🍵🍃Social Listening: Eavesdropping with a purpose
#21
Hey there lovely readers!
After dishing out 20 regular newsletters, we're flipping the script for the 21st edition. Here’s something fresh, and a little out of the ordinary for you!
Transparency is key in today's digital space. Consumer conversations are happening everywhere, from call-outs to shout-outs and the need for brands to actively listen has never been more critical. Through strategic social listening, brands can gain invaluable insights into topics and trends that resonate with their audience, outshine competitors, and address emerging pain points.
According to Forbes, in 2023, 4.9 billion people worldwide were active on social media. And that number is only set to rise, with projections indicating a jump to approximately 5.85 billion users by 2027. Moreso, the average person spends about 145 minutes per day scrolling through their social feeds.
With such a vast audience congregating on social media platforms, it's no wonder that businesses are flocking to capitalize on this digital goldmine. In fact, Forbes also indicates that 77% of businesses are already using social media to connect with their customers, leveraging it for everything from customer service to lead generation.
Yet, with great opportunity comes great responsibility. As companies deal with the busy world of social media, it's important to manage things well and that’s the whole point of a social media management tool. With all the buzz around acquisitions like Hootsuite’s recent deal with Talkwalker, one thing is very clear, social listening holds equal weight in the quest for digital success.
While managing the logistics of social media is crucial, it's the art of listening that truly sets brands apart. By tuning in to audience conversations, brands not only demonstrate transparency but also find perspectives that help them make informed decisions and grow.
Frequently Asked Frequencies
Listening is just as crucial as speaking. While addressing your audience is undoubtedly important, understanding them beforehand is even more crucial, as relevance is all that matters when making meaningful communications. Achieving relevance goes beyond passive observation—it requires finding answers to the right questions. So, what are these questions that help you in pursuing social listening?
How does the audience perceive your brand and its offerings?
What sentiments do they express towards competing brands in your industry?
What are the emerging trends or shifts in consumer behavior within your industry?
Are there any notable influencers or thought leaders your audience follows or engages with?
How do cultural or societal factors influence the perceptions and preferences of your target demographic?
What are the geographic or demographic nuances that may impact your audience's attitudes and behaviors?
How do your audience's online behaviors vary across different social media platforms or online communities?
How do online discussions and conversations reflect their attitudes toward topics relevant to your products or services?
What are the prevailing themes or subjects of interest among your audience in online discussions?
What are the primary aspirations, needs, and objectives of your target audience?
What common obstacles or challenges do consumers in your target demographic face?
Which inquiries or topics are frequently raised by your audience in online forums or social media platforms?
What strategies can be employed to establish meaningful connections with your intended audience?
Steps to tune into digital chatter
“And if you listen to them you can soon improve allthose niggly things which turns an average companyinto an exceptional company.” - Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin group
Posting consistently and engaging with your audience meaningfully are key factors in building and maintaining a strong social media presence. Here's something for all you readers: if you're on the lookout for a tool that helps you build a vibrant social media presence and more, do take a look at Highperformr.ai. It's a social media management tool where you can Write, Share, and Engage on Social media, even as a team. Sign up for FREE and check it out!
Having reiterated the significance of a strong social media presence, let's now explore the steps you can follow to effectively listen to the digital conversations surrounding your brand.
Step 1: Define your listening goals
A B2B software company wants to improve its customer support and product development efforts. They decide to use social listening to gather feedback from their clients and identify common pain points and feature requests. They research and select a social listening tool that allows them to monitor mentions of their brand, track industry trends, and analyze competitor activity across various social media platforms.
Step 2: Keep tabs on your competitors
They closely monitor their competitors' social media presence to understand their marketing strategies, product offerings, and customer engagement tactics. They identify areas where they can differentiate themselves and capitalize on emerging trends.
Step 3: Engage thoughtfully and responsively
When a client posts a complaint about a software bug on social media, the B2B software company responds promptly, acknowledging the issue and offering personalized assistance to resolve it. They demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction and showcase their proactive approach to problem-solving.
According to findings from Clutch, 83% of customers anticipate brands to acknowledge their social media comments within 24 hours. Moreover, 45% of social media users indicate that they would hold a more favorable opinion of a brand if it actively addressed negative feedback on social platforms.
Step 4: Document insights and trends
The company keeps detailed records of customer feedback, industry developments, and competitor activities gathered through social listening. They identify recurring themes and emerging trends, such as increased demand for mobile-friendly solutions or growing interest in artificial intelligence technology.
Step 5: Transform insights into action
Based on the insights gathered, they decide to prioritize the development of new features that address common customer pain points and align with industry trends. They also adjust their marketing messaging to emphasize their unique selling points and competitive advantages.
What’s next with social marketing
Mergers between a social media management platform and a social listening tool will soon lead to a new era in social marketing. Here's what we can expect when these two technologies converge.
Improved customer insights: Businesses can gain deeper insights into customer preferences, behaviors, and sentiments, allowing for more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns.
Enhanced brand awareness: By using predictive analytics and social intelligence, brands can predict upcoming trends and be part of the most talked-about topics. This helps them get noticed more and build stronger relationships with their audience.
Amplified lead generation: By understanding what people want, brands can find and connect with an increased number of right prospects on social media. This helps them turn more people into interested customers and guide them toward making a purchase.
Global listening coverage: Companies can gain access to a vast network on social media, making sure no relevant discussion goes unnoticed, allowing brands to engage with diverse audiences worldwide.
Elevated crisis management: Companies can monitor conversations in real-time and quickly identify potential crises or negative sentiments, mitigating reputational damage.
Streamlined workflow for marketing teams: It eliminates the need to switch between multiple platforms, allowing for monitoring, engagement, and analysis from a single dashboard.
Optimized content strategy: Social listening data can inform content creation strategies within social media management platforms. By knowing what topics are popular and what customers care about, companies can make content that people like and want to interact with.
Strengthened social ROI: With this collaboration, companies can track key metrics, such as engagement, sentiment, and conversions, allowing them to analyze their social media efforts and make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.
So, in the future, we'll likely see more companies realizing how important it is to use both social media management and listening tools together. Social media is already really important for businesses, and it's only going to get more powerful. Unless something even bigger comes along to change things, social media will keep being a key part of how businesses succeed. That’s all for now! See you next week with some more interesting content! Until then, stay social! 👋