{"id":4369,"date":"2019-11-25T12:05:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T10:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/?p=4369"},"modified":"2019-11-30T11:39:44","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T09:39:44","slug":"the-ultimate-guide-to-social-listening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dazzlepop.net\/site\/the-ultimate-guide-to-social-listening\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Guide to Social Listening"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you work in social media<\/a> marketing, it may seem like everyone is talking about the importance of social listening (or social media monitoring).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if you\u2019ve never used social listening in your marketing strategy, it might be difficult to know where to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even if you already use a social media monitoring tool, are you sure you\u2019re getting the most out of it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is, social media monitoring is not as simple and, at the same time, not as complicated as some people make it out to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It goes beyond the basic routine of looking through your notifications to see who mentioned you, but you don\u2019t need to be a data scientist to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I\u2019m saying is, one article, such as this guide, for example, will be enough for you to get the hang of the social listening process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone who works at a social listening startup<\/a> (disclosure: I work at\u00a0Awario)<\/em>, I am lucky to have two perspectives: a person who uses social listening in her daily routine and a person \u201con the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t bore you with technicalities, but what I will do is share some tips and best practices that I collected from my own and our customers\u2019 experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But before we jump into the rapturous and exciting waters of social listening, let\u2019s handle the basics onshore. First and foremost, what is social listening?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Social Listening?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, the term is quite self-explanatory (although there are some caveats).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The listening part describes the process of listening <\/strong>to what your customers, target audiences, competitors, or even the general public are saying on the web by monitoring keywords and their combinations. You then analyze the collected data and draw actionable insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for social<\/strong>, this is where the caveat comes in. Depending on your strategy and the tools you use, you can monitor websites, blogs, forums, and social media platforms (at least those which allow monitoring).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the word social doesn\u2019t actually describe the full capabilities of this practice: while social media is best for immediate engagement with your audience, the right tool enables you to cover both social media and the web.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing related to semantics that might confuse you is the fact that I keep altering between social listening <\/strong>and social media monitoring <\/strong>in this article. The truth is, many marketers often use them interchangeably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, to paraphrase the Bard, that which we call a social media monitoring tool by any other name would work as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, all in all, what is social listening?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the practice of listening to what\u2019s taking place online for business goals. Your goals will play a major role in crafting your social listening strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coincidentally, deciding on your goals is also the first step to crafting said strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s stop talking about linguistics and focus on what you came here for \u2013 a step-by-step guide to social listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guide to Social Listening<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Step 1: Define Your Goals<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Social listening is full of possibilities. You can derive all sorts of actionable and valuable insights from social media data depending on the objectives you set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many ways to use social listening<\/a>, but here\u2019s a list of the most common ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n