How to implement and improve your social listening capabilities

Social listening, or monitoring and listening to what others say about your brand and your direct competitors on social media networks, can have real value in helping you design the most precise strategy that addresses your business and marketing needs. And more brands are using social listening, as well as built-in social listening features like on IMAI’s influencer marketing platform, to gain and edge in their social campaigns. 

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According to a recent survey, 61% of businesses have a social listening system in place and 82% view it as a key planning element when designing and setting up their social media and influencer marketing campaigns. The main reasons that brands are using social listening features seem to be to gain an understanding of brand sentiment of social media and to manage their reputation. This is increasingly important as social media networks become one of the main sources of information for consumers before they make a purchase, let alone the center of younger generations social lives. Others use social listening to gain insights that help increase brand awareness and get the messaging right, which can be a challenge if ideas aren’t compared to what the competition is doing.

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However, collecting this data on brand sentiment can be a real challenge, taking a lot of time and employees for it to be done on a regular basis. That’s why a lot of influencer marketing platforms have developed social listening tools that can really help by streamlining the process. They tell brands what’s being said about them where and by whom, as well as what the general sentiment is for their products, services, similar types of products, and for major competitors. All of this data and more is available through IMAI’s social listening feature. 

When working on a social listening plan, you should make sure that you clearly define the parameters that you want to “listen” to. Otherwise, social listening can be a very overwhelming practice. Currently, social listening is most common on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and is just starting to take off for TikTok.

Finally, social listening can seem like a “nice to have” feature, but once you get access to its data, it definitely feels like a “must have”. We recommend that brands invest in their social listening efforts by working with an influencer marketing solution like IMAIs, or investing a lot of time and effort in getting your search parameters right!