Market research at your fingertips thanks to social listening
“Being able to listen is half the battle,” noted U.S. politician Calvin Coolidge back in the early 20th century. This is true in politics as well as in many other areas of life – including marketing. If you listen to your customers, you have a better chance of satisfying them. And this is hardly anywhere else as easy as in social networks.
Social Listening describes the tracking and analysis of mentions and contributions in social networks around the own brand, the own topic or the competition. One listens to the Kund:innen and uses the realizations won from it around conclusions for the own business action to derive.
Monitoring – Analysis – Response.
The social listening process begins with social media monitoring. It is not the same as social listening, but can be understood as part of it. Monitoring captures the sheer number of mentions of one’s name, topics, keywords, trends or competition. Social listening goes beyond the quantitative level and analyzes the mentions captured to understand the sentiment, or “social media sentiment,” behind the data. Optimally, the insights gained are then acted upon. On the one hand, this can be done by adapting the product or communication directly to the needs of the customers. On the other hand, there is the opportunity to get in touch with customers online and start conversations. This makes social listening not only an important customer intelligence tool, but also a direct contribution to social selling.
It is negligent to forgo social listening.
People are actively talking about brands and industries online. Social listening is market research. And tangible, real-time market research at that. Anyone who ignores this is walking through the consumer market with at least one eye closed. This becomes clear with just a quick look at the knowledge that can be generated through social listening:
Through social listening, you learn
– who your clientele is.– what their expectations, desires, preferences, fears, etc. are.
– how to reach them better.
– what issues are important to them.
– what they think of your company.
– what they think of your competitors.
– what the latest trends are.
Any questions?!