- Preface
In today’s digital age, it has become essential for companies to understand their customers’ sentiment about their brand and products.
With the advent of social media, consumers can share their opinions and experiences with a global audience in real-time. This is where social listening comes in handy for IT companies.
Social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels to understand what customers think, feel, and say about a brand or product.
It’s an essential tool for companies to stay in tune with their customers’ needs and preferences. This blog will cover the various aspects of social listening and why it’s important for IT companies.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s dig in and learn all about social listening.
Table of content
- Preface
- What is social listening?
- Want to know the types of social listening?
- Why is social listening important for IT companies?
- Social listening vs. social monitoring
- How to implement social listening for IT companies?
- Social listening tools
- Conclusion
- What is social listening?
Don’t you want to know what people think about your company or what are they talking about your brand on online social platforms?
Social listening also knows as social media listening is a process of monitoring and analyzing the online discussion and conversation about your brand, company, product and IT companies to find out more about your target audience.
The main intent of social listening is to gather insights, track emotions and sentiments and to finally understand the opinions of people in real time. Social listening can be observed on various social media platforms.
Face to face listening and social listening both have same value but apparently social listening is becoming an important factor for analyzing customer’s mind
The following are just a few of the numerous ways to use social media to obtain understanding:
- Monitoring online forums for customer service
- Using software tools to collect feedback from social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
- Allowing people to vote for their favorite features and suggest new ones for the product.
As a marketer you must be the eyes, ear and mind of your company, because company’s presence and online reputation is of high importance. So it is crucial that you keep an eye on social media talks
- Want to know the types of social listening?
Now you know the definition of social listening, let’s get to know about the types of social listening.
- Basic Social Listening
- Deep Social Listening
- Combined Social Listening
- Basic Social Listening
Basic social listening is first kind of social listening which involves analyzing your own audience. These audience are the people who follow your social handles and engage with your content or page.
This includes looking at your previous posts surrounding your content’s hashtags, handles and brand. Basic listening can be done with basic analytics tools provided by social media platforms.
- Deep social Listening
Deep social listening is a wider concept than basic social listening. Deep social listening allows you to track a wide range of social media posts about a specific topic and not just the post directed to your brand or company.
This is an advance listening process which allows you to track hundreds and thousands and of conversation threads about a particular topic.
This type of listening can be done by third party tools. These tools let you filter out the keywords and filter data based on your specific need like content type, hashtags and sentiment.
If you opt for deep social listening you get a wider perspective of your target audience and contribute accordingly to the validation of your audience.
- Combined social listening.
Combined listening involves both social monitoring and deep social listening. You may think of social media monitoring as the first step toward better understanding your audience because it gives you statistics and facts.
By using social monitoring, you can get a head start and determine what business-related insights are necessary based on the metrics gathered.
Gaining profound understanding of your consumers’ personalities, motivations for their actions, and reasons for feeling the way they do is the aim. Combining listening with monitoring yields a potent tool that may be used to gain a deeper understanding of your audience as individuals.
- Why is social listening important for IT companies?
Social listening helps companies to under the conversation and discussions surrounding your brand and the products and services they offer. It provides valuable consumer data that helps companies to build brand awareness and improve their products and services.
Gains of social media listening or IT companies:
- Competitive analysis gives you an idea of how competitors are doing based on the conversation on social media.
- Event Monitoring allows companies to monitor how audience respond in real time ta specific event.
- Industry trends surface when a company listens for discussions mentioning its industry, using social functions like hashtags.
- Social listening vs. social monitoring
Social listening – Social listening is the practice of monitoring and analyzing online conversations, mentions, and discussions on social media platforms and other online channels including Instagram highlights to gain insights into what people are saying about a brand, product, industry, or topic.
It helps businesses and individuals understand public sentiment, identify trends, and gather valuable feedback, enabling them to make informed decisions, engage with their audience, and improve their online presence and reputation.
Social Monitoring- Social monitoring, often referred to as social media monitoring or social listening, is the practice of actively tracking and analyzing online conversations, mentions, and discussions across various social media platforms and the web. Its primary goal is to gain insights into what people are saying about a particular brand, product, topic, or industry.
By monitoring social media channels and websites, businesses and individuals can assess public sentiment, identify trends, address customer concerns, and make informed decisions to improve their online presence and reputation.
It’s a valuable tool for reputation management, market research, and staying attuned to the ever-changing digital landscape.
The main difference between social monitoring and social listening is in their scope and purpose
- Social Monitoring involves tracking and observing online conversations and mentions to gather data on brand or keyword performance. It is primarily focused on data collection and response to immediate issues.
- Social Listening, on the other hand, is a more in-depth approach that goes beyond data collection. It involves analyzing the data gathered during monitoring to gain deeper insights into trends, sentiments, and customer preferences. It’s more about understanding the context and using the insights for strategic decision-making and brand improvement.
- Social listening tools
There are various social listening tools available to help businesses and individuals monitor and analyze online conversations and social media mentions. Some popular social listening tools include:
- Hootsuite: Hootsuite offers social media management and listening capabilities, allowing you to track brand mentions, keywords, and industry trends across different platforms.
- Brandwatch: Brandwatch provides in-depth social listening and analytics, helping users gain insights into consumer behavior and market trends.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social offers a comprehensive social media management and listening platform, enabling businesses to monitor brand mentions and analyze audience engagement.
- Mention: Mention is a real-time media monitoring tool that tracks online mentions and alerts users when their brand or specified keywords are mentioned.
- How to implement social listening for IT companies?
There are different strategies to implement social listening in companies.
- Identify influencers:
- Find influencers in your niche and observe what content they deliver to people. This way the companies can get a hold of what their target audience is into.
- To find social media influence in your niche ,find
ü Popular blog post
ü Case studies
ü Informative product and services video content
- After identifying influencers, pitch your campaign idea and collaborate with them
- Find feedback:
- The best, easiest and direct way to get to know what people are talking about your company or brand is observing the feedback. Always give an option of giving feedback.
- This is a great strategy because it reminds your followers of the awesomeness of what you’re selling, and will likely interest new leads who happen to hear others raving about you.
- Spark conversations with users who don’t tag you
- If you could only pay attention to people who don’t tag you out your brand.
- Try to find out users who have:
ü Who have misspelled your name when trying to tag you
ü Talk about your products or services without mentioning your business
ü Misspell those products and services, too
- Conclusion
In conclusion, social listening is a powerful tool that IT companies can utilize to gain a competitive edge in the market. By understanding and analyzing customer sentiment, organizations can uncover valuable insights that drive their decision-making processes.
Whether it’s identifying pain points, discovering emerging trends, or gauging customer satisfaction, social listening provides a direct window into the thoughts and opinions of the target audience.
By actively engaging with customers and addressing their concerns, IT companies can build stronger relationships, enhance their brand reputation, and ultimately drive business growth.
