In 2025, there are approximately 5.42 billion social media users worldwide, and the total spend on social media advertising is expected to reach $276.7 billion this year. If you think you have a smart social media strategy in place, but you do not partake in social listening, then your best efforts could be going to waste. It is no longer enough to respond quickly to social media mentions, post engaging content, or align your brand with industry-relevant influencers. In order to really know how your brand is faring (and where it’s headed), it is vital to make social listening a key part of your strategy.
What Is Social Listening?
Social listening is the process of identifying and assessing what people are saying online about your company, product, or brand. It also covers views shared about your team, from executives to customer service. Conversations on the Internet comprise vast amounts of unstructured data. As such, savvy companies employ more than one tool (both free and paid-for) to gain a complete picture of views shared about them on social media. Tools can range from free alerts when someone mentions you to software suites that include ad hoc analysis (a process designed to answer specific questions using data from various sources) and full integration with customer relationship management (CRM) applications. It can also involve hiring a digital strategy agency to help analyze social commentary about your organization.
Social Listening Software to Consider
Top software such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Talkwalker, Brand24, and Brandwatch can all help your organization hear your target customers better. These tools search trends and mentions so you can quickly interact with clients and other social media users and mitigate negative mentions. Most are powered by artificial intelligence (AI), which analyzes millions of conversations and condenses them into useful summaries. When crafting your digital strategy marketing efforts should be based not only on putting the customer first, but also on sentiment analysis, which your software can also conduct. As such, you can obtain vital information in real time, including how people feel about your organization, how your competitors are faring, or how others feel about a specific product, service, or topic. By learning your target audience’s preferences, understanding the emotions behind their choices, and knowing their areas of interest, you can boost engagement while also ensuring you respond to comments and messages from across numerous networks.
Putting Information to Use
Whether you are a digital strategy company, a startup, or an established business selling products and services, human research will also reveal important information you can put to good use. Start by tracking keywords and hashtags in your niche that reflect common practices, problems in your sector, leading figures, services and products, and industry-specific publications. Join these conversations, sharing your opinion or pointing readers to information, blog posts, or reports contained on your website. When customers are dissatisfied with a competitor, keep them on a list, as they are excellent targets for products or services that can better meet their needs. Be vigilant of the language and jargon your audience uses, and align your responses with their expectations. Reach out to influencers with high engagement rates and consider aligning forces with them. Check out niche forums covering topics that are relevant to your business and keep an eye on what your competitors are doing right and wrong, modeling future content on what has worked well for them. Treat your customers like gold, addressing issues fast and showing you care. Finally, continue to research and develop new services or products that get people talking about you on social media and mark your brand as an innovator.
When it comes to your social media strategy, social listening is a fruitful and vital pursuit. It is worth investing in software that relies on AI to deliver data from millions of sources in real time. Conduct human-based research as well, and put excellent customer service at the forefront of your strategy. Seek to continually improve your brand positioning in accordance with your audience’s evolving demands.
