Social monitoring and social listening are two of the most important areas of focus in terms of research in social media and overall social media measurement. Social monitoring can be defined as the systematic process of understanding, analyzing and reporting insights and conversations on reputation, brand position, community health and opinion of key audience members virtually. Listening on the other hand is about learning, exploring and uncovering emerging trends, opportunities, activities and issues that could impact the company either positively or negatively. There are many benefits that social monitoring and listening can bring to your company such as the ability to identify influencers and top external channels or calculating the overall growth of your community audience and behavior measurements. Social monitoring and social listening are very closely related and both are necessary for a successful social media campaign.
A major benefit of conducting social monitoring and listening is the ability to gain information from other sources besides the brand’s consumer audience. For example, through social monitoring and listening you can keep tabs on your competitors and see not only what they are doing differently, but also what they are saying about your company. You can also use social monitoring and listening to determine your share of voice in the industry. Are you a leader in the industry or are you just getting your foot in the door? Another important benefit of social monitoring and listening is the ability to identify influencers and top external channels driving traffic to social media platforms. Knowing who your top influencers are is very important because these are the people the public turns to in hopes of hearing the latest news about your company. The opinion of influencers is also very powerful so it is important you can identify these influencers and persuade them to have a good opinion of your company. An example of this would be Apple giving a brand-new iPhone XR and having them review the product. Apple does this in hopes that the influencers will enjoy the new product and share positive reviews with the communities they are a part of.
Although social monitoring and social listening go hand in hand, there are some key differences between the two that social media users should be aware of. The biggest difference between social monitoring and listening is social monitoring is a much more systematic approach and involves creating a sustainable program to evaluate the success or current state of a brand or person online. Social listening is more worried about observing people’s feedback, comments, questions and inquiries in order to capitalize on emerging and innovative opportunities. Another key difference between the two is the time frame in which the social media research is being conducted. Social monitoring is much more concerned with the long term and may take place over the course of weeks, months or even years. On the other hand, social listening is much more short term oriented but still keeps long term implications in mind. Understanding the main differences between social listening and monitoring is very important and can be critical in determining the success of a company’s social media usage.
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