The 3 key benefits of social listening for your business

By Sophie Madgewick

Social listening is the process of monitoring mentions, competitors, and specific keywords. This enables brands to tap into conversations happening online and gain insights into their own customers, as well as the wider industry.

When analysed, these insights can prove extremely valuable. Social listening can help identify who your customers are, how they perceive your brand and what content they would like to see.

This information can then be used to drive strategic business decisions which can improve brand sentiment and your customer experience.

In this blog, we explore some of the top 3 benefits of social listening and why it’s integral for any business.

1. Build better customer relationships

According to research by Sprout Social, 83% of people like it when brands respond to questions and messages online. People like to feel heard on social media, whether they are raving about your brand, or complaining.

Through social media monitoring, brands can track direct mentions, comments and messages and respond to customers. However, social listening delves much deeper, enabling brands to gain insights into indirect mentions too, making it even easier to jump into online conversations and respond with carefully crafted messages that make customers feel valued.

The benefits? Interacting with customers on social media builds brand loyalty and trust, which can in turn, improve customer retention rates.

2. Measure brand sentiment

What do your customers really think of your brand? Sometimes, this can be a bitter pill to swallow but understanding what your customers think of your business is vital. An effective social listening strategy can help with sentiment analysis.

You might receive 100s of brand mentions every day. However, if 90% of these are negative, it’s an indication that there is room for improvement in your business. It could be that your customers are frustrated with your delivery process or dislike a specific product.

By analysing sentiment, you can begin to truly understand customer demands and put plans in place to improve brand perception. For example, if people strongly dislike a certain product, you could investigate why this is and look to adapt and relaunch said product.

3. Identify new opportunities

By listening to conversations on a regular basis, you can begin to understand what your customers want from your brand. However, this isn’t a quick fix, it can take time to analyse patterns and trends, and requires constant listening.

KFC is one brand that used social listening to make a big change. Back in 2018, the brand started boosting tweets that slammed their chips, which initially seemed like a strange marketing move. However, it all made sense when they announced a brand-new fries’ recipe!

Not only did the fast-food restaurant listen to their customers, but they used this insight to change their strategy. This helped to shift brand perception from negative to positive and worked to improve customer loyalty too.

If you would like some support implementing a social media strategy that delivers tangible results, get in touch with our organic social team – we would be more than happy to help.