Social Listening is a strategic process that analyzes social media conversations beyond direct brand mentions to gain deeper insights into audience sentiment, competitive landscapes, and emerging trends, ultimately driving better business decisions.
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- How do you know how people really feel about your brand?
You're probably thinking,
"Go to the comments section it's full of honest opinions
like really honest."
But your own channels alone,
don't tell you the full story.
With thousands of messages published every second
on social media,
there's a lot of chatter out there to learn from.
How do you tap into it?
You listen.
Hey, there I'm Carly with Sprout Social,
in this video we're gonna dig into Social Listening,
five questions it can help you answer,
and how to use it.
(upbeat music)
Before we get started,
social media moves fast,
subscribe to our channel to keep up
with the best social tips.
So what is Social Listening?
We define it as the process
of analyzing conversations on social media
and turning those insights into better business decisions.
If social media is an always on focus group,
Social Listening allows you
to tap into what's being said on your channels,
and beyond.
This might sound a lot like your everyday social monitoring
where you respond to comments and DMs.
But while monitoring tells you what people are saying,
listening zooms out to tell you how people feel and why,
even when they don't tag your brand.
This can have a big impact on your social strategy
and your entire business.
So how do you actually use Social Listening?
There are many ways you can create your strategy
and doing so can help you answer
some of your biggest questions about your social channels.
Let's start with what content does your audience wanna see?
45% of consumers will unfollow brands
if they post irrelevant content,
but listening helps you create posts and campaigns
that resonate.
Let's say I run social media
for fictional coffee brand Sprout Coffee Co.
While the coffee isn't real, the social channels are.
Let's say I'm planning content for Sprout Coffee's channels.
I use listening
to tap into the larger industry conversation.
There I see a surge in the topic of alternative milks
and how they actually make lattes taste better.
This is a trend I didn't see in the comments section
for my brand, but I should definitely jump on.
So I create a campaign
showcasing the best Sprout lattes
to try with different types of milk.
Using listening, I found content opportunities,
identified a trend I wouldn't have found
by just looking at my comments,
made a topical campaign and promoted my product.
And that's just the beginning.
Listening can go even further by helping you identify
emojis and hashtags, your audience uses most,
how people feel about a campaign and more.
The next question Social Listening can help you answer,
is how you stack up against your competitors.
Listening can get you to the heart
of what you and your bosses really want to know.
What do people like most about you?
Do people feel more positively
towards your competitors or you?
What industry gaps are there that you can fill, and more.
Knowing where you stack up
against your competitors can impact everything
from campaign and product development,
to setting better benchmarks for your channels
and your business goals.
And all of that keeps you one step ahead in your industry.
Let's use another Sprout Coffee example.
I use Social Listening to look at what customers are saying
about my competitors.
I noticed some angry comments mentioning
that a local competitor doesn't offer chai tea lattes.
And that seems like a great drink for our menu.
I reach out to our store manager
and they add it to the menu as a weekly special.
From there, I can respond to people who complained
inviting them to stop by
and I can advertise the special on social.
Competitive data and sentiment is great to share
with marketing leaders
and collaborators across your business.
This positions you, the social listener
as an internal expert.
Social media managers consider this
your "proving it's time for a raise" opportunity.
The third question Social Listening can help you answer
is what does your audience really need?
When you monitor social media, you probably notice patterns
in the questions and complaints you get from customers.
But you aren't tagged in everything
customers are saying about your brand, product,
and industry.
Remember how we found that coffee trend in the content tip.
Using listening,
we saw what people were saying outside of our own channels.
That same approach can help you find questions
and pain points customers have about you,
your industry, and your competitors.
Why does this matter?
You can use these insights
to proactively create content that educates your audience,
and provides answers and solutions.
You can even take this a step further
by identifying industry gaps,
or product complaints that you can take
to your product team.
This is powerful.
Giving your audience what they want proactively,
can position your brand as the go-to expert.
The next question listening can help you answer is
who are your biggest fans and influencers?
It's no surprise that influencer
and creator marketing is huge.
Knowing who your biggest influencers are
can help you discover brand advocates
you can partner with to build trust.
For example, at Sprout Coffee,
I wanna create an influencer campaign
to promote a new latte flavor.
And to do this, I wanna offer a first taste
to our biggest brand advocates.
Using a Social Listening tool, Sprout in this case,
I can hone in on who posts about my brand the most,
has a healthy audience, and who I might wanna partner with.
And finally, let's get into question number five.
How do you identify and manage
potential crises on your channels?
From tweets going viral for the wrong reason,
to product recalls, no one wants to be at the center
of a communications crisis.
But if you are,
Social Listening can help you manage that crisis
and understand if it's getting better
or worse for your brand.
Listening can even help you catch a crisis bubbling up
before it starts.
Identifying conversations to keep an eye on early,
buys your team time to create a response strategy.
For example, let's say an influencer we work with
for Sprout Coffee posts an offensive video.
Before people even start messaging us directly,
we use our listening tool
and notice a spike in negative sentiment
around the influencer's posts and name.
This allows us to create a game plan early.
And if things escalate
and people call for a boycott for example,
we can use listening to track mentions
of the Sprout Coffee boycott
to see whether it's getting traction or dying down.
On a larger scale, listening during global crises
like the pandemic,
can reveal how your industry is responding
and what your audience needs.
Hopefully you never have to deal with a crisis,
but if you do, listening makes it much easier
to be proactive, manage it, and even curb it early.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
From product innovations to measuring brand sentiment,
there's so much more you can do with Social Listening.
All you have to do now is start your strategy.
To help you get started,
download our Social Listening map.
Find it linked in the description.
Thanks for watching.
If you like this video, give us a thumbs up
and don't forget to subscribe for more social media tips.
If you're ready to use Sprout Social
for your listening strategy,
reach out to us to see how we can help.
See you next time.
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