Every customer conversation will contain valuable insight about what people think, need, want, or experience from a brand.
Customers discuss products, services, campaigns, competitors,s and industry news on social media and other platforms.
Capturing this information enables businesses to create valuable insights from everyday customer conversations, supporting marketing, customer experience, products, and business intelligence.
What are social listening tools?
Social listening tools are customer analytics software that enable businesses to monitor and analyse mentions of their brand or industry on the web. These tools capture conversations based on keywords, phrases, hashtags, and mentions that are relevant to a business, helping to understand what is said about a company and how discussions evolve over time.
Beyond simply monitoring and capturing mentions, social listening is about enabling organisations to benefit from the volumes of information that can be generated about their brand and industry. Using a social media listening tool, businesses can uncover insights such as topics of conversation, opportunities for action, customer concerns, and what is being discussed related to a certain industry.
The benefits of social listening are found in the ability to utilise the conversations held outside of a business to inform decisions about marketing, products, customer care, and other areas of business. A customer complaint highlights one perspective on a product, a common question may identify a lack of information, and positive dialogue can show what is most loved about a brand or business.
How social listening uncovers the value of customers
Not all customers will provide feedback through traditional channels, yet will voice their opinions, complaints, and thoughts on social media platforms. Through social listening, businesses can access this information and benefit from understanding customer attitudes towards competitors, industry issues, and what sparks conversations.
Social listening tools enable organisations to gather mentions and analyse what is said about the brand and industry. By grouping conversations, businesses can see if multiple customers are asking the same question, complaining about a common concern, or providing the same feedback. This analysis can benefit all areas of business, from marketing strategies to product development, customer service, and reputation management.
As such, the importance of social listening makes it a valuable practice across the customer lifecycle. Listening to people engage in discussion is useful to marketing teams; customer service teams can identify common issues, product managers can see areas of opportunity, and executive teams can be aware of brand perception.
What features should businesses look for in a social listening tool?
A strong social listening tool will empower organisations to make customer conversations valuable to their business. With many social listening tools on the market, certain features can help drive the value that is generated.
Sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis helps to determine the attitude of conversations and what is being said about a brand. A social listening tool can classify mentions as positive, negative, or neutral, analysing the general opinion towards a business, product, service, or competitor.
In relation to customer experience, this analysis can benefit customer service teams. For example, a pet food retailer can analyse mentions about their brand and use sentiment scoring to identify negative feedback to understand the concerns that customers have and how to address them. In doing so, businesses can respond to complaints and issues before they go viral and amplify concern across a wider audience.
Competitor analysis
Along with analysing mentions, businesses should consider selecting a social listening tool that enables competitor analysis. In doing so, a company can monitor competitors by comparing mentions and analyse what is said about similar businesses.
This insight can benefit marketing and product managers, for instance, by understanding the positive aspects of competitors and the pain points of customers. Companies can then determine what competitors are doing well, and how to differentiate themselves to attract customers. In relation to this, businesses should ensure that their social listening tool enables the analysis of competitors’ mentions and how their audiences feel about them.
Multiple platforms
Conversations will take place across a range of social media and online platforms. A single discussion could begin on X, be found in Instagram comments, and be mentioned in a review on a website. As such, a social listening tool with multi-platform coverage will capture mentions across all channels, rather than just those of a single social network.
Having coverage across multiple platforms enables businesses to capture every conversation that mentions the industry, a competitor, or the company’s products, brand, or hashtags. This ensures that organisations can monitor mentions in a relevant and complete manner.
Keywords and hashtags
Keywords and hashtags are important topics of conversation and can inform a multitude of business decisions. By using a social listening tool that captures keywords, businesses can follow key industry-related topics, track brand mentions, and understand what hashtags are influential in conversations.
For example, a pet food company could monitor the hashtags #petfood and #petcare to understand what is being said about similar industries. Additionally, companies can monitor keywords such as pet food recalls or pet food news to be prepared for potential issues and respond immediately. By following topics of conversation, businesses can make informed decisions about their marketing, products, or services.
Analytics and reporting
Social listening can generate volumes of data, but only supports business decisions if it is possible to make sense of the figures. Analytics can enable businesses to track the most engaged content, the topics of conversation, the volume of mentions, and how these metrics relate to customer experience and operations.
Another feature to consider is reporting, which can make the most of social listening data to help organisations make customer-centric decisions. Instead of analysing every single mention, a report can summarise what is being said about a business, and how the information can be applied to product, marketing, sales and operations to improve the customer experience.
Conclusion
Everyday customer conversations present businesses with an opportunity to gain valuable insight that can support marketing, product development and customer service. By using social listening, companies can make informal customer conversations on social media and other websites a valuable source of information about customers.
Social listening can benefit organisations by providing valuable information about customer attitudes, competitor analysis, industry topics and common concerns. While some tools offer a range of features and data, businesses should consider how this information can benefit their operations and utilise social listening to make informed decisions.