Why Social Listening Is Important for Your Business

In this article, we’ll tell you what social media listening is and how it benefits your business.

What is social listening?

Social listening is the analysis of social networks and online media. This information helps brands understand what consumers really think about them, explore their main interests and needs, and track competitors. By monitoring popular sites, you can identify trends and consumer insights, and improve your development strategy.

Listening to your customers online lets you generate relevant content for your target audience and offer new products based on the latest trends in your industry.

Feedback allows you to not only improve your services but also understand which channels are best for reaching your audience. You will be able to respond quickly to market fluctuations and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

How does social media monitoring help you grow your business?

1. It allows you to manage your company's image on the internet.

Customer willingness to make a purchase depends directly on the brand’s online reputation. 70% of respondents who participated in the Weber Shandwick study said they wouldn’t order from a company with a poor rating. Analysis of social networks, forums, and other platforms will inform you how your audience sees your company.

it is a graph from Awario which shows that the company’s reputation is dominated by negative reviews

This graph from Awario shows that the company’s reputation is dominated by negative reviews.

This means that you should pay careful attention to the quality of services and products, interact with customers, and resolve complaints. The feedback provides direct recommendations on what to look for in order to improve customer satisfaction.

If an event prompts a wave of negative sentiment, you’ll be able to respond quickly and protect your reputation. Let’s examine an example from the Nike brand. During a 2019 basketball game, Duke Blue Devils player Zion Williamson suffered an injury attributed to a Nike shoe he was wearing.

Nike's quick response to a torn off shoe sole during a basketball game

As the game played on a national channel and thousands of viewers watched the broadcast, discussions of the incident instantly broke out in the media and on social networks. Brand accounts were bombarded with questions. The next day, Nike tweeted an apology and promised to sort it out. They also personally contacted Williamson and offered him cooperation.

A quick response, friendly attitude and public apology helped the brand regain customer loyalty and extinguish the scandal at the very beginning.

2. It allows you to communicate directly with your target audience.

Social media listening helps you build and strengthen contact with your audience. The more you interact with customers by answering questions, fulfilling claims, and thanking them for positive feedback, the more loyalty and trust you earn. For example, Coca-Cola maintains constant contact with its subscribers on social networks and responds to their posts:

example where Coca-Cola maintains constant contact with its subscribers on social networks

Social listening allows you to discover the most effective channel for interacting with your audience to maintain interest in your product.

One study showed that 60% of people expect a company representative to answer them within an hour, and 68% do not make a purchase if comments and questions are ignored.

3. It allows you to find "pain points" or barriers to purchase

Customer feedback allows you to identify their major pain points. Examples could be that your product is too expensive, the benefits of your service are not obvious, you’re lacking informational content, or you aren’t providing enough support.

This information will help you understand what your company lacks in order to win more customers. From here, you can develop an effective content strategy to answer the most popular questions and demonstrate the benefits of your products.

Negative or neutral posts often describe the main disadvantages of products and services. Use the data to eliminate these issues. It is advisable to inform consumers about what you have done to improve the quality of services and goods. This will strengthen your image in the eyes of customers.

4. It lets you find potential brand advocates.

Regular monitoring of social media reveals potential brand advocates. Read more about how brand advocates help your business in our other article.

By being a good social listener, you can establish and maintain contact with your most active users. Loyal customers can support your company in a crisis, protect against your detractors, and create user-generated content.

5. It allows you to analyze competitors.

Competitor analysis is an important part of any marketing strategy. With the help of social networks and forums, you can find out what consumers say about your rivals, including their perceived strengths and weaknesses.

example of competitor analysis taken from the Aviation Industry 2019 report

Competitive Analysis Example from the Aviation Industry 2019

This data helps to develop your promotion strategy, improve targeting, and understand other sites where your customers spend time. This will help you think through and adjust your marketing campaign.

How to monitor social media?

First, you need to select the main key phrases that will help you find mentions of your company online. We recommend you constantly update this list to find more information.

The most common query is “brand name + reviews”. You can also use the name of your products if they are unique, branded hashtags, and company slogans. Look for information using the names and surnames of your CEO, especially if they are a known personality. It's also important to search for content using phrases with popular spelling errors and abbreviations.

4 tips to help you analyze social media successfully

1. Monitor all social media

A strong social listening strategy is not limited to those social networks where you have created a community. Your audience may discuss the brand in other venues and completely different contexts. For example, discussions on LinkedIn will be different. Or you may find that your customers usually write about you on Twitter.

This information will allow us to develop our communities more efficiently and keep in touch with our customers.

2. Learn from competitor mistakes

Competitive analysis data will help you avoid the mistakes of other companies. Thus, you can reduce the possibility of negative reviews, retain customers, and increase company profits.

3. Collaborate with other companies

Analysis of social media helps not only to find promotion ideas but also business partners. Due to the crisis in 2020, many brands began to look for allies. Cooperation helps not only to improve the product but also offer consumers something new, creating excitement. For example, many Adidas fans are looking forward to a new collection of sneakers and sportswear. The line was developed in collaboration with Beyonce Ivy Park.

4. Always use the data to develop the company

Information has no value if it is not put into practice. Test various ideas, try new advertising campaigns, and interact more with your audience. Otherwise, you will remain in place, and your competitors will bypass you.

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Conclusion

Monitoring social media is not a one-time action. You must analyze what users say about you constantly because it’s one of the main sources of consumer insights. With the help of social networks, you can find potential brand advocates and business partners.

One of the main benefits of social listening is the constant flow of information about your company and its products. Based on this data, you can improve your content strategy, generate ideas for new product lines, strengthen weaknesses, and understand what customers expect in the future.

By analyzing competitors, you will understand what to improve in advertising campaigns or company activities in order to attract more customers. Learning from the mistakes of others means significantly reducing the risks of financial and reputational losses.

Regular monitoring of social media allows you to respond quickly to customer complaints and prevent serious scandals online. Any bad review will negatively affect company rating, so you must address them right away.