“Turn your ears on!”

As a chatty youth, this was something that my teachers used to say to me all the time. 

AND, as a marketer, I strongly suspect that you and I are kindred spirits in this respect. Always the kid getting sprung for having a wee chat in the back of the classroom.

It’s not that we weren’t listening as such, we just had a million ideas going round in our brains, right?

But, when I graduated from my early years of school, I began to discover the wisdom in Mrs Grey’s words.

If I turned my ears on, I heard a lot.

So, I started listening.

I found out so much interesting stuff!

Beyond the playground talk of the latest scrunchie craze or who was dating who, I heard deeper things… useful things.

This conscious listening not only helped me form strong connections with people as I matured, but in a professional sense, it provided me with an absolute goldmine of valuable information that I could use as a marketer.

 

 

Today’s conscious listening happens on social media.

It’s called social listening.

And if you actually turn your ears on, you can hear a lot! So, listen up as this article is all about the wisdom behind my Grade 2 teacher’s wise words and how they can help you create marketing gold.

What Is Social Listening?

Social listening is monitoring the things that are said about your brand, products, services, competitors and industry in the online space. Now, that doesn’t mean putting a glass up to the door of all the Zoom meetings taking place worldwide! It means utilising social media and other digital tools to tune into the conversations happening around you.

In a simple sense, this monitoring can be done by tracking mentions of your brand, relevant keywords of competitors in the social sphere. In a more complicated sense, you can use specific tracking tools to gather every bit of available publicly accessible data that is relevant to your business.

By accumulating this data and the resulting insights, you can get a gauge of how people feel about your products and services, what problems they are experiencing and what they would like to see from your brand.

The best part is, you can use what you learn to not only make more informed marketing decisions, but also make better decisions about your overall business strategy and direction. 

 

 

Why Use Social Listening In Business?

While it’s normally frowned upon to listen to other people’s conversations, this is one form of eavesdropping that is strongly encouraged! That’s because social listening is a powerful strategic weapon. Here’s why:

Brand Reach

Is your brand known in the digital space, is anyone actually talking about it? And even more importantly, what are they saying when they do mention you on social media?

Ideally, your marketing efforts should be reaching all the right people in all the right places and encouraging them to engage. Sure you can check your analytics for some of these stats. However, you can learn even more by tracking those conversations online and see where you are getting the most action.

We are aiming for a deafening roar of positive vibe conversations here! So, if your listening is producing nothing more than the sound of crickets and a few tumbleweeds rolling by, that tells you it’s time to tweak your marketing strategy.  

Brand Feel

Being well known is one thing, but you can be known for ALL the wrong reasons. Social listening helps you gauge how positively your brand is performing in the digital space.

When you understand how people feel about your brand, you can create a better experience for them. People can be very vocal about any issues they have experienced when dealing with a business. Knowing if there are any issues with your products or services can help you develop solutions to prevent the same things from happening in the future.

You can also monitor how people’s feelings evolve and change over time. This helps you establish if any changes you make within your offerings are positively or negatively received and how you should position your solutions within your industry.

Analyse the Market

With your finger on the pulse, you can find an awful lot of useful information. 

In the first instance, you can take a peek at what your competitors are doing – see their strategies, how they interact with your clients and customers, and what the responses to their offerings are like. By comparing your strategies to theirs, you can identify potential gaps and opportunities in the market.

Secondly, you can keep an eye on industry conversations to see what trends are developing in your field. By staying ahead of emerging trends, you can make sure you are evolving to always meet the changing demands of your customers. 

Finally, you can use the information you gather to develop new products and services, or evolve your current ones, to ensure you are still meeting the needs of your ideal clients. This can really supercharge your offerings as the feedback will be based on the actual experience of your customers and whether you were able to meet or exceed their expectations.

Measure Your Effectiveness

As we’ve said many times before, social media marketing has evolved far beyond a throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks strategy. We all know that we need to be conscious in our marketing efforts, putting in research and strategising before posting. 

But, what if after all that strategising, things have evolved and your posts end up missing the mark? 

Panic not. Social media listening can prevent that from happening. If you are consistently tracking discussions and sentiment, you’ll get immediate feedback from your people. That allows you to adjust your strategy in real time and build an understanding of what your people are responding to.

By listening and responding, you’ll ensure your content always remains relevant and effective.

 

 

What Is An Example Of Social Listening?

How do you go about listening effectively? Well, the seemingly unlikely pairing of Bunnings Warehouse, What So Not, Kaila and Peking Duk recently teamed up for the ultimate example of effective social listening!

It all began when Sydney based DJ Kaila remixed the iconic Bunnings jingle with drum and bass. That soon progressed into him presenting a light hearted petition to hold a rave party at a Bunnings store. The idea quickly gained momentum on social media with electronic music acts Peking Duk and What So Not throwing their weight behind the petition.

What started as a laugh soon evolved into a viral TikTok campaign with millions of followers showing their support and wanting to attend a warehouse party at Bunnings. An absolute golden opportunity not to be missed, Bunning listened to the social media conversations and confirmed they would “give the people what they want” by playing host to a rave.

The end result… an epic carpark rave held at Bunnings Warehouse Preston attended by thousands! It combined all things iconic to the viral campaign – headlined by national music acts Kaila, Peking Duk, What So Not, Nay Nay and Lottie, all fuelled by a typical Bunnings Snagfest (sausages on the BBQ) and finished with a touch of Bunnings face painting and outstanding customer service.

The best part? Bunnings used the opportunity to support a worthy cause, raising $50,000 for Support Act, an Australian charity dedicated to creating a safe and thriving local music industry.

This event became the epitome of learning what the people want via social listening, then giving it to them in a truly iconic way. It had the desired effect for the businesses involved – raising money for a worthy cause while creating huge amounts of positive brand exposure for Bunnings and the associated artists.

 

 

How Do Brands Use Social Listening?

Don’t panic, your brand doesn’t have to go all in and host a carpark rave of your own! There are plenty of other ways you can utilise the power of social listening.

You just need to turn your ears on. Every business, whether it be large or small, should be listening to what their customers and prospects are saying about their products, services and brand as a whole. There is no better way to understand what you could be doing better and how you can improve your business strategies.

But, how do you activate those ears? Simply crossing your legs, sitting up straight and giving your Grade 2 teacher your full attention isn’t going to cut it these days! 

You need something a little more technical. Of course, manually scrolling social media is an option, but it’s one that will be time consuming and distracting. The better option is to utilise purpose built social listening tools.

That way, you can access the information you need quickly and efficiently, complete with analytic data, multi-language options and deep insights to help you understand those conversations intimately.

This is certainly a tool you could implement yourself, but wouldn’t it be more effective to let an expert handle the whole process for you?

At SO WHAT SOCIAL we are the ultimate listeners, not in a creepy way or anything, but we have the ability to hear all the things you need to know.

Get in touch with us now to chat about how we can turn your ears on and create social media magic with the conversations that we hear.