Social Listening Strategy: Turning Audience Data into Growth

​​The internet is always buzzing with the buzz of millions of voices discussing their thoughts on brands, products, and experiences via various social media platforms. Some people are singing praises while others are airing grievances. Questions also abound. So the real question is: Are you paying attention?

If you are wondering what social listening is, think of it as being your brand’s digital radar; that is to say, tracking conversations happening online in order to determine how people feel about your industry (what you do), your competition, and what they think of your brand. What is social listening beyond just tracking mentions? Social listening takes those random dialogues and turns them into actionable insights that will help your company grow.

Understanding the Fundamentals

Let’s explore how social listening actually works in action. Unlike simple monitoring, which only counts mentions, social listening goes beyond just counting and looks at the context, sentiment, or pattern of all the conversations that take place. With traditional alerts, if someone tweets about your product and does not tag you, that alert will not catch this event. Social listening catches this type of mention.

To begin the process of social listening, it first requires tracking specific keywords/hashtags/phrases associated with the brand being monitored. So, once you have the correct keywords/hashtags/phrases being monitored, how does social listening work to deliver actionable insights? Advanced listening platforms are able to analyze millions of data points across social networks, review sites, forums, and blogs to determine sentiment (positive, negative, or neutral), identify trending topics, and predict future crises that may arise before they become an issue.

The true power of social listening is when these data points turn into a strategy. When using a social listening platform, you are not simply collecting information; you are gaining an understanding of why customers feel a certain way or make certain choices, and how market trends are changing in real-time.

Building Your Foundation

To begin with a successful social listening strategy, you must build clear objectives. Are you working to enhance your customer service? Launch a new product? Track competitor movements? Your objectives are the guidelines to determine which keywords you monitor, in addition to how you will analyze the data collected from social media platforms.

A sound social listening strategy consists of multiple components; here are three areas you should consider. The first area is identifying the conversations that matter to you. In other words, select the keywords that are important to your brand; the names of your competitors; the names of industry terms; etc. The second area is selecting channels from where you want to capture data. 

The third area is probably the most critical of all. Who needs to consume these insights? Social Listening information does not only belong to the marketing department. Once you start to share these insights with others in your organization, social listening in marketing becomes social listening across the entire company.

Choosing Your Arsenal

Selecting the correct social listening tools can be challenging with so many options available. When deciding which tool is suitable for your needs, begin by evaluating your needs first. Social listening tools can be divided into three types: 

• Those that provide real-time monitoring and alerts 
• Tools that excel at historical analysis and forecasting trends.  
• Tools tailored to the specific needs of each company.

At the enterprise level, social listening tools integrate with applications such as HootSuite and provide worldwide data from millions of sources. HootSuite’s Talkwalker integration uses artificial intelligence to monitor and analyze hundreds of countries’ sentiments from images and video data, even from audio. Mid-tier tools are usually limited to major social platforms that have advanced sentiment analysis capabilities. Budget-friendly tools are generally able to provide the basic functionalities. 

The social listening tools you select should simplify assessment instead of complicating it. Find systems that convert unrefined data into vivid dashboards, system-generated reports, and explicit suggestions. If a degree in data science is necessary to interpret the findings, that tool is not suitable.

Turning Data Into Decisions

Where do the winners differ from everyone else in social listening analysis? You have gathered massive amounts of data. Now what? To find success in social listening analysis, you need to search for trends within the data instead of just analyzing isolated comments.

Segment your data. Use the same methodology to segment the conversations in your data set to find commonalities. Are there any trends between when you launched a product and how customer sentiment changed? Are there clusters around specific product features that consumers are complaining about? Who are consumers who are generating positive word of mouth about your brand?

​​It’s easy to see the benefits of social listening when you put your insights into action. If you see customers repeatedly asking about a feature that your competitor just released, that’s giving you direction for your product roadmap. If you notice that sentiment drops when you post during certain hours, then you need to adjust your content calendar accordingly. If you see industry influencers discussing a trend that you haven’t addressed, you should join the conversation before your competitors do.

Another benefit of utilizing social listening in marketing is that it helps you understand how the Instagram algorithm and other platform dynamics work better. By tracking what types of content get the most engagement and conversation, you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly to fit what works well rather than making an educated guess.

Real-World Applications

Smart brands use their social listening strategy for media in order to fix actual problems that real people have. For example, crisis management. Using real-time sentiment analysis to track what customers think about your product or service can allow you to identify potential issues with your business that could cause negative publicity or become viral when it is too late for you to address them. 

A few customers leaving negative feedback regarding a restaurant chain’s food might appear to be an insignificant issue until you see many customers at different locations have posted similar comments online – then you will realize it is time to do something about it!

To help building social engagement on social media, you must first figure out what your audience is interested in. By listening to what your customers are talking about on social media, you can identify trending topics of conversation, questions they have, and their preferences for content distribution. Instead of trying to guess what type of posts will generate interest with your fans, you are simply responding to proven interest.

Making It Stick

The main distinction between one-time monitoring and strategic listening is regularity. You must establish automated reports that provide each of your teams with weekly insight. Set up alerts on urgent matters that require immediate attention. Incorporate listening directly into your daily work so it is not merely done on an as-needed basis.

Social listening analysis works best when it informs your broader digital and social media marketing services. With these insights, refine your targeting, enhance your messaging, and fill voids in content. When you see online users talking about something that your company should participate in, do so in an authentic manner. In addition, when you see an influencer discussing a relevant subject matter, engage with them in a manner that adds value.

Conclusion

Most guides will neglect to say that, over time, you will get better at social listening. Acquiring historical data over time allows you to identify trends, anticipate what trends might happen, and use historical data to compare your historical performance with your current efforts. 

Companies excelling in social listening approach it as an ongoing dialogue with customers rather than a one-off task to audit. They continuously listen, adapt, and allow the voice of their customer to dictate their strategy. In a world where everyone can be heard, the best strategy is not to scream louder than everyone else, but to become a better listener.

Your customers are telling you exactly what they want, what makes them angry, and how they can become your most loyal customers. The question is not are you aware of this information; it’s are you actively listening? Begin to listen today, and the increase in your customer base will be noticeable very soon after.