Social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of a brand, competitors, a product, service, or keyword. It allows brands to know what its customers are saying about it, how they feel about the brand, helps them to discover the pain points in the customer journey and obtain actionable insights that will help them to improve the customer experience.
According to a report from eMarketer and Gartner, over 50% of marketers are getting information about consumers through social listening during the pandemic. Social listening is such a valuable tool that the WHO has been using social listening to combat the spread of misinformation on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article will look into the ways that social listening can be used to improve the customer experience.
Defining Social Listening?
Social media usage is at an all-time high as of October, 2020, with 3.96 billion users worldwide according to research from SmartInsights. A recent GlobalWebIndex report indicated that from January - March 2020, digital consumers were on social networks (and messaging apps) an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes per day. Not surprisingly, the report also showed that up to 50% of social media users use social networks to do research on products and services. Social media is a huge part of a brand’s customer experience.
According to Davitha Ghiassi, executive vice president, Social and Integration at Red Havas, social media and social listening is more than just about adding to the customer’s experience, it’s a crucial part of that experience. “Therefore, conducting social listening helps you truly hear your customer (existing as well as potential) in surround sound and unlocks actionable insights.”
Social listening is an effective method of finding out what people are talking about on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks. Brands use social listening to learn what their customers think about their products and services, how they feel about their interactions with a brand through all the brand’s channels, and through the process, they are able to discover any pain points the customer may have experienced in their journey.
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Social media is well known for being a place where people feel free to express their opinions, so it makes a great place where brands can learn exactly how their customers feel, and what kind of emotional connection they have made with a brand. It’s also a great place to discover trends in an industry or technology, and to learn about a brand’s competitors. According to a report from Statista, 33% of respondents from the United States stated that they have used social media to complain about a brand or its customer service. Social listening can be an effective way of knowing when a customer is reaching out to a brand, whether it is on the brand’s own social presence, or their own profile page.
Dean Browell, PhD, Professor of Digital Ethnography and Social Listening at the VCU School of Business, said that the deep behavioral insights that social listening provides offers brands a look into the decision making process of its customers, directly through the landscape that other prospective customers use when they are seeking information about a brand, product or service. “Social listening helps to illustrate the personalities and behaviors of audiences and can be used to follow trends and patterns in both the audiences and their feelings toward brands, services, products, facilities, and more. Social listening seeks to provide the voice of the consumer and understand the volume and timber of that voice and how it influences others.”
How to improve conversion rates
As Ghiassi explained, although a brand may receive customer feedback directly through branded channels, the majority of customers do not actually follow the brand’s social profile. “Research shows that 96% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles. Therefore, looking beyond the comments that come to you is crucial in order to see the complete picture; and social listening enables you to do just that by tracking conversations including relevant keywords, brand mentions and even visual mentions of your brand,” she said.
Professor Browell said that while it’s understandable that brands want to know what is said through their own official channels, that’s not necessarily where they will be able to find the best insights. “There’s a real issue with thinking that by mostly paying attention to who shows up at your official channels represents how people actually feel about you. Yes, there’s things to be revealed in those interactions, but the context of those interactions is incredibly important — and showing how people speak to peers when you’re not around is crucial to understanding why some segment shows up at all on your digital doorstep. It’s too small a focus group.”
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Given the fact that social listening tools search through millions of social media posts using multiple keywords, hashtags and profiles, they are capable of determining what a brand’s target audience is talking about, how often they are talking, as well as providing a deeper understanding of the context in which they are talking. By highlighting trending topics, a brand can create marketing and sales copy that will more directly appeal to the target audience, as well as website content that is more relevant for that audience. Additionally, by using the language that the target audience used, brands are able to create more effective SEO campaigns.
Aspects of the customer experience that can be identified through social listening include:
- The problems that customers have, which provide opportunities to create solutions and eradicate pain points.
- The solutions and features customers desire, which provides opportunities for new features, products or services.
- The questions that customers ask, which provides opportunities to write answers which push the customer closer to a sale, as well as to provide content that answers their questions on the brand’s website or social presence.
- The customers’ brand perception, which enables a brand to work on aligning its values with those of its customers.
- Which stage customers are at in the buying process, which allows brands to more effectively communicate with them.
- The things that customers really like about a brand’s products, services, or solutions.
- The things that customers don’t like about a brand’s products, services, or solutions.
Additional information that can be obtained through social listening includes:
- Industry trends, which enable brands to stay ahead of the curve.
- Consumer trends, which enable brands to provide the products and services that customers are interested in.
- Overall brand visibility measurements, which enable a brand to determine its market saturation, or lack thereof.
- Crisis management, which allows a brand to quickly get on top of any emerging crisis involving brand perception.
- Ad campaign evaluation, which enables a brand to test the impact of any ad campaigns it is running on social media.
- Top influencer discovery, which enables a brand to know who its customers follow.
The 2020 Sprout Social Index report indicated that 79% of consumers expect a response within the first 24 hours after reaching out to a brand on social media, and 40% expect brands to respond within an hour. Social listening can be an effective part of a brand’s customer service efforts, and can play a valuable role in determining if its customer’s needs are being fulfilled, which also helps to improve the customer experience.
“Needless to say, listening to your audience via this channel is key,” said Ghiassi. “But social listening not only offers a powerful means of identifying and directly addressing comments, questions or concerns surrounding your brand or product, it also allows you to look to them for insights that can help improve the overall customer service strategy.”
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