Introduction
Social listening allows brands to monitor mentions of their business, products, competitors, industry trends and more across social media platforms. For beginners, social listening provides an invaluable window into what customers, influencers and the wider market are saying online. In 2023, listening needs to be a priority for organizations of all sizes. This guide will cover everything you need to know to get started with social listening as a beginner.
TL;DR
Social listening involves tracking chosen keywords, brand names, products and competitors across social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Powerful social listening tools aggregate all these mentions into a single dashboard for analysis. As a beginner, the key steps are choosing a tool, setting up your first listening dashboard, analyzing the data and determining how to act on the insights. This guide will walk through each of these in a simple, step-by-step way.
Choosing a Social Listening Tool
The first step is selecting a social listening tool. Here are some top options for beginners to consider:
- Mention - Offers a free plan making it ideal for getting started. Features include brand monitoring, sentiment analysis and simple analytics.
- Hootsuite - One of the most popular social media management platforms, Hootsuite has robust but easy-to-use listening tools. Pricing starts at $29/month.
- Sprout Social - Great for collaboration, Sprout's listening features are intuitive for beginners. Plans start at $99/month.
- Social Mention - A free alternative with keyword and hashtag tracking, though lacks some analytics.
When evaluating tools, look at available features, pricing tiers, customer support options and any free trials. As a beginner, a free or low-cost platform is recommended to start.
Setting Up Your First Social Listening Dashboard
Once you've chosen a social listening tool, it's time to set up your first dashboard. Here are some tips:
- Add keywords like your brand name, product names, target market terminology. This ensures mentions of these terms will be captured.
- Include relevant hashtags, especially branded hashtags you want to track campaign performance.
- Input any competitor brands, products or personalities you want to monitor. This can provide useful market intelligence.
- Configure filters to refine what conversations are picked up like language, mentions, locations and sources.
Take time to properly optimize your dashboard for the topics and terms most important for your brand. A well-configured dashboard takes your listening to the next level.
Analyzing and Acting on Social Listening Data
As a beginner, focus on a few key metrics and techniques for making sense of the listening data:
- Volume - Pay attention to sudden spikes or drops in volume which can indicate emerging trends, issues or opportunities.
- Sentiment - Monitor how sentiment towards your brand changes over time and identify negative feedback that needs addressing.
- Influencers - Discover key influencers driving conversations relevant to your business for possible outreach.
- Topics - Use word clouds and topic analysis to identify themes and trends in discussions.
Importantly, put processes in place to act on these insights like engaging with positive and negative mentions, connecting with influencers, creating content around key topics and monitoring campaign hashtags.
Conclusion
Social listening doesn't need to be complicated for beginners. Start with a streamlined tool, build a focused listening dashboard, stick to basic analytics and determine simple ways to act on the data. Listening provides powerful consumer and market insights - and can set your brand's social strategy up for success in 2023. For further learning, explore more advanced features, integrate with your other marketing platforms and track competitor activity. With the basics covered in this guide, you're well on your way.
