How to Use Social Listening for your Influencer Marketing Strategy

Key Takeaways

• Social listening allows companies to understand consumers’ perceptions and opinions about their products or services.
• Social listening is carried out through the use of social media monitoring and analysis tools, which allow gathering and analyzing information to make strategic decisions.
• Learn about some examples of companies from different sectors that have applied social listening to create successful campaigns and achieve their business objectives.

What is Social Listening?

Social listening refers to the practice of monitoring and analyzing what is being said on social networks and other digital media about your brand, company, product or specific topic. The goal of social listening is to better understand the perception and opinions of consumers and the general public and then use that information to make decisions for your company.

Social listening involves tracking keywords, hashtags, and mentions on social networks, as well as analyzing comments, posts, and messages from users on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, among others. This technique can be used by companies, organizations and individuals to monitor their online reputation, conduct market research, identify trends, and get ideas to improve their product or service.

How does social listening in social networks work and what is it for?

Social listening is carried out through the use of social media monitoring and analysis tools which allow you to collect and analyze large amounts of data in real time. Below, we explain the basic steps to carry out social listening on your digital platforms:

1. Define objectives and keywords

The first step you should take is to define the objectives of social listening and the keywords or topics of interest you want to monitor. Some of the most frequent objectives to apply social listening are: measure brand positioning, understand the performance of campaigns, identify sales opportunities, monitor potential public relations problems, or simply improve customer service processes.

2. Determine data sources

Once you have defined your objectives and keywords, the next step is to monitor social networks and other digital media where these terms are mentioned. Remember that each social network has its own particularities and user profiles, so you will have to select the most important data to analyze. The analysis can be done using specialized tools that allow you to perform real-time searches and collect data from multiple communication channels.

3. Data analysis with media listening tools

Social listening tools can identify patterns, trends, common themes and changes in the behavior of your audience on social networks and other digital media. They can also identify the feelings and emotions associated with user mentions and comments.

4. Transform data into strategic decisions

Finally, the data and analysis obtained through social listening can be used to make business decisions, improve brand reputation, adjust marketing strategy, and improve customer experience. For example, if it is identified that consumers are complaining about a specific aspect of the product, steps can be taken to improve it and satisfy customer needs.

Why is social listening important in your influencer marketing strategy?

Social listening is a very valuable tool to include in your influencer marketing strategy for several reasons.

• Identify trends: thanks to social listening you can be aware of trends and topics of interest that are generating conversation on social networks. This will help you identify opportunities to collaborate with influencers who are talking about topics relevant to your brand.
• More cost-effective social media advertising: working with the right influencers allows you to reduce advertising investment costs as they take care of all the logistics and production of the content that will reach your target audience.
• Monitor brand reputation: another benefit of social listening for your influencer marketing campaigns is that you can monitor what people are saying about your brand on social networks. This will allow you to identify problems and respond to negative comments in a timely manner, which can have a positive impact on brand perception.
• Find relevant influencers: social listening also allows you to find highly influential people relevant to your brand who are talking about topics related to your products or services. Read also: Use data to identify influencers.
• Improve your ROI: when brands use social listening to select the most appropriate influencers, their return on investment is much higher since the engagement that the creator achieves with  their community makes the brand’s messages to be transmitted more effectively,.
• Evaluate the success of collaborations with influencers: social listening allows you to measure the impact of your collaborations with influencers. You can monitor the conversations that your audience generates on social networks and thus measure the reach and effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

How to identify the right influencers through social listening?

To identify influencers through social listening, we suggest these general steps:

• Identify relevant topics: define the topics and keywords that are related to your brand or product.
• Monitor conversations: use online monitoring tools to track conversations on social networks and other relevant websites that mention potential influencers for your brand.
• Identify influencers: look for content creators who are talking the most about your relevant topics and who have a large and engaged audience.
• Evaluate influence: analyze influencers’ profiles to assess their level of influence, engagement and relevance to your brand. Kolsquare recommendation: create a list of influencers: once you have evaluated potential key profiles, create a list of the most suitable influencers for your brand.
• Start a conversation: reach out to influencers to establish a relationship and explore opportunities for collaboration.

By using social listening to identify influencers, you can find people relevant to your brand who have a large and engaged audience. This can help you increase the reach of your message and improve your online marketing strategy.

What is the difference between social listening and social monitoring?

