: Copywriting Tips for Small Businesses
Key Components of a Social Listening Strategy
Let’s discuss the key components of a typical social listening strategy, to help you take the right course of action.
Setting Clear Objectives
Your first step should be to identify what matters to your business and its long-term growth. The goal of a social listening strategy can be anything from competitor analysis to brand reputation management. If you want to understand your audience better, your strategy will revolve around that.
Choosing the Right Tools
There are several social listening tools out there. The one you should use depends on the social platforms you want to focus on, your budget, and any other specific features you need. Some popular options include Mention, Sprout Social, and Brandwatch.
Selecting Platforms to Monitor
Identify the social platforms where your target audience spends their time. For instance, if you’re in the B2B (Business to Business) space, you may want to focus on LinkedIn. Another example would be a food business tracking brand mentions on visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest.
Defining Keywords and Phrases
The success of your social listening strategy depends heavily on the keywords and phrases you choose to track. Start with the obvious choices such as your brand name and industry-specific terms. You may also want to track common misspellings to ensure nothing goes untracked. Other things to consider are hashtags and competitor names.
Implementing Social Listening in Your Business
Here’s how you can incorporate a social listening strategy into your business processes.
Integrating Social Listening with Business Processes: Start by integrating your listening strategy into all key departments, including marketing, sales, and customer services. Make it an integral part of your daily operations.
Measuring and Analyzing Results: Regularly monitor key performance indicators, such as sentiment scores and engagement rates.
Adjusting Strategies Based on Feedback: Continuously update your social listening strategy based on data.
Related: Thought Leadership on LinkedIn (A Comprehensive Guide)
What is Social Listening: FAQs
Let’s address some frequently asked questions about social listening.
What Do You Mean by Social Listening?
Social listening refers to tracking certain keywords and phrases to understand what people are saying about your brand. You can also use it for competitor research and staying up to date with industry trends.
What are the Stages of Social Listening?
A social listening strategy has three main steps: Tracking certain keywords and phrases, analysing the data, and taking action accordingly.
What is the Difference Between Social Listening and Social Monitoring?
Social monitoring is a short-term approach where you respond to customer complaints and feedback. Social listening is a more proactive approach where you track and analyse online conversations to meet customer needs, research competitors, or manage online reputation.
Conclusion
Social listening is essentially a powerful tracking tool. On a broader level, it lets you understand the general perception of your brand. On a deeper level, you can use it for several purposes. One common one is tracking negative comments and feedback for reputation management. Others include competitor research and staying in touch with the latest industry trends. Whatever your goal is, incorporate social listening into your current business processes to ensure you’re implementing an informed marketing strategy.
