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.

Cha-ching!

Secondly, you can keep an eye on industry conversations to see what trends are developing in your industry. 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.

Could this be the secret sauce to set your social engagement? (Buckle up and let’s take a closer look )

First off, you might be asking, what the heck is sticky content?

Picture this: you’re scrolling through your feed and BAM! You hit a digital magnet. This content isn’t just catchy – it’s the online equivalent of super glue.

It delivers that quick thrill and buzz, keeping you hooked, wanting more…

Take “The Price Is Right” for example. What does this iconic game show and sticky content have in common? They bank on surprise and a massive entertainment factor to keep eyes glued to the screen and invested.

So, let’s talk about the brands we’ve seen recently who create this magnetic pull, spark the interest of new followers and create excitement and hype with their loyal fanbase.

And it’s working wonders!

So who is doing it?

FAYT THE LABEL: Spin to Win Mother’s Day Campaign

Fayt is a high energy Australian clothing brand specialising in women’s fashion, swim and activewear. Recently, they tempted their audience to engage on social media via a Mother’s Day Giveaway Campaign. It was a big success garnering heaps of entries and brand awareness.

 

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A post shared by Fayt – Australian Womens Fashion Brand (@faytlabel)

Their Mother’s Day giveaway wasn’t just generous, it was genius. They rewarded five lucky winners while amplifying their brand buzz, growing their Facebook group and expanding their social media footprint. The element of surprise? Masterfully executed. (Oh hey… Britney!)

THE SCOPE: Nominate someone from their exclusive Fayte community to go in the draw to win a prize for Mother’s Day by tagging them on a specific Facebook post. They used multiple mediums to encourage this, such as text, image and video posts, along with reels, across their social media channels.

Here’s why it was such a hit:

• The content maintained the usual high energy tempo their audience is used to which meant they stayed on brand and encouraged maximum return.
• Their reach was increased by encouraging tagging, so the post reached more people.
• The giveaway was on brand as the potential prizes were their own products, along with complementary brands they know their target audience also loves.
• They maintained that all important element of surprise in a couple of ways. The first was announcing the winners at the end of the giveaway. Secondly, they added more suspense by using a spinning wheel to decide what each winner’s prize would be. Double surprises in one go!

Fayt managed to nail “The Price Is Right” feel with their enticing prize draw and creative method for prize winning. Their audience loved it, meaning the brand reaped the rewards of increased followers, raving fans complimenting their products and the feel-good factor of giving prizes away for Mother’s Day.

An all-round success!

Next up we have…

HINE COLLECTION: Golden Ticket Giveaway Campaign

Hine is a proudly wahine-owned and operated activewear brand that stocks a huge range of body positive sizes and ships from lil ole NZ to the world. High energy and known for embracing indigenous Maori culture, they make clothing for real women.

They slipped Golden Tickets worth $100 into random shopping bags during a sale. What did they win? Massive brand exposure, but also a boost in customer loyalty and the incentive to return and buy. Surprise + engagement was the game, and they played it well. Also, I love the team involvement in the video content.

 

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A post shared by HINE (@hinecollection)

BREEZE BALM: What’s in the Box Campaign

Breeze Balm is a legendary lip and skincare brand that has been operating since 1950. A globally loved, Australian owned brand that is all about embracing the principles of clean, effective solutions that really work.

They shook things up with mystery beauty boxes. Priced attractively, these boxes were packed with value and backed by a sharp social strategy that included engaging reels. Result? A complete sell-out of their limited edition boxes. Whoa!

 

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A post shared by BREEZE BALM®| Lip & Skincare (@breeze.balm)

Why are these types of campaigns so successful and what are the real social and brand benefits, I hear you ask?

Well beyond offering up free prizes and entertainment – what benefits could your business enjoy if you adopted this strategy?

If you lean into The Price Is Right strategy, these are just some of the benefits:

The three marketing campaigns I just mentioned tick all the boxes by mimicking “The Price Is Right” in five key, yet extremely simple ways:

• Instant gratification – immediate value and rewards keep the excitement alive, meaning your viewers are engaged, but you also boost sales.
• Audience engagement – it’s about sparking real interactions in your comments section that lead to cheers, shares and likes. This not only fuels further engagement but also enhances crowd (aka audience) participation. Cha-ching!
• Relatability and retention – (ah hello, giving your existing customer a reason to keep coming back for more!) just like the relatable contestants and desirable prizes on the show, social campaigns use real people and real reactions.
• Creating memorable moments – just as the game show is known for its standout moments, social content needs to hook viewers in, sparking their curiosity and desire to stay engaged and stick around.

So is it time to get sticky? COME ON DOWN…

Sticky content shares more with “The Price Is Right” than meets the eye. Both leverage surprise, engagement and memorable storytelling to captivate audiences.

Ready to create sticky content that captivates your audience? Reach out to SO WHAT SOCIAL and let us help you craft your next successful marketing campaign.

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