Social media was once thought of as something of a gimmick. However, it soon became apparent just how powerful these new platforms were, and businesses soon realised the potential they had for reaching new customers and marketing their products.
Now, social media is an integral part of all modern business. From social media publishing to social media listening, there are various techniques and approaches businesses employ to stand out in what is an increasingly crowded market landscape.
How can social media listening help brands stay ahead of the competition? Let’s find out.
How Does Social Media Listening Work?
Social media listening involves using specialist tools and platforms to scan and analyse social media data. Social listening platforms use AI tech and machine learning tools to automate this process and make it more efficient and more accurate.
The tools look specifically for social media content that is relevant to your business. This can include posts away from your business page that would be difficult or even possible to find by yourself.
Today’s digital landscape is extremely competitive. How can social listening be used to ensure you stay one step ahead of the competition? Read on to find out.
Sift Through the Data
The volume of content we post online has reached almost unbelievable levels. For example, over 450,000 Tweets are posted on Twitter every minute.
For many businesses, this is simply far too much data to realistically handle. While there may be useful information hidden amongst it, the process of manually searching for and identifying it is far too time-consuming and resource-intensive.
However, by using social media listening tools, businesses can efficiently sort through this data and identify the valuable parts. Doing so can offer businesses a wide range of benefits that will give them an edge over the competition. Let’s find out more.
Customer Analysis
One of the first things social media listening can tell you is who is talking about your business. By using these tools, you can categorise posts and content that mention your business by specific characteristics of the poster, such as age, gender, geographic location, or cultural background.
In doing so, you will be able to draw direct comparisons between who is talking about your business on social media and your previously established target customer. This is incredibly valuable; it allows you to evaluate the strength and success of your marketing campaigns and assess whether or not they are generating the results you need.
New Locations to Target
Your digital marketing campaigns may focus purely on the major social networks where you post organic content on your own business page. While this can certainly be an effective approach, social media platforms today are home to numerous smaller groups and communities, many of which can be perfect for targeting and attracting new customers.
Social listening tools can help you locate and identify online communities where your brand is being discussed. What this does is give you an opportunity to target brand-new areas, ones that your competitors are unlikely to have access to.
Conclusion
By offering you the chance to analyse customers and target new locations, social listening will help you stay one step ahead of the competition and build your brand.
Article and permission to publish here provided by Mildred Austria. Originally written for Supply Chain Game Changer and published on June 13, 2023.
Cover photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash