Social Listening is a form of market research based on social media discussions, helping to analyze brand health, campaigns, special events, and more...
Along with the development of social networks, Social Listening is also growing in application capabilities. If in the past, Social Listening was only about collecting social media data, today data collection is only a part of Social Listening. Measuring buzz volume or sentiment is no longer the only function of Social Listening. In the context of this article, let's look at old questions through a new lens: What is social listening and what role does it play in social media marketing?
Social Listening is a form of market research that analyzes online user discussions across social media platforms. It involves the collection and analysis of conversations from various online platforms, including social media, forums, blogs, news sites, and review websites. Unlike traditional research methods, Social Listening works primarily with unstructured data, offering businesses real-time feedback from diverse users across different online platforms.
Typically, a Social Listening process follows these steps:
- Step 1: Build an analysis plan
Researchers begin by defining the context and research objectives, then set the key questions to be addressed.
- Step 2: Data collection
Using Social Listening tools, researchers gather data based on keywords from all social platforms, ensuring an accurate and comprehensive understanding of trends and industry data.
- Step 3: Data filtering and analysis
After collecting data, researchers filter out irrelevant or misleading information to ensure accuracy. Data is processed through AI systems and human verification to find potential insights.
- Step 4: Data visualization and reporting
Finally, the results are compiled into a complete report with visualized data for easier understanding and decision-making.
Social Listening data sources are not limited to major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Threads. They also cover any medium that allows multi-way interaction, including forums, e-newspapers (comment sections), blogs, and e-commerce review sections.
(A) API Data Collection
This method connects Social Listening tools to the APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) of social networks to retrieve posts containing specific keywords.
- Advantages: Allows access to all data from the network, including personal pages.
- Disadvantages: API reliability may fluctuate, leading to incomplete or inconsistent data over time.
(B) Site Data Collection
This method involves accessing listed sites to collect data without disrupting the websites, either by manual or automatic data gathering processes.
- Advantages: Ensures 100% of data on the site is collected.
- Disadvantages: Certain issues, like site changes or blocking, may cause temporary data shortages.
When conducting research via Social Listening, marketers should focus on key metrics to gain a comprehensive view of the research landscape and measure the effectiveness of their Social Media Marketing strategies:
- Buzz Volume: The number of discussions (posts, comments, or shares) about a specific topic.
- Share of Voice (SOV): Compares the discussion volume of a brand against competitors.
- Audience Scale: The number of individuals participating in discussions about a topic.
- Sentiment Score: Indicates users' emotions toward a topic, calculated by comparing positive and negative discussions.
Initially, Social Listening was seen by many marketers as a purely measurement tool, providing basic metrics about campaigns or brands in comparison with competitors (such as discussion volume, participant count, sentiment scores, etc.). However, over time, social media has expanded significantly in scale. Users have become more familiar with Digital Transformation, sharing more than ever, and social media trends are emerging increasingly. As a result, the scope of social media data has broadened, offering a wealth of potential information to support Social Media Marketing strategies. Consequently, Social Listening has also evolved to gather data across various platforms and meet diverse research needs from marketers.
For each research focus, marketers can apply Social Listening to a range of different areas. Typically, marketers can use Social Listening for three main research directions: (1) Insight Understanding, (2) Campaign Tracking, (3) Crisis Management.
This research can provide a comprehensive overview of a specific industry, including e-commerce performance, brand image identification, and opportunities for differentiation. It also outlines the target audience's profile, capturing public attitudes and usage toward products/brands/industries.
a. Industry Competitive Landscape:
For instance, the chart below shows the most-discussed functional food brands over a certain period. From this, brands can identify their competitors, understand their position in the competitive landscape, and aim for top-of-mind awareness among consumers. Moreover, by quoting user discussions, researchers can pinpoint issues regarding public perception of both the brand and its competitors. This allows the brand to compare, recognize problems, and take corrective action if needed.
→ Read more: Exploring Insights in the Functional Food Industry: Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Era
b. Brand Image and Differentiation:
An example of Buzzmetrics research on leading diaper brands paints a detailed picture of brand differentiation. Compared to other brands, Molfix’s product performs exceptionally well in absorbency. However, aspects like softness and thinness received negative feedback. Molfix’s branding team can also monitor current customer perceptions of competitors and identify areas for improvement.
c. Usage and Attitude Research (UnA):
UnA research focuses on consumer discussions and plays a key role in unveiling the consumer landscape of an industry. It addresses key questions like:
- Users' interest levels in the product/brand on social media
- Awareness, usage, and consumer behavior displayed on social platforms
- Motivations and barriers to product/brand consumption
- General satisfaction/dissatisfaction with current products/services
- Users’ needs, unmet demands, or general expectations
d. Target Audience Segmentation:
In some cases, brands aim to understand consumers not just from a product buyer perspective but from a broader context that includes their lifestyle and habits. Social Listening can support brands in achieving this.
For instance, analyzing the most-discussed topics within Gen Alpha revealed that "love" was the top theme, surpassing even "education" and "games." This insight shows that to engage Gen Alpha, brands should consider using "love" as a central theme to attract attention and foster interaction.
→ Read more: Gen Alpha: What Sets the Next Generation of Consumers Apart?
Notably, social media is segmented by interests. Therefore, identifying user groups and their main concerns is crucial in segmenting the social media audience. Pinpointing key interests and insights will help brands align their marketing tactics with user interests. As a result, branded content and messaging are more likely to appear in users' feeds, capturing attention, generating engagement, fostering recall and affinity, or even leading to user-generated content (UGC) related to the brand.
Social Listening supports marketers in planning, creating content, and adjusting strategies in real time throughout all phases of a campaign. It helps track brand sentiment and ensures campaigns align with audience expectations.
Today, even a small complaint on Facebook can cause significant damage to a brand. As consumers become increasingly familiar with social media, the likelihood of crises occurring rises. Our Social Listening data shows that while the number of crises has decreased as brands take a more proactive role in crisis management, the average scale of a crisis has grown significantly.
Crises may seem to occur randomly and can impact any brand for seemingly arbitrary reasons. This makes social media crises difficult to track and challenging for brands to respond to. However, through Social Listening, not only can crises be monitored, but their patterns can also be identified, allowing brands to develop strategic response plans.
By analyzing user discussions on social media and providing actionable insights to brands, Social Listening plays a critical role in shaping communication strategies. The most common applications of Social Listening include gathering insights, tracking campaign performance, and managing crises.
To learn more about metrics, marketers can refer to here
It has only recently appeared on the market, but the sports drinks industry is receiving attention from consumers, especially on social media. Although the amount of discussion is low, sports drinks are a very potential segment in the beverage market.
It has only recently appeared on the market recently, but sports drinks are receiving significant attention from consumers, especially on social media. Although the number of discussions about sports drinks is still quite low compared to energy drinks, through what is discussed by users on social media, it can be said that sports drinks are a very potential segment in the beverage market.
Although sports drinks are still a new type of drink and not familiar to many people, consumers are generally taking a rather positive view of this drink on social media. According to the report Category research — Sports drink by BuzzMetrics: In the first quarter of 2014, here are the biggest concerns about sports drinks being discussed on social media:
It can be seen that consumers still have a lot of concerns about sports drinks, but in generl he discussion is focused on the effects and benefits of this type of product. Besides general discussions about quality, taste, composition, etc., consumers also mention “Electrolyte Compensation”, “Thirst Relief”, “Energy Compensation” (which is characteristic of this type of drink). Although the number of discussions is small, these are the topics of sports drinks that should be amplified by brands on social media.
Energy Drinks---- Appearing on the market for a long time, it is considered a good choice for instant energt recovery, but at the same time carries an unhealthy image that is already deeply imprinted in the minds of consumers, especially women.
Sports Drinks---- While the energy drink market is gradually saturated with a variety of familiar brands such as Sting, Number 1, Redbull, etc., sports drinks are opening up a new market with products that replenish minerals and electrolytes for the body without harm to health. Sports drinks are less negatively evaluated than energy drinks, but the use is not yet well understood by users.
It can be seen that the current negative discussions about sports drinks mainly stem from the fact that consumers still do not really understand this drink, most notably that many users claim sports drinks are the same as soft drinks and not good for health.
At a time when the habit of using sports drinks is still quite alien to consumers, brands need to take further steps to provide consumers with more complete information about sports drinks
1. Sports drinks are not soft drinks: Currently, consumers are still quite blind about the concept of sports drinks, which has led to misunderstandings about this product, most notably the fact that many people assume that sports drinks are also soft drinks. Therefore, the first thing that brands need to do is to erase this association.
2. Strengthen the habit of using sports drinks during movement: Brands need to raise consumer awareness of the use of sports drinks as methods energy replenishment, minerals and electrolytesoptimal during movement.
3. Advantages of sports drinks over energy drinks:Emphasize the benefits sports drinks bring to users that energy drinks fail to do, especially the health benefits.
4. Strengthening presence in sports leagues:Aquarius's sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup 2014, an international sporting event, has made Aquarius a highly appreciated product in the eyes of users thanks to the image “Official Sports Drink of FIFA World Cup 2014”.
Articles using data in reporting Category research — Sports drink, Quarter 1 2014 by Buzzmetrics.
