What Is Social Listening & Why Is It Important?

 Any company knows that it's essential to build a solid reputation and following on its social media. It's ideal for your brand to become a household name as that's when you've attained a high brand awareness.

However, things aren't always so black and white. The last thing you want is to develop a reputation for all the wrong reasons -- bad service, scandals, and other issues can cause negative social media mentions.

Due to what can suddenly become a rocky road, it's vital to continuously track your brand's social media channels and look out for any red flags. That's where social listening comes in.

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What is social listening?

Social listening is the monitoring of your brand's social media channels for any customer feedback and direct mentions of your brand or discussions regarding specific keywords, topics, competitors, or industries, followed by an analysis to gain insights and act on those opportunities.

Social listening, thus, is a two-part process, unlike social monitoring. Social monitoring merely does the former, keeping track of social media mentions and conversations. However, without the analysis and actionable responses, your brand cannot sufficiently meet the needs of its customers. Social listening finds root causes behind social conversations and implements long-term strategy changes.

By performing social listening, you can create the kind of content your followers actually want, come up with new ideas based on industry trends, improve your customer experience by interacting directly with customers, and continuously shift your customer strategy to fit the current need.

If you're still not convinced on the necessity of social listening, read the following list of reasons why it's so important.

4 Reasons to Start Using Social Listening

In general, it's important to come to these conclusions because it promotes a customer-centric mindset in your company. Rather than making assumptions about what your customers want or need, you should hear exactly what they're saying. It's common for people to publicly share their opinions -- whether they be about the political state of our nation or about the latest meme -- so it's no surprise they do the same about the brands they interact with.

1. Customers like when brands respond.

Customers want to feel heard on social media. According to research done by Sprout Social, 83% of respondents like when brands respond to questions, and 68% like when brands join conversations. Being responsive on social media clearly makes a difference; after all, 48% of customers make a purchase with a brand who is responsive to its customers and prospects on social media.

They want you to respond. But, it's more than that. It's about using social listening to thoughtfully craft responses that provide real value. Those are the kinds of responses that will elicit brand loyalty and increase customer retention rates.

2. You can keep track of your brand's growth.

Sometimes, brands face scandals or serious issues. Things happen, but even one incident can cause a wave of negativity to plague your social media. It's easy to ignore a couple rude comments here and there, but it's troublesome if the negative ones seem to outweigh the positive.

This is a great time to use social listening. By analyzing the recent incident, you can do some research and see if the rise in negative comments has actually led to a decrease in followers, sales, or whatever metric you choose to investigate. Then, you can determine whether serious measures need to be taken in response, or whether it's simply a phase with no lasting effects.