What is social media monitoring and listening?

If you are one of Facebook’s 2.9 billion users globally or Instagram’s one billion users around the world, you would know that plenty of conversations take place over social media. These conversations are a goldmine of data for marketers.

We all know the importance of listening to others in our everyday relationships. Yet we tend to neglect listening to our customers on social media and ignore one of the most valuable sources of insights to guide decision making in marketing and business. You may assume it’s impossible to listen to what billions of people are saying over the internet. But it’s not. By leveraging technology, you can monitor and listen to your customers in real-time and use that data to your advantage.

Social media monitoring

In basic terms, social media monitoring is the process of using a tool to track and listen to what is being said across the internet — from social media channels to websites to blogs and more using a defined set of keywords or phrases based on your areas of interest. You could monitor your own brand, competitor brands, a particular product or certain topics.

Often, the term social media monitoring is used interchangeably with social media listening. They are same, same but different. More specifically social media monitoring is the process of crawling for, collecting relevant data and responding to mentions if required.

Social media listening

Meanwhile, social media listening focuses on the large sets of data your monitoring has collected and analyses them for specific insights or identifying trends. Monitoring tells you the what. Listening tells you the why.

You will probably end up with a large volume of data, but don’t let that scare you. Most social media monitoring and listening platforms have been designed to be adaptable and intelligent. There are features built-in that will help you filter all that data that’s coming in and present you with what’s relevant to your needs and goals. The trick is to master the platform — using Boolean operators correctly, monitoring by languages and location, and taking advantage of natural language processing plus artificial intelligence capabilities.

Depending on the platform, there are tools available for you to track engagement and mentions, perform sentiment analysis, conduct topic analysis and set alerts. Data can also be used for reporting, research and decision making. Companies and brands can use the data and analysis in different ways — it depends on the outcomes you seek.

Choosing a platform

Which is best for you? It depends, really. There are tons of platforms available on the market and they keep evolving. “Best” will probably depend on what you want to use the social monitoring and listening tool for. On the surface, most platforms offer similar solutions and capabilities but when you dig a bit deeper you will find differences in coverage and functionality. What you will find is that some platforms are better suited for small business while others offer solutions to meet the needs of enterprise clients. Like anything else, budget is naturally a big factor — the more you are wiling to pay, the better features and coverage you will get.

Keen to explore further but overwhelmed? It’s okay. We’re happy to have a chat and help you figure out how incorporating social intelligence into your business can add value to your bottom line.