At Above Digital, we know how important it is to stay in the loop with what people are saying about your brand — especially on social media. If you’re running a business, conversations are happening whether you’re aware of them or not.

People don’t always come directly to your brand to voice their opinions. Instead, they often share their thoughts and experiences openly online. Given that poor customer experiences cost businesses approximately $3.7 trillion globally, social listening can be a game-changer for understanding what your audience really feels, even if they’re not telling you directly.

What Is Social Listening?

Social listening is the practice of tracking social media content and analyzing it to identify mentions of your brand. By utilizing the right tools, you can turn this data into valuable insights that shape your marketing strategy.

The benefits of social listening are extensive — from catching complaints early to understanding customer behavior and gauging overall brand sentiment. Unlike basic social monitoring, which focuses on reacting to customer feedback in real time, social listening dives deeper into trends, industry conversations, and even competitor analysis.

For instance, SEO expert Brodie Clark recently praised Semrush for adding a feature he requested — a perfect example of a brand listening to its audience. Similarly, Spotify is known for promptly addressing user issues, maintaining a positive reputation by responding to concerns directly.

Key Takeaways

Social listening means tracking what’s being said about your brand on social media. This lets you understand how customers perceive your brand, helps you analyze customer sentiment, and gives you data you can use to connect with consumers more effectively. Tools like Hootsuite and AnswerThePublic are great options for social listening, providing insights into how your brand stacks up against the competition. By leveraging this information, you can boost customer engagement, identify pain points, and find ways to stand out.

Take Starbucks, for example. The brand actively engages with its audience, using social listening to build a community by recognizing trends and offering positive interactions.

Why Is Social Listening Important?

Whether you want to understand how buyers see your brand, respond quickly to feedback, track brand awareness, or dive deep into customer behavior, social listening is a critical tool. Here are some key benefits:

• Enhanced Customer Engagement: Social listening flags brand mentions so you can join the conversation. Respond to questions, address feedback, or solve problems — all showing the human side of your brand.

• Inform Your Content Strategy: By tracking what content resonates with your audience and what falls flat, you can refine your content strategy to deliver what your audience loves.

• Gain a Competitive Edge: As Kayla Bautista, Social Media Manager at NP Digital, points out, “You can also monitor competitor mentions to see how people compare your service or products to competitors, revealing advantages or areas needing improvement.”

• Find Influencers: Want to know who’s talking about your brand? Social listening helps identify potential influencers who may be a great fit for collaboration. Check out Sprout Social for influencer email outreach templates.

• Spot Industry Trends: Analyze online conversations about your brand and competitors to quickly identify emerging topics and consumer preferences.

Steps to Start Social Listening

Social listening allows you to gain valuable insights about your brand, competitors, and industry trends. Here’s how you can do it effectively:

• Identify Your Audience and Platforms: Understand who your buyers are and which platforms they prefer. Create customer personas and segment your audience if needed.

• Choose a Social Listening Tool: There are many tools available (check our suggestions below). Choose based on your needs — do you want to track general conversations, influencers, or industry trends?

• Analyze Your Audience’s Questions: Track changes in sentiment and brand mentions. Bautista suggests looking into what causes spikes in sentiment or volume — these could signal emerging issues or opportunities.

• Determine Your Objectives: Are you searching for common pain points, content that generates buzz, or differentiators from competitors? Define what you’re hoping to achieve.

• Collect the Data: Use your tool of choice to gather data on brand mentions, trends, sentiment, and competitive analysis.

• Measure Results: Track KPIs like engagement rate, click-throughs, and overall sentiment.

Social Listening Tools We Recommend

Ready to dive into social listening? These tools can help you get started. While many offer free trials, some features may require a subscription.

• AnswerThePublic: If you’re looking for an affordable option, this tool is great for discovering what consumers are searching for online. Enter keywords to uncover commonly asked questions, concerns, and trending topics.

• Mention: This all-in-one tool offers social monitoring, analytics, responses, and competitor analysis. It’s a paid service but provides excellent value for comprehensive social listening.

• Hootsuite: Perfect for finding trending topics and getting a quick analysis of audience sentiment. Hootsuite’s AI-driven sentiment analysis and easy-to-digest summaries help you identify trends before they go viral.

• Keyhole: A powerful tool for monitoring brand mentions, tracking industry keywords, predicting viral content, and managing influencer campaigns. Ideal for those wanting to dig deeper into social media analytics.

Best Practices for Social Listening

Once you’re ready to implement social listening, here are some pro tips from Bautista: “Keep track of sentiment changes, spikes in brand mentions, and recurring issues. Aim to have more positive than negative sentiment, and focus on improving areas where negative feedback is common.”

Additionally:

• Keep Tabs on Competitors: Learn what your competitors are doing to uncover opportunities and product gaps.

• Act on Trends and Feedback Promptly: When McDonald’s saw Canadian users requesting the Grimace shake, they quickly responded by launching it there.

• Refine Your Searches: Use advanced filters to narrow down your searches to specific demographics like age, interests, or geography.

FAQs

• What Is Social Listening? Social listening is the process of monitoring and analyzing social media conversations to understand what people are saying about your brand.

• What’s the Difference Between Social Listening and Social Monitoring? Social listening provides a broader analysis of consumer sentiment and industry dynamics, while social monitoring focuses on real-time responses and feedback.

• What Are Social Listening Tools? These are software platforms that help you track brand mentions, analyze sentiment, respond to feedback, and find relevant keywords on social media.

Conclusion

Social media is one of the most effective ways to understand how people perceive your brand, but you can’t be everywhere at once. That’s why social listening tools are essential. They help you stay on top of trends, respond to feedback, and gain a clearer picture of your brand’s image.

The tools we’ve mentioned have unique features to help you build a comprehensive social listening strategy. And once you’ve tapped into those insights, don’t just listen — engage, become part of the conversation, and use what you learn to elevate your brand presence and marketing strategy.

For more information or to discuss how Above Digital can support your social listening needs, get in touch with us.