What is social listening?
GDMSFEATURED ON BEHIND THE LEASH PODCAST
Grassroots Digital Marketing Studio was recently featured on the Behind the Leash podcast. The Behind the Leash podcast is a Philadelphia based podcast that features local small businesses and entrepreneurs.
We discussed a variety of different topics including Holistic Digital Marketing, Social Listening, marketing during the pandemic, and many other digital marketing topics.
Give it a listen and let us know your thoughts!
What is social listening? and why does it matter?
Social listening is when you monitor social media channels for conversations around your brand, your competitors, your industry and really anything related to your brand, products or services.
Social listening lets you improve your business by observing what people are saying about you, the good and the bad. If you are listening for conversations online about your business you are being proactive in consumer research.
Just as you would in real life, if a customer was having a conversation about your business you would want to know what was said. If it’s positive, you have an opportunity to engage or understand what you’re doing well.
Likewise, if you hear something negative about your business, it gives you an opportunity to engage and put in corrective measures. This could be in the form or a poor product/service review, a negative customer experience or some breakdown in customer journey.
Social listening definition
Social listening involves the monitoring for conversations around your business and/or brand AND taking that information, process it, and use it to improve your customer’s experience. Social listening creates opportunities for you improve how or what you are delivering to customers.
What's the difference between Social listening and social monitoring?
Social monitoring is just gathering the metrics, there isn’t any real analysis taking place. This monitoring is what a lot of digital agencies will provide you; likes, mentions, engagement, competitor mentions, which is great but what does it mean for how people feel. It is a very useful metric for any paid campaigns however.
Why social media monitoring isn't enough
Monitoring will just give you numbers, it doesn’t really explain the sentiment around your brand, business or competitors. Listening takes all this raw data and starts to paint a picture of how your brand is perceived and what your strengths and weakness are.
When you begin to change how you do business or how you market yourself, then you’re listening. Understanding how people feel about your business is far more important than raw numbers. Think of a Tweet that might go viral from your business. It might get a massive amount of engagement. But what are people saying? Are they angry or upset? Then that’s probably not the kind of engagement you want and would want to take corrective action.
When you begin to change how you do business or how you market yourself, then you’re listening. Understanding how people feel about your business is far more important than raw numbers. Think of a Tweet that might go viral from your business. It might get a massive amount of engagement. But what are people saying? Are they angry or upset? Then that’s probably not the kind of engagement you want and would want to take corrective action.
Content Listening is your goal
Content listening is listening to understand. Your customers are giving you free business advice, on what they want to see, hear, experience. Listening to their needs and pain points is critical for your business’s success. If everyone online said they were having the same problem with a particular product of yours, you’d change it right? Those types of insights only come from listening.
Once we truly are listening, then we can engage as a brand to further understand. You should ask customers why they love a product, you should ask they when they say they hate, really you should engage with anyone talking about your brand or your general industry.
