Social Listening vs Social Monitoring: The Biggest Differences Explained

For those of us who live and breathe social media marketing and online reputation management, these two terms have probably been used a million times. “Social monitoring” and “social listening” are terms that most people often use to mean the same thing. But any experienced professional will tell you that they are two very different ideas.

We’ve all had the frustrating experience of putting time and effort into following online chats only to find out we were doing it in the wrong way. It’s possible that you thought you were really listening to what your audience wanted but were really just ignoring noise that didn’t matter.

Now there’s no more doubt. So in the course of this article, I’ll explain the exact meanings and differences between “social listening” and “social monitoring” along with their different purposes and examples. By the end of this article, you will understand why mixing them up can cause you to miss chances or work inefficiently.

 What is Social Listening

As part of a digital marketing plan, social listening is finding and analyzing online discussions about your brand and sector. To improve strategies, establish objectives, and measure results, marketers take notes during continuous conversations.

In essence, you collect information from your social media accounts and concentrate on the online interactions that clients in your sector have, including those with rival businesses and their clients. This research includes all discussions about your domain, even if there are no direct mentions or interactions with your brand. 

Social media listening frequently produces insightful information that may be used to improve influencer marketing, campaign creation, brand message, and content planning. Additionally, it is an effective tool for starting meaningful conversations with your clients.

Why is Social Listening Important?

Here are some explanations for why social listening is revolutionizing the field of digital marketing and enabling companies to connect, adjust, and prosper in the fast-paced world of consumer interaction that exists today.

Monitoring Social Mentions

Social listening closely monitors any online references of your brand made by consumers or publications. However, it goes beyond tagged mentions for a fully integrated social listening approach (e.g., when my brand appeared in an interview). To measure the breadth of my audience I had to reach and think about expanding my strategy to include tracking untagged mentions, keeping an eye on my competitors, and keeping an eye on key industry components like webinars and events.

This tactic provides useful information on user behaviour, including the platforms that users use most frequently, the frequency of brand mentions (both yours and those of your competitors), and more. By using these insights, you may boost your digital marketing efforts by getting a better grasp of your brand’s online presence and making wise decisions. 

Reading the Right Conversations

I learned a lot about my clients’ real needs by diving into the topics that are relevant to my brand and sector. I can tell what they value, what they talk about most, and what characteristics are most often complained about.

With these data points at my disposal, I can build on my areas of expertise and make important adjustments to better satisfy client needs. Furthermore, even in situations when your brand isn’t directly addressed, why not aggressively pursue conversations in which you may provide insightful guidance or information? You establish yourself as an authority in your field and draw the real interest of those who recognize your authentic compassion by doing this. 

Customers are more inclined to connect with a business that exhibits care and competence beyond self-promotion, therefore this strategy frequently results in long-term brand loyalty.

Finding the proper influencers and loyalists

Using social listening to identify real influencers who can successfully communicate your business message to the appropriate audience is a very effective strategy. In addition, it assists you in identifying people who genuinely love your brand, actively spread the word about it, and show support for it even in trying circumstances. These brand ambassadors are priceless for the life of your company. 

Examining the Competition

Social listening offers valuable information about what customers are saying about the products and services that your rivals are delivering in addition to keeping an eye on your brand. You can spot potential areas of weakness for your competition and make sure you steer clear of the same mistakes by listening in on crowd comments.

You can also take advantage of aspects or regions in which your rivals are having difficulties obtaining an advantage over them. Gaining knowledge from social media posts and blog conversation threads is especially helpful for figuring out what customers are thinking and desire. Equipped with this knowledge, you can enhance your tactics and tailor your products to better suit the demands of your intended market. 

 What is Social Monitoring?

In the digital world, social monitoring is similar to “reading the room”. It entails keeping tabs on and reacting to brand mentions on a variety of online channels, such as blogs, forums, social media, and reviews.

Finding every mention of your company, item, or service and answering in a way that benefits the commenter is the main objective. A simple “thank you” will do for favourable mentions. But for bad ones, you should offer a heartfelt apology. Pledge to set things right, and then take the required steps to keep your word. 

Monitoring social media involves looking for:

• Your brand name, spelt correctly or not
• Names of products (including typos)
• Competitor names

Social media monitoring should ideally be used as a social media version of your customer service. It entails keeping a close eye on every discussion taking place on your social media accounts and responding to each post appropriately. The main goal is to actively engage as many audience members as you can to build a bond and a sense of loyalty between your company and its clients. 

