University of Kwazulu-Natal

A Beginner S Guide To Social Listening

Bonisiwe Shabane
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a beginner s guide to social listening

Do you want to know what people are saying about your business online? Social listening is an awesome way to find out what your customers think, how your brand is doing, and what your competitors are up to. But how do you get started? In this blog post, we’ll show you how to set up a social listening strategy. Before you dive into social listening, you need to have a clear goal in mind. What are you trying to accomplish with social listening?

Do you want to know how your customers feel? How your brand is perceived? How to avoid a PR disaster? By having a clear goal, you can focus your social listening strategy on what matters most. There are tons of social media platforms, but not all of them are relevant to your business. You need to find out where your customers and competitors are spending their time online.

This will help you decide which platforms to monitor and where to join the conversation. There are also tons of social listening tools out there, and you need to pick the right one for your business. Look for tools that can track conversations on the platforms you’ve chosen, and that can give you insights into how people feel (sentiment), who they are (demographics), and who influences them (key influencers). Once you’ve picked your tools, it’s time to set up what you want to monitor. This includes choosing keywords and phrases that relate to your business, keeping an eye on your brand and product mentions, and following relevant hashtags and topics. <img width="70" height="40" class="jeg_logo_img" src="https://litcommerce.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/BLOG.png" alt="LitCommerce">

Many marketers often focus so heavily on creating engaging content that they forget to stay in tune with the broader conversations happening around their brand. The result? A single negative review or viral complaint can damage your brand reputation, and hurt customer retention, all before you even realize it’s happening. If that sounds familiar, it’s time to start paying attention to social listening. Social listening is an essential tool for modern marketers navigating a digital world where electronic word of mouth (eWOM) can spread in seconds. It helps you track, interpret, and act on what people are really saying about your brand.

So what exactly is social listening definition, how does it work, and what are the real benefits? How do you build a strategy that works, and which tools should you use? This article will walk you through everything; so by the end, you’ll know how to listen smarter, respond faster, and build stronger brand trust. Social listening is the active process of attending to, observing, interpreting, and responding to a variety of stimuli through mediated, electronic, and social channels like: In today’s digital landscape, consumers are constantly talking, and brands that listen closely are winning the game. Social listening isn’t merely an industry buzzword—it’s a powerful strategy that can revolutionize the way your business interacts with customers.

But what exactly is social listening, and why should it matter to your brand? Let's dive into the essentials in this beginner-friendly guide. At its core, social listening refers to tracking, analyzing, and responding to conversations happening across social media platforms. It goes beyond just counting mentions and likes. Instead, it focuses on understanding customer sentiment, identifying emerging trends, and capturing insights to drive strategic decisions. Imagine social listening as a superpower, enabling your brand to tap into the unfiltered voices of your customers.

It’s like having an ear to the ground, allowing you to hear what consumers really think, feel, and desire. If you’re still wondering why social listening should matter, consider these crucial reasons: By closely monitoring your audience’s conversations, brands can swiftly address customer complaints or inquiries, boosting overall satisfaction. Customers today expect rapid responses; social listening positions you to deliver precisely that. Your guide to mastering social listening, from setup to strategy. See how skincare brand Summer Fridays boosted engagement by 40% across channels with AI-powered social listening

Social media is overflowing with unfiltered feedback, trending conversations and real-time sentiment, all of which can influence your brand’s success. Social listening is the key to unlocking this valuable stream of insight. Aside from eavesdropping, it helps shape strategy, spark innovation and build stronger customer relationships. In a global 2025 survey of marketing professionals, nearly 76% reported using social listening software. If you’re not already leveraging these tools, there’s a good chance your competitors are, and they may be listening to what your audience is saying. In this post, you’ll learn what social listening is, why it matters, the main benefits it offers, the top tools to consider and how to put it into action for your brand.

Worldwide, over 50% of marketers rely on social listening to understand changing consumer markets. A robust social listening strategy can greatly impact your overall social media marketing approach! By understanding social media listening and learning how to use it correctly, you can improve your ability to reach and serve your target audience. Over time, this can help you build your brand and see tangible results from your social media strategy. For many business owners, the concept of social listening can feel intimidating. What does social media listening really mean, and how can you make it work for your business in a rapidly changing online world?

At Plann, we have the answers you need. Consider this your beginner’s guide to all things social listening! Start your day with Home - a beautiful overview of your brands day ahead with a to-do-list manager, post ideas AND content inspiration! Social listening is the process of monitoring and analyzing online conversations about your brand, industry, competitors, and customers. It can help you gain valuable insights, improve customer service, enhance your marketing strategy, and grow your business. But what is social listening exactly?

How can you get started with social listening? And what tools, benefits, and best practices can you use to master social listening? In this blog post, you will learn the answers to these questions and more. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, this guide will show you how to use social listening to grow your business. Social listening is the practice of tracking and analyzing what people say about you, your brand, your products, your industry, your competitors, and your customers on various online platforms and channels, such as social... Social listening is different from social media monitoring, which is the practice of tracking and measuring your social media metrics, such as likes, shares, comments, followers, etc.

Social listening is a revolutionary tool for media monitoring and analysis. It collects every piece of online content that can be relevant for you. This includes articles, blogposts, all sorts of social media content and comments. It can give you useful insights into what internet users think about you. But here is the trick: thanks to the automated process, it all happens without actually reading this huge amount of content. They say social listening is the future of media monitoring, but it is not the future anymore.

Online content can now be collected and analyzed without human intervention, but with human-level precision. It means you can stay informed about everything that is published about your brand, company, product or competitors. And, again, you don’t even need to read the relevant pieces and mentions. Every important conclusion will be detected for you. So you are the social media manager of a well-known brand. Your new product seems a big hit on the market, and the management asks you to make a presentation about the online perception of this new product.

Well, you have two options. You either start reading all 3000 articles, posts and comments published about it and give up sleep for a couple days. Or you can be smarter than that. If you accept the help of a social listening tool, all you have to do is run an analysis on the name of the product, wait a couple hours and get the results shown... The dashboard will reveal how many positive or negative texts are found, what the related topics, names, brands, emotions or locations are and much more! As the expression ‘social listening’ itself says: listen to your audience!

Because people in the audience listen to each other, too. Today’s typical consumer doesn’t believe in advertisements or promotions. However, people are truly aware of the advantages of internet freedom. They listen to other people’s opinions while they are not afraid to publish theirs, either. It’s been clear that the most successful companies are the ones who let themselves be guided by their customers. And guess what: hearing what they want has never been easier in the era of social listening.

Being aware of every relevant opinion helps you to be one step ahead of your customers. You will know what they want even before they realize they want it. Once analysing their opinion isn't a burden anymore, all you'll have to do is focus on campaign and strategy planning. Most importantly, social listening saves you time and energy. Big amounts of textual data like social media posts with thousands of comments take a long time to process. This will no longer be a problem.

With the help of this new approach to media analysis, you can get the necessary insights without actually reading what has been written about you on the internet. Every mention and relevant piece of content about your brand, company, product, field or competitors is collected automatically. In addition, the results are shown on easy-to-understand charts. Most social listening tools show the results on simple but insightful charts, so everyone can get the gist of them without any experience in data analysis. Regular contributor Beth Becker has more for us today than just the excellent piece below; she’s also announced a series of two-day digital trainings taking place in cities around the world. Congratulations, Beth!!

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