Social media can be a powerful PR and marketing tool, but only if used right. Most brands have a social media presence but fail to utilize the collected audience data to their advantage. One of the best ways to increase brand likeness, loyalty, and grow market share is by engaging in social listening. As a PR and social media agency, we are here to help you get started!
What is social listening?
Social listening is the monitoring of your brand’s social media presence. It involves tracking and analyzing direct mentions of your brand, customer feedback, and discussions in response to specific keywords, topics, competitors, and your industry. In addition to social media monitoring, social listening requires reacting to the data collected.
Why engage in social listening?
Social listening helps businesses assess social media sentiment – an understanding of how the public perceives a brand and its message. Paying attention to social media sentiment allows for gaining insight into industry trends, thereby keeping marketing and product design efforts effective.
How can I start using social listening?
As a PR and social media agency, social listening is a service we offer as part of social media management. The key to social listening is being active on your audience’s preferred social media platform and engaging with them regularly. Each platform has valuable features; for example, Twitter is a great tool to react to customer questions and concerns in real-time.
What are social listening tools?
Social listening tools give you an oversight of all social media activity from one dashboard, instead of checking each platform individually. Social media agencies use tools such as Hootsuite, Talkwalker, and Sprout Social to monitor keywords, ratings, mentions, conversations, and hashtags. These social listening service tools provide subscribers with valuable insights about their brand but can be costly if using for a single brand. As such, hiring a social media agency may be the most cost-effective option.
The main takeaway is that social listening looks at the past and future. It is about analyzing data and using it to guide your strategy. If you would like to learn more about things to consider when developing a social media strategy for your business, click here.
