What is Social Media Listening? Should You Care About It?

What is Social Media Listening?

Social Media Listening is a technique that brands use to create or improve their business strategy. Listening is done by watching trends and popular hashtags, and engaging with followers on social media.
 

Why is It Important For Your Business?

You can improve your business strategy and understand more about your clients if you learn how to do Social Media Listening! By getting feedback from your customers, watching trends, and paying attention to competitors, you could adapt your business strategy and get better results from it. Social Media Listening is a way to measure how well you communicate on social media, and find out if your content is relevant to your audience. 
 

How to Start?

Starting your Social Media Listening is easy! 

First, you must have Social Media accounts (e.g.: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) for your business. Those accounts must be easily identifiable (including name of the business, picture of the business/logo, business hours, and contact info) for the public to be able to find and interact with them. You should also focus on certain keywords in your bio. Be brief, but don’t forget to show your clients what your business is about.
 

Finding Your Leads

Second, keywords, hashtags, and influencers are all factors that will help you to connect with potential customers. You can also engage with the topics related to your products and services (try not to oversell and be genuine). Hashtags related to your business are the ones that include your services/products and your business location. This step is important so your business has a defined audience and can focus more on qualified leads.
 

Data Analysis & What to Look For? 

The third step includes gathering information and data analysis. This can be done through a social media Listening Platform (such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Hubspot), or you could do it yourself. If you choose to do it by yourself, look at the insights page on your social media. You should be mainly looking for impressions and engagement. The type of data you select is important and it depends on your business, but regardless, you may want to look at engagement rate (likes, shares, comments).

The last step includes interpreting your results and adapting your business strategy. If engagement tends to be low in a specific kind of content/topics, next time try posting about something different. You could also try different kinds of posts/contents and see the ones that perform better via engagement rate (a good way to start is by seeing whether your videos/images perform better, and posting more of it!).
 

Improve and Keep Testing

If the engagement rate isn’t as good as expected, this is an opportunity for you to revisit your content strategy! Social Media Listening might sound complicated, but in the end, it is all about learning and analyzing results! If you need help with your Social Media Listening or have any questions, please email us at duqsbdc@duq.edu!
 

Next Steps

Our consultants here at the Duquesne University Small Business Development Center can assist you with your small business. We offer no-cost business consulting in Southwestern PA. You can request consulting here.