I was working as an online reputation manager when I first learned of social listening. The software we were using to manage social communities (shoutout to Sprout) told us about their listening platform and it had me hooked when I first heard about it.
I swallowed that red pill and dove down the rabbit hole that is social listening.
What is social listening?
Hootesuite has a great definition:
Social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitors, product, and more.
Essentially, it’s the practice of listening. Honestly, I struggle with the normal kind of listening at times, so this was quite the undertaking.
I had to spend hours making sure the keywords were defined clearly and to cut out a lot of the garbage. There is so much noise on social media and it is really tough to trim the fat on a tool designed to catch everything. Many curse words were uttered during this undertaking.
Why is this important?
Let’s paint a scenario that you may have encountered.
You’re in pottery class in middle school. You’re young, awkward, and blatantly oblivious to your crush’s feelings about you. You have your head down and locked in. Nothing is going to get in the way of that mug with ACDC etched on the side.
As you think of the copyright laws you’ve violated, everyone in your grade is talking about you two. How he or she is head-over-heels for you and you are totally oblivious. Then the conversation starts turning into, “Why is (insert your name) being so dumb? Doesn’t (insert your name) know? Why doesn’t (insert your name) make a move or do anything?”
You continue your projects and endeavors totally oblivious to the world around you.
BUT WAIT!
What if you had a tool that told you what everyone in your middle school was thinking or talking about?
Your decisions would change, wouldn’t they?
That is what social listening is. It is tapping into the conversation and monitoring opportunities around you. You may not even act on those opportunities, but you should still be informed. Information and knowledge are key.
What you can get from social listening?
Social listening has many benefits.
Monitoring online reputation
Identify trends and opportunities
Monitor competition
Cover industry insights
I was in charge of running reports regarding the effects of Covid-19 on the mattress industry when I was at Purple. This was vital as the customers could no longer enter retail locations to try the very unique product that is the Purple Mattress.
By providing these reports, we were able to approach messaging with additional details on what was working and was not. There were companies that did not handle the change well and we were able to learn from their mistakes.
An Easy Way to Start
Social listening tools can be expensive. I’m not going to beat around the bush on that one. Especially when you add on managed services. Adds up real quick.
A great way to get started is to visit social listening websites and pull their free information. You give them your email, aka your soul, and you usually receive great insights on different industries. If anything, it’s a great way to view other industries to find innovation opportunities or partnerships.
Here are some examples:
These reports usually take 10 minutes to read and are well worth the reads.
In Conclusion
I love the numbers. I love seeing how data drives decisions, but it can’t be all that drives what you’re doing. There has to be some level of intuition that comes with what you’re accomplishing.
Social Listening helps with that.
The more you study the landscape, the more opportunities you’ll see to accomplish your goals on social media.
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