Social listening is a powerful tool for businesses to gain valuable insights into what their customers say about them, their competitors, and their industry. It involves tracking mentions, comments, and conversations about a brand or topic across social media platforms, forums, blogs, and other online sources.

By analyzing this data, businesses can better understand their target audience, including their preferences, needs, and pain points. Social listening can also help businesses identify potential leads and influencers, track their brand reputation, and monitor competitors’ activities.

With the help of social listening, businesses can improve their marketing strategies, develop more effective campaigns, and even create better products or services that meet the needs of their customers.

6 Ways Marketers/Advertisers Use Social Listening

Social listening can be used in multiple ways by marketers/advertisers to gain valuable insights that can help inform and drive better decision-making.

Here are some of the top ways it can be used:

1. Launching New Products

Social listening is important in launching new products because it provides businesses with valuable insights into customer preferences and expectations. By monitoring social media conversations, businesses can identify gaps in the market, understand customer pain points, and gather feedback on potential new products.

For example, Fitbit developed a “Reminders to Move” feature by listening to user feedback on social media platforms, allowing them to create a better product tailored to their customers’ needs.

2. Monitor Brand Mentions

Marketers and advertisers can also use social listening to monitor their brand’s online presence. They can track mentions of their brand name and quickly respond to comments or questions, showing customers that the brand is responsive and approachable. This helps create a positive impression of the company and can help boost customer loyalty.

The OTT giant Netflix uses social listening to monitor conversations about its products and services on platforms like Twitter. This allows them to respond quickly to customer complaints or queries. Similarly, Taco Bell, too, uses social listening to reply to customer questions and help build better relationships.

3. Track Data For Social Media Campaigns

Nowadays, online marketing has become a core part of the advertising industry. By tracking data with social listening, marketers and advertisers can gain insight into how effective their campaigns are and what changes need to be made. This can also help them identify new opportunities that could result in more conversions and increased ROI.

McDonald’s, for instance, uses social listening to track customer comments about their products and services. This helps them identify which campaigns are working and which need improvement.

Similarly, other businesses, big and small, use social listening to gain a better understanding of the market, their target audience, and how their campaigns are perceived.

4. Analyze Consumer Behavior To Create Relevant Content

The customer is king. They are the ones who decide whether or not a product will be successful. Social listening allows marketers and advertisers to gain insights into customer behavior and create content that resonates with their target market.

Again, if we look at Netflix, they have mastered the art of analyzing consumer behavior and creating content accordingly. For example, if any of their shows are hits or they experience a surge in viewership, they use this data to create more content around the same topic or genre. This includes videos, GIFs, photos, and other forms of content that appeal to their target audience.

For example, the recent posts on its Instagram handle are filled with content from its latest series, “The Romantics,” a documentary series about Yash Chopra and his legacy in the form of popular romantic Bollywood movies that he left behind.

5. Tracking Competitors

Competitor tracking is a vital part of any business strategy. By using social listening, marketers and advertisers can gain insight into their competitors’ strategies and identify opportunities where they have an edge or can make improvements.

For example, suppose a competitor is launching a new product or service. In that case, marketers and advertisers can use social listening to see what customers are saying about it and whether or not there are any potential issues. This can help them better prepare for their launch and align their strategy accordingly.

Similarly, businesses can capitalize on the mistakes of their competitors and craft their own messaging and campaigns to better appeal to customers. A recent example of this is the Fire Boltt fiasco, where they showed hilarious and unrealistic health parameters on their smartwatch print ad. Its competitors quickly used this opportunity to promote their products and highlight their accuracy.

Read More : Social Media Listening Tools For Competitor Analysis

6. Gathering Customer reviews

Any new customer that comes into contact with a business, whether through an ad or service, will inevitably have something to say about it. By utilizing social listening, marketers and advertisers can gather customer reviews and feedback and gain insights into what works and what doesn’t. This can then be used to tweak their marketing strategies and services to better meet customer needs in the future.

For example, if a particular feature of a product isn’t working as expected, they can quickly adjust it and make it better. Or if a certain marketing campaign has failed to drive the desired results, they can try another strategy and measure its effectiveness.

For example, when Pepsi launched an ad with Kendall Jenner that revolved around the then-political and social climate, it received a lot of backlash from people on social media platforms. In response, Pepsi quickly pulled the ad and shifted its focus to another campaign.

Conclusion

Overall, social listening is an invaluable tool for marketers and advertisers. Its benefits are immense and can help them create campaigns and strategies that will better resonate with their target audience.

To ensure that the social listening strategy provides optimum results, businesses need to invest in a robust social listening tool that can accurately analyze the data and provide actionable insights. By doing so, businesses can better optimize their campaigns, increase ROI, and make sure their brands are always one step ahead.

Konnect Insights is a social media listening and analytics platform that helps businesses monitor and analyze their online presence. We provide a range of features, including real-time social media monitoring, sentiment analysis, competitive analysis, influencer identification, and reporting.

With Konnect Insights, you can gain valuable insights into your brand’s online reputation, customer sentiment, and industry trends. Our platform’s sentiment analysis feature allows businesses to understand how their brand is perceived online, while the competitive analysis feature helps them stay ahead of the competition by monitoring their competitors’ activities.

Our influencer identification feature can help you identify key social media users who can promote their brands and products to a wider audience. This can be especially valuable for businesses looking to launch new products or services.

Want to gain valuable insights into your brand’s online presence? Contact us today to learn how our social listening and analytics tools can help you achieve your business goals.