How to use social listening to improve your marketing strategy

By doing so, you can identify areas of improvement, understand your audience better, and adjust your marketing strategy to meet your needs in real time. With the right social listening tool at your disposal and by utilising social listening to its fullest, you can identify relevant content, analyse customer feedback and study your competition, ultimately allowing you to better understand and engage with your audience.

Identifying Relevant Pieces of Content

One of the main benefits of social listening is that it allows you to track specific keywords and phrases related to your products, brand or industry. By doing so, you can easily identify relevant content to use in your future marketing strategy. For instance, if you sell fitness equipment, you can track keywords such as "workout," "fitness," and "health" to see what people are saying about these topics, later using these insights to create pertinent content that better resonates with your audience.

Using a Social Listening Tool

While there are many social listening tools available, each tool has its own unique features and pricing options. Here are some popular social listening tools to consider:

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a comprehensive social media management platform to monitor social media mentions, track keywords and hashtags, and measure social media analytics. Hootsuite also offers a range of other features, including scheduling social media posts and managing social media accounts.

2. Sprout Social

With Sprout Social you can monitor social media conversations, track keywords and hashtags, and measure social media analytics. Sprout Social also offers features such as scheduling social media posts, managing social media accounts, and customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

3. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a dedicated social listening tool that allows you to monitor social media channels, blogs, forums, and news sites. With Brandwatch, you can track keywords and hashtags, monitor brand mentions, and analyse social media sentiment.

Other social listening tools to consider include Mention, Awario, and Talkwalker. Ultimately when choosing a tool, it's important to consider your specific needs and budget as some options may be better suited for small businesses with a limited budget, while others may be more suitable for larger businesses with more complex social media monitoring needs.

Once you have chosen a social listening tool, you can set up searches for your brand, competitors, industry, and relevant keywords monitoring these searches to see what people are saying about your brand on social media. Some social listening tools even allow you to set up alerts, so you are notified when someone mentions your brand or a relevant keyword, allowing for a more automated and hands free experience.

Analysing Customer Service Feedback

By monitoring social media channels, you can quickly identify customer complaints and address them in a timely manner, helping improve customer satisfaction and reduce negative sentiment towards your brand on social media.

Besides monitoring complaints, you can use social listening to identify areas where you can improve your customer service. By listening to what people are saying about your customer service, you can identify common issues and adjust your customer service strategy to better meet your customers' needs.

Study competitors

By monitoring social media channels of competitors, you can identify common themes and topics that are either performing well or poorly, applying these findings to capitalise on proven success and avoid other’s mistakes.

Here are some tips on how to use social listening to track your competitors:

1. Identify your competitors

Before you can track your competitors on social media, you need to identify who they are. Make a list of your top competitors and include their social media handles or profiles and make sure to follow their social media profiles to keep up to date with what they are doing to give you a sense of the content they are sharing, the messaging they are using, and how they are engaging with their audience.

2. Monitor your competitors social media activity

Use a social listening tool to monitor your competitors' social media activity. This will allow you to track mentions of their brand, products, and services, as well as any industry-related keywords or phrases.

3. Analyse competitors content

Look at the pieces of content your competitors are sharing on social media. Are they using videos, images, or text? Are they sharing user-generated content or original content? Analysing their content can help you to identify trends and themes that are resonating with their audience.

4. Track competitors engagement

Look at how your competitors are engaging with their audience on social media. Are they responding to comments and messages? Are they sharing content from their followers? Analysing their engagement can help you identify opportunities to better engage with your own audience.

5. Identify competitor influencers

Lastly, it is recommended to look for influencers and brand advocates who are promoting your competitors on social media. These influencers can provide valuable insights into your competitors' marketing strategy and may also be open to working with your brand helping you to stay competitive and relevant in the market.

To stay competitive in a crowded social media landscape, the benefits of social listening cannot be overlooked. Utilising the correct tool and tailoring this choice to the needs and capabilities of your business, will allow you to analyse customer service feedback, study competitors and identify relevant content in real time. With this information, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your marketing strategy and better serve your customers. By incorporating social listening into your social media marketing efforts, you can stay ahead of the competition, build brand loyalty, and ultimately drive business success.