Social Listening: An Overview of Methods and Growth Strategies for Businesses

08 Nov 2022

What is social listening?

In order to better understand your audience, social listening, also known as social media listening, entails analysing online discussions about your brand and your industry as a whole. It involves keeping an eye on your social media accounts for instances where customers mention your company or leave comments. To boost your marketing, think of social listening as actively listening to your customers on a large scale.

Social listening advantages

According to the 2022 Social Media Trends report from Hootsuite, 65.6% of the more than 18,000 participating marketers claimed social listening has grown in importance and value for their business.

Social listening provides your organisation with a number of advantages in addition to assisting you in bettering your understanding of your target market and clients and informing your marketing choices, such as:

Collecting information about your market and competitors from the viewpoint of your current and potential customers
Recognizing how customers are served by your products
Being able to prevent or lessen PR emergencies
Establishing prospects for collaboration with influencers or other brands

The best way to develop a social listening approach

You'll start developing your social listening strategy in this section. To simplify your process, adhere to the actions listed below.

Establish precise KPIs and corporate goals for social listening.

Clear objectives and key performance metrics are the foundation of an efficient social listening strategy (KPIs).

Goal examples include:

Understanding your rivals and market trends might help you distinguish your brand and your items.
preventing PR disasters or dealing with unfavourable public perceptions
Generating fresh content concepts based on what matters to your audience
Locating new niche markets that might be interested in your goods

Examples of KPIs, or the measurements you are tracking, are as follows:

Sentiment: Do consumers have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of your company?

Who are the social media influencers and whose audiences are they speaking to about your brand?

Which of your brand's related articles receives the most likes, comments, and shares?

Popularity: How frequently are your company's name, goods, and pertinent search terms mentioned in social media posts?

2. Pick a social listening device.

There are numerous social listening tools accessible, so picking one that aligns with your business goals is crucial.

What qualities do you require? What is your spending limit for purchasing social media monitoring software? How simple is each social media monitoring tool to set up?

A sample of the social media listening options at your disposal is shown below.

Hubspot, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite

3. Improve your comprehension of your audience.

For social listening, compile specific insights from previous audience and consumer data. What queries come up most commonly from clients? What features of your company and items do people adore the most? What matters most to them, and how do they communicate their opinions?

4. Create a list of potential listening cues.

Having a list of pertinent words and phrases will guarantee that you get the most insightful information.

Make a list of the categories listed below, and then apply it to the parameters of your social listening software.
Your brand name
Your profiles on social networking
Hashtags and words connected to your brand
Topics that attract your target audience
Industry jargon
Your company's product names
Your industry for products
Cliches you've employed

Conclusion

Social listening guidelines

Look for ways to distinguish your products and messaging from those of your rivals by keeping an eye on them. Find influencers who can use authentic content to market your brand to their audiences. For the most proactive social listening strategy, keep an eye on industry news, trends, and what your audience is posting about.