If you\u2019ve ever wondered about the difference between social listening vs. social monitoring, we\u2019re here to fill you in. They may sound similar, but in terms of execution and strategic purpose, they\u2019re quite different.<\/p>\n
While social listening is more high-level and proactive, social monitoring tends to be more reactive and on a smaller scale. Both social listening and monitoring require specific tools and skills to be done well.<\/p>\n
Still, both social listening and social monitoring provide valuable data for businesses. They enable businesses to understand what their customers are saying about them in real-time.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Bonus<\/strong>: Take action on customer insights and drive impact for your organization with our complete guide to social listening<\/strong><\/span> using Hootsuite x Talkwalker.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Social media monitoring is the process of tracking social mentions, which can be specific keywords, phrases, or hashtags. These mentions can be about a company, individual, product, or brand.<\/p>\n Social monitoring requires using specialized tools to gather qualitative and quantitative data. This data can then inform marketing. It can also improve customer engagement and brand reputation.<\/p>\n For example, as the Social Media Manager for the Vancouver Canucks, I used Hootsuite Streams<\/a> daily. Streams helped me track fan replies and mentions of the team across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X.<\/p>\n Having all comments in one dashboard allowed me to reply to all fan comments from one place. It helped me catch fan issues, such as with tickets, quickly.<\/p>\n Social media monitoring allows businesses to stay on top of what is being said about their brand, competitors, and industry.<\/p>\n You can bet that if you have customers, they have opinions about your products and services\u2014and it\u2019s up to you to be aware of what they\u2019re saying.<\/p>\n The most powerful feature of social monitoring tools is filters. Filters enable you to remove all non-relevant posts from your target accounts. That way, you\u2019ll only see the comments and posts that are interesting to you. With filters, you don\u2019t miss any important comments about your products, positive or negative.<\/p>\n Below, we\u2019ll provide some real-life examples of how social media monitoring can benefit your brand or small business.<\/p>\n All brands using social media should check their social mentions<\/a> regularly. Social mentions (aka whenever your brand name is used on social media) can include questions, complaints, feedback, and more. Real-time monitoring allows businesses to provide timely responses and support.<\/p>\n Businesses should set up social monitoring streams with their brand name as a keyword. They should include the hashtag, tag, and handle. This will capture all the ways that a customer may mention a brand, both direct and indirect.<\/p>\n We’re sorry to hear to hear your flight has been delayed. If your travel is complete, we encourage you to submit your feedback on this experience to our Customer Care team for direct, personal follow-up here: https:\/\/t.co\/2ZzbtWuXoV<\/a>. ^JE<\/p>\n \u2014 United Airlines (@united) May 18, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n This tweet shows United Airlines responding to an indirect mention of their brand name, not their handle.<\/p>\n Monitoring your social mentions is a great way to talk to your audience. It can help you build relationships with your community.<\/p>\n For example, monitoring can help you find posts or comments worth re-sharing to your channels as a response post. Or you can take note of commonly asked questions and turn those into a series of FAQ posts to share on your Stories.<\/p>\n Social monitoring tools allow brands like Drunk Elephant to tag Instagram comments. They use the comments to create Reels to answer common customer questions, like the one above.<\/p>\n Brands can use social media monitoring to spot opportunities to join conversations and create real-time marketing<\/a> content.<\/p>\n As a social media manager, you should get to know your niche\u2019s main thought leaders and influencers. You can then create monitoring streams with these accounts. You can also use the streams for competitors and related brands. The streams allow you to see the conversations happening in your industry.<\/p>\n You can also watch emerging social media trends. Jump into the conversation when it feels relevant to your brand.<\/p>\n now where is HER double album<\/p>\n \u2014 Lionsgate UK (@LionsgateUK) April 19, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n I love this example from @LionsgateUK. First, they\u2019re jumping into a pop culture conversation (Taylor Swift\u2019s newest album). Second, it\u2019s related to one of their films (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes). Kudos to the social listening setup that allowed them to find this post!<\/p>\n Ready to start tracking your social media mentions? We\u2019ve created a step-by-step guide to set up your social media monitoring<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.