Social Media Listening Helps Tap Into New Markets

Social media is an ever-changing marketing platform. Companies across the globe utilize the different channels to grow business and solve problems as they arise. In order for a brand to continue growing, it’s important to recognize the importance of social media listening. Hootsuite defines social media listening as the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitors, product, and more. It gives brands an opportunity to track, analyze, and respond to conversations about them on social media. It’s a crucial component of audience research. 

Social listening allows brands to take short-term interactions and build them to glean insights for a long-term strategy (Walgrove, 2017). It is beneficial to both large and small businesses. Brands have the chance to learn what their market or key demographic wants. User-generated content could be found through social media listening. Sales leads are another benefit. It also sheds light on how brands can improve by listening to conversations about their products on social media (Comcowich, 2020). 

A small business can use social media listening to find who is buying products and what their demographics are. Using that data makes creating a strategic marketing plan more efficient. On the other hand, big businesses can use social media to evaluate their public relations. According to Christina Newberry of Hootsuite, 36 percent of Facebook users worldwide get their news from the platform. 

Over 110 million users worldwide regularly get their news from Twitter, the highest among all social media platforms. Crockpot did not even have a Twitter before their product was brought under fire due to a tragic episode of “This is Us”. Even so, they used social media listening to solve an unpredictable public relations issue. A larger company can simply see how their reputation is faring with the amount of people getting their news from social platforms. 

Tylenol listens, discovers a new market

There are a lot of great examples of how social media has worked. Netflix capitalized on users falling asleep while streaming a show. They created a how-to guide on making socks with the capability to send a signal to the television that pauses the show. It does involve some knitting. Knitters are part of a unique market that Tylenol started to tap into after doing some social media listening of their own.  

Photo: Knit with Hennie

Infegy, the leading software as a service (SaaS) data analytics company, detailed Tylenol’s social media listening campaign that was spear-headed by their digital advertising agency. Tylenol’s agency was tasked with managing and building display ad campaigns and used social media listening to uncover a new market -- knitters. During the discovery phase of the analysis, the ad agency found that a high volume of mentions for headaches and migraines were coming from knitting forums and online communities. Further research on Tylenol’s end showed them that the strain that knitting puts on the eyes commonly causes headaches and migraines. 

According to Fierce Pharma, Tylenol adjusted their search engine optimization strategy and it resulted in increased website traffic and awareness about the brand. Tylenol is an extremely well known product across the globe, but still realized the importance of tapping into unknown markets. This remains true for other companies, both inside and outside the pharmaceutical industry. It’s always important to keep pace with the changing markets for products on a daily basis. 

WNS Holdings notes that pharmaceutical companies around the world are beginning to use social media listening a lot more. They realize its importance in transforming millions of posts from physicians, patients and caregivers into actionable insights. 

Sources:

Bulik, B. (2015, June 22). Social listening should be a no-brainer for pharma, study finds. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://www.fiercepharma.com/sales-and-marketing/social-listening-should-be-a-no-brainer-for-pharma-study-finds

Comcowich, W. (2020, September 11). 12 ways social Media listening can benefit your business. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://glean.info/10-ways-social-media-listening-can-benefit-your-business/

Newberry, C. (2021, February 3). 36 Twitter statistics All marketers should know in 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-statistics/

Norris, P. (2021, February 23). Best practices for using social media listening to improve your... Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://blog.socialmediastrategiessummit.com/best-practices-for-using-social-media-listening-to-improve-your-marketing-strategy/

Personal trainer: Make it by Netflix. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://makeit.netflix.com/projects/socks

Sarkar, P. (n.d.). Beyond social listening: A framework for actionable insights in pharma. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://www.wns.com/insights/articles/articledetail/720/beyond-social-listening-a-framework-for-actionable-insights-in-pharma

Tran, T. (2020, March 03). What is SOCIAL listening, why it matters, and 10 tools to make it easier. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-listening-business/#:~:text=Social%20listening%20is%20the%20process,crucial%20component%20of%20audience%20research.

Walgrove, A. (2017, November 14). What's the difference between social monitoring and social listening? Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://blog.sprinklr.com/difference-between-social-monitoring-and-social-listening/