Social Listening vs Social Monitoring

The process of keeping watch of and responding to brand mentions on social networking sites, blogs, forums, review sites, and pretty much anywhere else online is known as social monitoring. It is your responsibility to reply to any reviews or comments you come across on your company, goods, or services. Swiftly, professionally, and, if at all possible, amiably. In these circumstances, tone is crucial. 

What distinguishes Social Monitoring from Social Listening?

Social listening goes deeper into examining the context, sentiment, and larger insights underlying those conversations to inform strategic decisions and actions. Social monitoring concentrates on following and collecting data about specific mentions or keywords on social media.

In the field of social media management and analysis, social listening and social monitoring are two related but different disciplines.

Social monitoring

• Social monitoring entails keeping a close eye on conversations that are taking place on various social media platforms on a particular company, item, or sector. Monitoring particular keywords, hashtags, mentions, or conversations about the brand or industry is usually part of this procedure.

• Collecting information and insights about current discussions and activity on social media platforms is the main goal of social monitoring. It aids companies in keeping abreast of consumer sentiment, new trends, and possible problems or emergencies.

• Tools and software that gather and evaluate social media data in real time and provide metrics like engagement rates, sentiment analysis, and trends are frequently used in social monitoring.

Social Listening

• Social listening is examining the sentiment and larger context of social media conversations in addition to monitoring mentions and keywords.

• It’s critical to comprehend not just what is being said, but also why and how it affects the industry or business.

• The goal of social listening is to gain a more profound understanding of consumer preferences, problems, and attitudes regarding a product or brand.

• Finding chances for content production, customer engagement methods, or brand improvement, entails examining patterns, trends, and themes inside social media conversations.

Why is social monitoring important?

Here are several ways social media monitoring helps companies stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing online space, strengthen their bonds with clients, and preserve their good name.

#1. Answering Questions from Customers

 Asking questions, making statements, or sharing grievances about businesses on social media by tagging them is one of the easiest and most direct ways for customers to express their opinions. You will be missing a vital and significant component of your customer care endeavours if you don’t attempt to connect with and assist these clients. 

The secret to spotting these tags and quickly responding with the relevant data is social monitoring. In the face of fierce competition, brands must adopt this strategy to stay relevant and competitive. You may improve the reputation of your business and build closer bonds with your audience by responding promptly to customer questions and concerns.

#2. Determine Pertinent Trends

 You may identify the most recent trends in your sector and take advantage of them by keeping a careful eye on mentions of both your brand and those of your rivals.

These trends offer possibilities to modify your goods or services to meet the unmet demands of your target audience, in addition to offering insightful information about what people want. Gaining important insights into your customers through social monitoring can greatly increase your revenue maximization and sales methods. To maximize your products and secure long-term success in a cutthroat industry, this data is an essential starting point.

#3. Watch Out for Your Rivals

Keeping an eye on the mentions of your rivals gives you vital information about their advantages and disadvantages, which is invaluable for developing marketing and product development strategies.

However, don’t stop there. Keep track of all consumer mentions. Examine their publications, marketing, and related items by going above and beyond. Determine the kind of content that gets the most interaction, then look into ways to make your original versions (without using copying). Analyze what your rivals might be doing incorrectly as well, and steer clear of the same pitfalls. You may improve your tactics and make sure you maintain your lead in the race by observing and taking notes from the opposition.

#4. Obtain Social Proof

A sincere, voluntarily provided customer review is the best testimonial you can have for your brand. You may confidently display favourable feedback about your items as social proof by using social monitoring to find it. Consumers are conditioned to trust their peers more than advertisements from You don’t have to be concerned about sounding arrogant. Promoting your brand is only reasonable if it truly provides a meaningful customer experience. Both you and your clients should be commended for the excellent service you deliver, as well as for your diligence and commitment. Accept the compliments and use them as evidence of your brand’s superiority.

Social Listening Techniques

To begin social media listening, as with anything else in life, you must first outline the steps necessary to get there. From goal-setting to process and tool setup to monitoring and reporting on social media listening metrics, it all starts with goal-setting.