<\/strong><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFree 30-Day Trial<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Social listening<\/a> is the exercise of tracking and analyzing all conversations on social media channels that are relevant to your business.<\/p>\n While social media monitoring tracks mentions and interactions, social media listening goes further. It aims to understand the context, emotions, and meanings behind the conversations.<\/p>\n Here are some examples of what you can determine through social media listening:<\/p>\n Most importantly, businesses can use insights from social listening to make data-driven decisions instead of guessing what will resonate with their audience.<\/p>\n Social listening helps businesses stay in touch with their customers, competitors, and industry.<\/p>\n With social listening, you can mitigate customer crises, protect your brand reputation, and understand brand sentiment. You can also gain insights into your customers\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n As a digital brand, Booking.com receives a large volume of mentions every day, from customer support issues to brand engagement. Social listening enables us to monitor the conversations and drill down at anytime into burning topics. We recently started listening on TikTok, and we\u2019ve learned so much. People speak more truthfully about brands in user-generated videos.<\/p>\n \u2013 Corina Bordeianu, Senior Social Media Manager at Booking.com<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Below, we\u2019ll explore several ways to use social listening to help your business.<\/p>\n One of the main uses for social listening is monitoring what people say about your brand. Social listening tools can find common words and topics. They can also measure positive and negative sentiments about your business. Then, you can promptly address any negative feedback or issues.<\/p>\n These insights can be especially valuable when launching major campaigns. We recommend creating a listening dashboard for each campaign, tracking any campaign-specific hashtags, promoted posts, and sentiment for all posts.<\/p>\n Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec, an electricity provider in Canada, increased its brand reputation score by 20%<\/a> by experimenting with a new brand tone of voice<\/a>. They used Talkwalker to measure the change in audience sentiment before and after the shift.<\/p>\n Businesses can use social listening to analyze social media discussions and gather insights into customers\u2019 preferences, opinions, and needs.<\/p>\n You can get quantitative insights (based on the frequency and volume of keywords and topics) and qualitative insights (sentiment and top keywords).<\/p>\n Social listening is a powerful tool for crisis management. Like brand reputation management, you can use social listening tools to set alerts for negative keywords + your brand and product names. These alerts can help you identify and address potential crises or controversies before they escalate into significant issues.<\/p>\n Many hospitality brands faced challenging crisis management situations during the pandemic, including Meli\u00e1 Hotels International.<\/p>\n To help frustrated guests navigate disrupted travel plans, Meli\u00e0 centralized all incoming messages into its Hootsuite Inbox and used Talkwalker to track customer sentiment.<\/p>\n One of the more creative ways to use social listening is to identify creators or influencers who could be a good fit to partner with your brand.<\/p>\n You can do this by monitoring relevant hashtags and keywords for your products or industry and identifying individuals within those streams with established audiences.<\/p>\n Then, with one tap from your listening dashboard, you can explore the influencer\u2019s profile, scroll through their most recent posts, or send them a message to propose a collaboration.<\/p>\n Within my social listening dashboard, I have streams monitoring hashtags like #ErasTourOutfits to find UGC to engage with and potential influencers to partner with.<\/p>\n Are you keen to keep tabs on your competitors? Track your competitor\u2019s social media posts and campaigns through social listening.<\/p>\n With social listening tools, you can identify trends, competitors\u2019 strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities in the market.<\/p>\n Ready to become a social listening pro? Here are 7 tips for how to optimize your social listening setup<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhat is social media monitoring?<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/figure>\nWhy does social media monitoring matter?<\/span><\/h2>\n
Improved customer service<\/h3>\n
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Community building<\/h3>\n
Real-time marketing<\/h3>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t#1 Social Media Tool\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\nWhat is social listening?<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Why does social listening matter?<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Brand reputation management<\/h3>\n
Market research<\/h3>\n
Crisis management<\/h3>\n
Identifying influencers<\/h3>\n
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<\/figure>\nCompetitor analysis<\/h3>\n