Guarantee Social Media success with Social Listening

Listening is a crucial skill for success in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.

As individuals we’ve been trained to hone our listening skills, absorb information and then participate in meaningful conversations. Brands too can benefit simply by listening to their audience, taking note of their feedback and issues and then using their voice to connect with customers.

What is social listening?

Social listening refers to analysing the conversations and trends happening around your brand and industry and then using those key insights to guide your marketing decisions.

Pick up on chatter, track those brand mentions, read all the reviews and comments and then draw conclusions about audience sentiment. It will empower you to improve your marketing strategy, messaging, and design all future campaigns.

Strategies for social listening

Wondering which fragrances to start your candle business with? Social listening can help. Have questions about sustainability? Social listening can help.

By leaning on listening, brands can maximize key insights around 5 key information categories:

1. Brand Health:

The most important aspect of brand health is understanding public perception of your brand - the positive and negative feelings customers have towards your brand. It will help you make more targeted marketing campaigns rather than relying on assumptions.
Social listening data can identify customer feelings and reactions towards your brand, reveal important insights into customer demographics and allow you to monitor conversations and the type of content people share about your brand. Once you’ve absorbed this information, share it with your team and leverage it to customise a social strategy that will resonate with your audience. Update and reword your FAQs to address customer concerns and answer all queries.

All learning starts with listening, so zoom out to get a bigger picture of your brand’s health and then zoom into areas that need to be strengthened.

2. Industry Insight

If you listen intently, you can pick up on industry trends even before they become mainstream. Keep an eye on hashtags and discussions people have to gauge the direction in which the market is headed. Use this information to become a trendsetter and stay ahead of your competitors instead of always jumping on the bandwagon or trying to play catch-up.

You can reposition or rebrand your products and reword your messaging to be more targeted. You can find industry gaps, plug them and weigh in on relevant social and political issues that impact the industry. Find a voice that is inclusive and use it to stand out.

3. Competitive Analysis

Everyone is trying to compete for attention on social media so use the platform to study your competitors. Listen to what people are saying about competing brands and use that information to your advantage.

From customer reactions towards their products to outperforming posts, keep a tab on what works and what doesn’t to analyse what engages your shared audience. You need these insights to address any shortcomings and set new goals for yourself.

4. Campaign Analysis

The success of every campaign is hinged on valuable insights and data collection. This is how budgets and resources are allocated towards a particular project depending on how promising the projections are. To ensure you spend your time and money wisely, listen and think through the capabilities of your upcoming campaign.

Start by tracking impressions and engagements on your posts, getting a sense of the general sentiment around similar campaigns and then move to picking out influencers contributing to chatter around the campaign. It is imperative you understand your audience demographics for the campaign and identify reactions towards key themes within the campaign.

Social listening can be a game changer when it comes to adding value to your marketing campaigns.

5. Event Monitoring

The key strategy here is to use hashtags for all your events and conferences to keep track of all mentions of your event on all social media channels. Set up listening queries so you do not miss out on mentions using session titles, speaker names or related keywords. This will allow you to plan the event better by taking feedback into account and resolving any issues that may arise. Also use this opportunity to feed your CRM with potential leads and then reach out to them for ticket sales.

Invest your time in listening because the returns are high. With a deeper understanding of your audience and their reactions towards your brand you can take advantage of every opportunity and avenue to grow your business.