The Value of Social Listening

The value of social listening is something we talk about constantly at B Squared Media. And with good reason, because it’s what will set your business up to succeed. If you don’t gather social media intelligence through social listening, you’re leaving money on the table.?

Social listening can be described as the process of monitoring social media channels beyond your owned channels. It involves listening for mentions of your brand, competitors, products, industry trends, and more.

In my book Conversations That Connect, I discuss how brands not only have the opportunity but also the obligation to practice social listening. Gone are the days of broadcasting facts and controlling what consumers know about a brand’s products. Consumers are speaking to each other and deciding their own facts about your brand. So, you better listen up!?

Listen to Your Customers

It’s not helpful to tell a client, “I notice a?lot?of people want X”. What is helpful is to report that “over the last 30 days, there has been a 65% increase in people asking for product A”. Or, “72% of the conversation around product B is that your target audience doesn’t know how to ______”.?Social listening and properly tagging all incoming conversations around your brand can add actionable data to “gut feelings”.?

Are you looking to add a new brick-and-mortar location for your brand? Social listening can uncover where people are talking about you the most, and where you might want to consider setting up shop. Are you wanting to develop a new product? Social listening can help you gauge sentiment to determine how it will be received.?

With the help of a Social Listening Platform (SLP) you can start listening where there is the largest volume of exiting conversations about your brand or where people discuss your brand the most. All you need to do is set up keywords for your brand and products. (Don’t forget about common misspellings).?

Become adept at listening to conversations about your brand that both @mention you, and don’t @mention you, and respond!

Listen to Your Competitors

Ready to become a social listening spy? If you’ve identified your closest competitors, you can enter their brand or company name as keywords into an SLP.?

From there, look for questions and complaints directed at their brand. These conversations can give an idea of why your brand is doing better or worse – and lead to better messaging for your own campaigns and conversations.?

Track share of voice, identify industry gaps, and understand consumer attitudes toward competitors to help uncover business opportunities.?

Having Conversations That Connect

The last (and arguably most important) piece of social listening is having conversations that connect. If we revisit the Social Penetration Theory, which my undergraduate thesis and?Conversations That Connect?focused on, we know that our brand conversations need to lean toward feelings and opinions to gain valuable voice of customer data. We also know opinions and feelings are how we: build relationships, gain trust, and move towards loyalty.? When possible, we want fewer facts, and almost no cliches to build trust and intimacy.?Our conversation mix should be 60% opinions and feelings, 30% facts, and 10% cliches.

Howdy! ?? If you liked this post, you're going to LOVE my new book, Conversations That Connect. Get a free excerpt here: bit.ly/B2book or purchase directly on Amazon?here.