What Is Social Listening and Why Is It Important?

November 17th, 2022

In today’s world, the power of social media is undeniable. Over 3.6 billion people use social media worldwide, and the number is only projected to increase to 4.41 billion in 2025 (Statista). As more people comment, like, and share posts online brands of all sizes are taking notice and seeing how social media could impact their decision-making. It’s becoming easier for companies to monitor their reputation, understand their customers, engage with customers, and listen to feedback.

This is demonstrating just how necessary it is for businesses to include social listening as part of their social media strategy. In fact, half of the worldwide marketers have turned to social listening to understand consumers’ changing preferences during the pandemic (eMarketer).

Read on to discover more about AI-powered social listening and why it’s so important for businesses today.

What Is Social Listening?

Social listening has grown in importance as more consumers turn to social media, websites, and mobile apps for their information about products and services. It’s a crucial part of the brand monitoring and analytics process, and one of the most effective ways to measure your brand’s reputation online and understand how your target audience is responding to your business. With social listening, you can track any mentions of your brand across different online platforms, including blogs, social media channels, and review sites.

Once you have these insights to understand what people are saying about your business, you can develop an effective social marketing strategy. Marketers and decision-makers can take actionable steps to address the issues, correct negative perceptions, and improve the perception of their company moving forward. For example, respond quickly when negative events arise and proactively address issues before they escalate. This approach helps build trust with current customers and can even open new markets by instilling confidence in potential customers.

How Does Social Listening Work

Social Listening involves using artificial intelligence to collect large volumes of data and analyzing this information to gain a deeper understanding. Given the number of users and conversations occurring minute by minute on different social media platforms, it’s impossible to rapidly gather this data manually. Therefore, social listening tools allow businesses to automate this process.

These tools work in real-time to browse content across all types of online channels. They will specifically look for phrases and keywords such as a brand’s name, product, events, or topics. Once this has been extracted, reports are created to provide brands with meaningful insights. Businesses can customize these tools according to different features, functionalities, and coverage, depending on their needs.

Types of Social Listening

1. Sentiment-based listening

Sentiment refers to the overall tone of the social media conversations surrounding your brand. This can help you understand how people feel about your brand or products and identify potential problems.

2. Keyword-based listening

Keyword-based listening involves tracking specific brand-related keywords. This can help you track the frequency and volume of these keywords across social media platforms as well as their sentiment.

3. Influencer-based listening

Influencer-based listening refers to tracking social media users who have a large following. It can help you identify potential brand advocates and determine the best times to engage with them.

4. Content-based listening

Content-based listening refers to tracking specific pieces of brand-related content. This can help you track shares, likes, and comments. You can also determine the best times and topics to engage with influencers and encourage them to share content

Why Is Social Listening Important for Your Business?

63% of marketing teams believe that monitoring social media metrics will become more important in the upcoming years. (EveryoneSocial, 2021)

Social media has completely transformed the way people and brands communicate. For marketers, it’s given them a powerful platform to interact with their customers and potential customers. It also allows brands to stay connected with their customers even when they aren’t actively promoting a product. This can help you create brand advocates, build a positive reputation, and drive more sales. It has been shown to be increasingly beneficial for businesses.

Not only can you track what people are saying about your brand to measure the buzz around your brand and improve your marketing efforts, but you can also monitor what your competitors are up to, allowing you to stay one step ahead of the game.

Key benefits include:

1. Identify pain points
2. Follow the latest trends
3. Improve customer service
4. Generate new leads
5. Target audience analysis
6. Track keywords
7. Brand Health
8. Content research
9. Campaign analysis
10. Market analysis
11. Competitor comparison
12. Prospect analysis

How to implement social listening for your business

Choose the right social media channels

Not every channel is created equally when it comes to social listening. Research which channels your ideal customer prefers, and then select a few that will be best for social listening.

Use a social media management tool

Social listening is a time-consuming practice that can easily become overwhelming. Luckily, there are several social media management tools that can make the process much easier. These tools allow you to track a huge variety of social channels while also enabling you to create content, respond to customers, and more.

Schedule social listening sessions

Social listening is a 24/7 practice. But you don’t want to be glued to your computer screen all day long. Instead, you should try setting up social listening sessions that take place during times when you can pay full attention to the task.

Summary

In this digital age, marketers are becoming more aware of how valuable social media insights are. It’s fundamental to any type of business or campaign to listen to what’s being said by customers, competitors, and investors. Artificial intelligence gives businesses the ability to engage with audiences, track their brand’s buzz, and spot trends in their industry.

In turn, businesses can improve their products, services, and content, and not fall behind. To make the most of these benefits and streamline your strategy, it’s essential to use social listening tools. This will provide you with the best insights to ultimately ensure you’re making the right decisions.