How to integrate Social Listening into your digital strategy

How is a brand perceived by people on social media? This is a question that sooner or later every company gets to ask itself. The first way to go is always to address people and there are different methods to analyze brand perception.

However, there are specific dynamics on social media, and sometimes listening to what people tell us by answering specific questions only provides us with a partial vision. To this it is therefore necessary to combine social listening , i.e. listening to the conversations that take place on social media around our brand, whether we wish it or not. Obviously, ignoring them will not make them disappear, it will blind us to a series of facts, because we will have an incomplete picture of the real digital perception of our brand.

Integrating social media listening into your digital strategies is essential to create truly relevant experiences for people , which originate from their needs , expressed directly or indirectly.

The differences between social media listening and monitoring

For many , "social media listening and monitoring " are synonymous and, in fact, both fall within the realm of listening strategies, but they are not equivalent.

Social media listening intercepts the conversations that take place within social media, also going beyond their perimeter, to offer us a general picture of brand perception by embracing the more general web listening , with the aim of bringing out valuable insights on :

• business strategy
• tone of voice
• which people to involve
• sentiment , insight prince of the strategy

Social media monitoring, on the other hand, is an operational activity of monitoring conversations on social media which takes place in a defined time frame, with a beginning and an end, a continuous process that allows us to validate our daily community management activity.

The real difference is in attitude: social media listening is proactive , social media monitoring is reactive . So from a strategic point of view, proactive listening is preferable. However, this does not mean giving up monitoring, it can be integrated with listening, above all, where it is also necessary to manage the dialogue with customers on the social pages.

The best free and paid social media listening tools

We've seen what social listening is , but how do you put it into practice? The easiest choice is undoubtedly to opt for the tools available on the net, social listening software that probe social networks, and the net by looking for the keywords we are interested in monitoring.

What the social listening tool gives us is a visualization in zero time of:

• Mentions of the brand in a specific country or market
• recurring sources
• Comments categorized as positive, neutral, negative

The network is teeming with social listening tools , here are some that we think are valid:

• For a fee: the most famous is undoubtedly Talkwalker, closely followed by Digimind and SocialBakers;
• Free: the search for free social listening tools is more complex, because we tend to talk about paid tools, which offer a free version that is very limited in use and functions. Among the options, however, Google Alerts should be considered, which intercepts mentions of the keywords that interest us in the Google network by sending an e-mail notification.

The limits of social media listening: how to overcome them by listening to people

But not even with paid tools are we able to access all conversations on social networks : we have free access only on Twitter and LinkedIn , while Instagram and Facebook close their doors with ever more stringent privacy. Yet, it is precisely in these two social networks that the volume of conversations reaches its maximum level.

How can this void be filled? The possibility remains open to overcome the limits of the tools by operating manually , like the old guard. The time we spend on the net will be rewarded by:

• an increase in our reading ability
• greater sensitivity to data that the machine can never have
• insights that are clear and rich in content because they are obtained by us in first person

Best practices and advice

What have we learned and continue to learn from the daily use of social media listening?

Here are our 5+1 social listening best practices gained in the field that may be useful to guide you in listening on social media:

1 - What, When, Why: the fulcrum of the organization

Getting lost in the maze of social conversations is a real risk, so organization is everything:

• What's your goal?
• What are you really looking for?
• What is the time horizon that you have given yourself?

These are all questions you can't help asking yourself when it comes to starting a social media listening business.

2 - Where: identifies the sources from which to get the data

This is very important, because it allows you to limit your search only to channels that are really interesting for the goals you have set yourself.

3 - Don't start until you know how to measure

Golden rule for every marketing strategy, which therefore also applies to social media listening: immediately choose the metrics , also called KPIs, which will then help you carry out the analysis. Here are some examples:

• sentiment
• popularity
• more engaging topics

4 - Stay focused

As you analyze and organize the material you may intercept some conversations that require your intervention. If your company also implements social media monitoring, pass the ball to whoever takes care of it, otherwise... it could be the signal that it's time to implement it!

5 - Open your mind and listen to what you can't hear

Don't forget that, as with face-to-face listening, the most valuable insights hide between the lines when you're not looking for them. It is from there that some insights about topics or characteristics of the brand that you were not expecting may emerge. In this case, don't go ahead, pause and reflect: could it be time to change direction?

6 - Reminder: listening is different from hearing

A mantra to carry with you throughout the duration (and even afterwards!) of social listening: let's talk about Listening, with a capital A. A comment or a review has value for what they say on a formal-structural level, but much more for what they hide, that is people's fears, emotions, desires and needs. These are the real arguments to listen to.