Social Media Listening For YOUR Business?

How to Use Social Media Listening..

Related Article: Social Media Listening For YOUR Business?

What is Social Listening?

Social media is quickly becoming a one-stop shop for small businesses. You can market new products online, sell through Instagram, use it for customer service and even listen to customers' opinions.

With social media listening, you can reach the right people at the right time with the right content.

Social Media Listening Vs. Social Media Monitoring

People often confuse social media monitoring with social listening, and vice versa. While they are similar, they aren't the same. Taylor Kincaid, social media director at, Online Optimism, says social media monitoring is responding to comments and questions on your social media profiles says social media monitoring is responding to comments and questions on your social media profiles.

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Think of social media monitoring as something you do daily, i.e., monitoring notifications to answer comments and questions.

Social media listening, however, is a macro view of what people are saying online.

"Social media listening and social media monitoring offers brands two distinct use cases," said Rachael Samuels, social media manager at Sprout Social. "We often say, "Monitoring sees the trees; listening views the forest."

Social listening provides a broader view of industry trends and customer sentiment that may have a direct or indirect impact on a brand, said Samuels.

"It captures trends and brand opportunities that may have otherwise been overlooked and, therefore, gets left out of the greater brand strategy," she said.

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Why is social media listening important and how can businesses use it?

Social media listening is important -- it gives you valuable insights about your brand, customers and industry. Once you identify trends online, you can tailor a strategy to align your products or services with these trends.

"This can involve creating content your customers want to consume, monitoring the brand health of your company or a competitor and using trends as inspiration for fresh marketing campaigns," said Emily McReynolds, social media manager at Passion Digital.

Here's how to use social media listening to promote your brand.

Learn how your audience behaves on different social channels. For example, you might notice your audience engages more with short-term content than long-form videos. Use this insight and modify your strategy accordingly. Instead of posting a long-form video, cut it up into more "bite-sized" content, said Kincaid.

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McReynolds agrees. "It is useful to analyze historical data to see what drives engagement and what doesn't, and create content based on this," she said.

"Social listening also allows companies to monitor customer service mentions, which is important for brand image."

Track your overall brand health. Use social listening to determine how people perceive your brand overall. With this information, you can spot and address potential problems and sentiments.

Create new campaigns. Listening to conversations your customers are having about your brand identifies gaps and opportunities in the marketplace that you can capitalize on.

Guest Authored By Saige Driver. Saige graduated from Ball State University in 2015 with a degree in journalism. She started her career at a radio station in Indiana, and is currently the social media strategist at Business News Daily. She loves reading and her beagle mix, Millie. Follow Saige on Twitter.

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"To start using social media listening, platforms such as Hootsuite, Social Sprout and TweetReach offer tools and analytics. To learn more about social media marketing tools, read this Business News Daily guide.." -SaigeDriver

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  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Brand Alchemist at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)