“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.” – Erik Qualman, Author of Socialnomic.
People are natural storytellers, and the internet has amplified the storytellers in all of us, giving everyone a platform to share their stories. With at least 500 million tweets sent daily on X, it is clear that merely being on social media is not enough for businesses.
Erik Qualman implies that businesses must learn to harness social media effectively to meet customer expectations. This involves a repetitive process of listening, selling (including innovating), reacting, and interacting on social media.
However, many businesses stumble right at the start: social listening. They often misunderstand the true essence of social listening and how to do it right, hence failing to uncover actionable insights and meet the needs of people.
This article will help you understand social listening better by revealing what it is, what it isn’t, and how to use it as a powerful tool for making well-informed business decisions.
Common misconceptions about social listening
To understand social listening better, it is important to clear up common misconceptions. Social listening is not just:
- Monitoring mentions of a brand, product, or industry online
- Measuring engagement rates like likes and shares.
- Just relevant for the marketing department or the department that ‘owns’ it.
These misconceptions overlook the deeper aspects of social listening and can be detrimental to growth. Focusing solely on mentions and engagement metrics provides a surface-level view of customer sentiments, emotions, and behaviours. Moreover, if social listening is restricted to one department, it leads to siloed efforts—where different teams work in isolation, resulting in misguided strategies and missed opportunities.
So, what is social listening?
At its core, social listening is about meaning management – transforming complex data and developing it into deeper insights. Think of it like Lady Whistledown from Bridgerton eavesdropping on high-society gossip to create impactful commentary. Similarly, social listening involves tuning into online conversations to uncover meaningful insights (that go beyond mere metrics).
It goes beyond tracking what people say but also understanding the why behind their words and how they express them. Are they expressing excitement or frustration? Does this signal emerging opportunities or potential threats? By exploring deeper layers, social listening provides valuable insights to guide business towards growth.
How to do it right:
Utilise AI-powered tools
AI-powered tools are game-changers in social listening. These technologies can quickly collect and analyse vast amounts of data from social media platforms. By leveraging Natural Language Processing, these tools sift through complex data sets to identify keywords, trends, and sentiments without requiring humans to manually read every single post.
For example, an AI-powered social listening tool can track millions of conversations about EVs to identify common concerns among customers. This could reveal, for instance, the key challenges hindering EV adoption. Here is a snapshot of how these tools can uncover various concerns:
Example findings: Users are expressing concerns about the difficulty of finding charging stations, as well as issues related to their availability, charging duration, and safety.
Extract meaning: look beyond what AI says
AI tools are exceptional at identifying keywords, trends, and sentiments in social media data. Advanced tools can even detect emotions like fear, anger, sadness, etc. However, they miss the context and nuance behind the data. This is where incorporating frameworks from the behavioural science disciplines becomes crucial. For instance, while an AI tool might reveal a surge in negative comments about EV charging stations, human analysis is needed to understand the underlying issues.
Our behavioral scientists use frameworks such as the COM-B Model of Behaviour Change to extract deeper meanings from social listening insights and develop strategies that address both emotional and practical needs. Here is an example of how the COM-B Model, combined with social listening insights, can be used to address concerns and boost EV adoption:
| COM-B Component | Pain point | Emotion | Strategy |
| Capability: The knowledge and abilities needed to perform a particular behaviour. | Difficulty in finding charging stations and their availability. | Anger | To alleviate anger, provide tangible compensation like a user-friendly app that helps users locate charging stations and provides reliable, real-time information. |
| Opportunity: External factors that enable or hinder the ability to perform a particular behaviour, such as physical resources. | The perception that charging takes too long (technology efficiency). | Sadness | To ease sadness, provide comfort by showing available opportunities or alternatives like information on fast-charging facilities. |
| Motivation: The internal factors that drive decision-making and behaviors, such as personal reflections and evaluations. | Safety concerns at charging stations. | Fear | To address fear, provide protection like safety measures such as well-lit, secure charging stations and provide clear safety guidelines for users. |
Simple analysis: Decoding social listening insights using COM-B Framework and applying human insights to address practical and emotional issues.
Incorporate social analysis into the wider organisation
Social listening offers companies an opportunity to understand their customers, yet it remains largely confined to the marketing team. When handled well, insights from social listening can drive innovation and inform strategies that extend beyond the marketing strategies – in the EVs case, it touches upon other critical areas such as safety and facility management.
To harness its full potential, social listening must be integrated into corporate strategy and innovation. Effective integration involves making social listening a regular part of discussions across the entire organisation, including the leadership team. This change transforms social listening from a siloed function into a crucial element of decision-making and innovation.
In conclusion
Social listening is about extracting meaning in order to drive growth. By combining the power of AI tools with human analysis, businesses can uncover actionable insights that extend beyond marketing strategy. To make the most of social listening, encourage a company-wide commitment to understanding customers and integrate it across the organisation. This approach will help businesses develop innovative solutions, make informed decisions, and achieve meaningful growth.
Contact us today to see how we can help your business harness Social Listening to achieve success.