Social listening, as we mentioned before, is the process of analyzing what is said g about a brand in different social networks;  its objective is focused on understanding the opinions, feelings and opinions of users.

On the other hand, we have social monitoring, which refers to a smaller scale management and  actively monitors day by day the different social networks and other online channels in search of specific mentions. The objective of social monitoring is to detect and respond quickly to negative or problematic mentions in order to protect the reputation of companies.

In other words, network monitoring is a short-term solution to address particular situations that may arise while social listening is a long-term strategic solution that allows companies to make informed and more accurate decisions based on their communication and marketing objectives.

Metrics and KPIs you should take into account in Social Listening

In social networks you have the possibility to track several metrics that vary according to the objectives of your marketing strategy. These are some of the most important metrics and KPIs you should consider when applying social listening for your brand.  

KPI: measuring brand awareness

To measure your brand awareness you can review the following metrics:

• Volume of mentions: the volume of mentions is a metric that can help you evaluate brand awareness. It measures the total amount of mentions your brand or product has received on social networks. You can use this information to evaluate the popularity, interest and visibility of your brand or product online.
• Share of Voice: this metric measures the proportion of online conversations about your brand or product compared to that of your competitors. You can use this metric to evaluate your position in the market and compare your online presence with that of your competitors.

KPI: customer satisfaction

• Sentiment: with this metric you can measure the general attitude and emotions of mentions about your brand or product. You can monitor whether mentions are positive, negative or neutral. This will allow you to evaluate people’s perception of your brand and take measures to improve it.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): is a metric used to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty to a brand or company. It is based on a scale from 0 to 10, which measures the likelihood that a user will recommend your brand’s products or services.

KPI: Campaign objectives

• Engagement rate: with this you can measure the number of interactions (likes, comments, retweets, among others) that mentions of your brand or product have generated on social networks. You can use this metric to evaluate the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns and user participation.
• Influencers: working with influencers generates hundreds of new opportunities for brands, especially if your campaign seeks quantity and quality of mentions coming from content creators. You can use this metric to evaluate the effectiveness of your collaborations with influencers and at the same time to identify new influencers that you can incorporate into your marketing strategies.

Learn about the best tools to find the right influencers for your marketing strategy.

Three examples of social listening that can be found in various industries

Netflix, the king of social listening

For many, Netflix is one of the smartest companies in listening to what its users are talking about regarding the different productions it launches on the platform. On numerous occasions we have seen how Netflix, through its social networks, joins trends and generates content that ends up going viral thanks to the company’s  astuteness in connecting with its audience. Also, Netflix has a high level of response to the comments made by its users, especially on networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

One of the most successful campaigns recognized so far of social listening was one that arose from the comments and memes of many Internet users who expressed their experiences when watching movies and ended up falling asleep. In response to this, Netflix launched “smart socks” to pause what you are watching when it detects that you have fallen asleep.

The reality behind the campaign is not that the platform decided to put a new product on sale, but to promote the idea of keeping users connected with the productions and not missing any detail.

Nestlé and its NestTok Campaign - "Time is ticking".

A smart way to use social listening as an opportunity to increase traffic to your website can be seen with Nestlé. The brand decided to conduct a social media analysis, choosing TikTok as the central platform for its campaign. The aim of the strategy was to convey the idea that you don’t need to be a professional to create great recipes, motivating the younger audience to reproduce recipes uploaded on their website.

During the campaign, dance and singing challenges were created using the hashtag #Nesttok, allowing users to show their creativity.  In addition, a contest was organized in which users could submit videos showing how they enjoyed their Nestlé products, which generated a large number of entries and engagement.

The campaign’s use of 30 micro-influencers was a success in terms of reach and engagement, demonstrating that social listening as a way of  identifying opportunities to achieve business objectives and formulating more successful campaigns is extremely useful.

Read also: 6 tips to master influencer marketing on TikTok.

L'Oréal, and social listening for product development

L’Oréal has used social listening to collect and analyze online conversations related to its brand and products to better understand consumer opinions and expectations. The company has used this data to improve its marketing strategy and to tailor  its online messages and content to better meet customer needs.

L’Oréal’s social listening campaign has also enabled the company to identify opportunities for improvement in specific areas, such as the quality of customer service and the online user experience. By listening to consumers’ opinions and needs, the company has been able to better adapt to the market and deliver a more satisfying customer experience.