Social listening

Social media creates a platform for companies and their consumers to interact seamlessly in the digital age. With social channels, businesses connect with their customers on a deeper level. Being active on the right platforms means you’re always in your client’s pocket, ready to capture their attention.

However, perhaps more importantly, social media offers an avenue for organizations to listen to what their customers have to say. Social listening delivers real, intimate connections with your target audience.

What is social listening?

Social listening is a marketing methodology that involves collecting and analyzing conversations in the marketplace. Through social media channels, you tune into the discussions happening around your brand and industry to obtain actionable insights. This information then guides you towards making better marketing and product development decisions.

Social media provides a platform for companies and their consumers to interact effortlessly in the digital age. With social channels, businesses bond with their customers on a more significant level. Being active on the right platforms can be integral to your strategy, and ensure you are always available to clients.

Most vitally, social media offers a space for brands and organizations to listen to what their customers have to say. Social listening delivers genuine, intimate bonds and connections with your target audience.

What is social listening?

Social listening is a marketing method that involves gathering and analyzing conversations in the marketplace. Through social media channels, you listen in on the discussions happening around you, your brand and industry, to collect actionable insights. This information then can guide you towards making improved marketing and product development decisions.

Social media listening informs you about what people think of your brand, what they’re saying about your products or services and what would give them more motivation to spend more with you. This strategy aids in forming future campaigns, increasing the success of your messaging strategy and developing more impactful relationships with customers.

By looking at trends and analyzing vital metrics, you get to know your audience and your position in the marketplace in a more detailed fashion.

The value of social listening

Today’s consumers crave unique and relevant experiences with brands. If you elect not to listen to what your customers are saying about you, it’s hard to bond or connect with them on any lasting level. Understanding your audience betters your chances of impacting and supporting them.

Now that customers often share their thoughts and insights online, companies have unfettered access to useful information. By investing in the method of social listening, they learn the not-so-secret secrets of their target audience. The benefits of this include:

• Reputation monitoring: Social listening means you’ll be the first to know when customers are mentioning you or your brand in a negative context. By taking preemptive action, you can prevent it from getting worse.
• New opportunities: Trends in the marketplace may inspire you to try reaching a new customer base.
• Improved customer acquisition: Learning more about your audience means more targeted approaches to marketing. This leads to better acquisition and a more ironclad ROI.

How to start using social listening

Manually attempting to track every trending hashtag in your industry, or every mention of your organization name would be virtually impossible. However, there are some tools which can give you a better overview of your chosen channels.

Advanced tools like Vista Social listening are a useful supplement to the analytics you obtain from your campaign to drive you towards more rewarding and lucrative campaigns. The more you listen, the more results driven your advertising efforts will become.