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Social listening - also referred to as “social media monitoring”, allows you to monitor when your company's name is referenced online. If done correctly, social listening can be one of the most effective ways to learn about your customers - no superpowers needed. Allowing you to apply that knowledge to your content strategy, business development, R&D, customer support and real-time marketing campaigns.

In this article, we'll discover what social listening is and the benefits it can provide:

What is social listening?

Social Media Listening, relates to the continuous monitoring and analysis of social media channels to find positive and negative mentions and feedback about your brand, products, and services. Keeping an eye out for keywords and topics that are connected to your industry is an important element of social listening. Social listening can be as easy as responding to a happy customer review on your social media page, or as complex as changing your brand image to align with your target audiences’ wants. 

5 Major Benefits of Social Listening

There are numerous advantages to using social listening as a superpower in your social media approach. Here are some of the ways that social listening can help take your business to unparalleled heights:

1. Industry and Competitor Analysis

Social listening allows you to monitor your competitors’ social media activity, which can reveal information relating to their customers and marketing strategies. This can indicate how frequently they communicate with clients, what CRM they use, and how often they use social media. You may also track online conversations about your business with keyword tracking. Search for your competitors' company or product names to discover what consumers say about them.

2. Keep an eye on your brand awareness and reputation

Listening to what people say about your business on social media will help you determine what they want and expect from your company. Text analytics and video content analysis allow you to monitor how people feel about your business on social media and provide a comprehensive picture of the way your brand is perceived.

3. Improve Crisis Management

If your company, unfortunately, experiences any type of public crisis or situation, social listening can help you monitor customer reactions and can help you to determine how to proceed. Taking the time to examine your customers' genuine responses, needs, and worries can mean the difference between moving forward in a positive light, or digging your company deeper in the sand.

4. Expand your audience

You don't have to guess where the best place to put your marketing efforts is when you use social listening - social media, that's right! Join the conversation, whether it's on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, and learn more about both your current and potential customers. 

5. Create unique and authentic engagements

Social listening can help generate conversations - which we touched on briefly in the last point. The conversations can provide useful information and insights into cultural influences, societal trends, health and body positivity. This information can be used within marketing activities to create aligned plans for contests, brand positioning, or even web and television advertising to create a unique customer experience, that is out of this world.

Final Thoughts

Keeping an eye on your brand, products, and relevant keywords - and collecting information about them can help you gain valuable insights into the way your customers think and feel about your company. There are plenty of social media tools that you can utilise so that you don’t miss out on new sales opportunities, and you can stay on top of your competitors!

Don't know where to start with Social Listening? We got you!

Elephant in the Boardroom is here for all your digital marketing needs, as we are Australia’s leading website design and development agency with experts in all facets of digital marketing.

Check out www.elephantintheboardroom.com.au right now, and let us help you!