Here’s how to listen on social media like a pro, step-by-step: 

 #1. Involve and React

Utilize the findings of the social listening analysis to better understand where to focus your customer engagement efforts.

Participate in discussions, respond to inquiries, and deal with grievances or issues. This will enhance consumer pleasure and the perception of your brand. 

#2. Identify Your Goals

What do you hope to accomplish?

Establish your aims and ambitions, as well as the obstacles you need to overcome. This could involve tracking campaign stats, tracking competitors, finding influencers and industry trends, tracking customer service, or better knowing your audience. 

#3. Report and Make Changes

Establish a consistent social media listening plan that will help you plan your upcoming marketing campaigns and even future business decisions. It will also enable you to provide reports regularly that update the company’s stakeholders about the brand’s positioning.

This is an illustration of how you can determine your online demographics with the aid of social listening. 

#4. Gather and Examine Information

Include social listening in your everyday activities. Schedule regular intervals to review your notifications and collect information.

When examining, make an effort to spot trends. Determine recurring themes, attitudes toward your business or industry (good, negative, or neutral), and any abrupt shifts in volume or mood.

Remember to measure and benchmark as well. To monitor your progress and set yourself apart from other pertinent social listening insights, compare your results to those from earlier times. 

#5. Work Together with Influencers 

If your tool identifies industry influencers, get in touch with possible brand advocates and influencers to work together. To increase brand visibility and customer engagement, identify the proper partners, from micro-influencers to important opinion leaders.

Five Useful Social Listening Tools

#1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social provides social media management software to enhance your relationships with clients and potential clients on social media. A Twitter Listener dashboard for assessing your Twitter presence, real-time brand monitoring for tracking direct mentions and brand-relevant keywords, and advanced social listening for identifying new trends and influencers are some of its primary social listening capabilities. 

#2. Hootsuite

The social media marketing and management dashboard from Hootsuite facilitates the development and maintenance of connections with your followers.

In addition, I will say it helps to keep you informed about what’s going on in your industry, rivals, and brand, Hootsuite’s Analytics track all of your messages, comments, and direct mentions across all of your channels in a single dashboard.  

#3.  HubSpot

You can connect with the proper individuals and prioritize your social connections with the aid of HubSpot’s social media management tools. It’s a one-stop shop where you can set up personalized keyword monitoring streams, keep an eye on social interactions with contacts in your database, and set up email notifications to get notified when someone mentions you.

Along with creating marketing efforts, you may provide your audience and followers with current and relevant material.   

#4. Digimind

Digimind is an excellent social listening solution that satisfies all requirements for efficient brand and market tracking. It is brimming with extensive features that help organizations remain ahead of the curve and make wise decisions. While real-time comprehensive monitoring tracks online conversations across 20+ media types, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, its sophisticated sentiment analysis accurately assesses public opinion.

#5. Lately

Starting with creating your social media posts for you, Lately is an all-in-one solution for social media marketing experts and teams. By using this application, you may have your social media posts written by an artificial intelligence (AI) content writer, saving you the time and effort to review, revise, approve, schedule, and publish your posts on all of your channels.

Also, the software creates a writing model based on what your audience finds most interesting by continuously analyzing your previous social media postings. You can also track and listen to how your social media material is performing across all channels by using a range of social media reports. 

What is the meaning of social monitoring?

Social media monitoring is the practice of collecting social conversations and messages into a database of usable information. You can also respond to every message you read separately, answering grievances, queries, and concerns on every channel.

What is another word for social listening?

The practice of finding and evaluating what is being said online about a business, person, product, or brand is known as social listening or social media listening.

What is the meaning of social listening?

The practice of finding and evaluating what is being said online about a business, person, product, or brand is known as social listening or social media listening. Internet conversations generate enormous volumes of unstructured data.

Conclusion

While social media listening is useful for learning about client attitudes about your business and industry, social media monitoring is utilized for customer service. While this is a temporary fix, some firms may decide to limit their engagement to social media monitoring to respond to consumer posts and brand mentions as they occur. In the end, it restricts your brand’s capacity to recognize and execute long-term adjustments that will improve customer service. Brands should ideally use both procedures to create a comprehensive social media strategy.

Related Articles

• WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOCIAL LISTENING & MONITORING?
• Monitoring Online Content: How To Do This In 5 Steps
• Marketing vs. Advertising: Building a Growth Engine for Your Business
• Social Listening Software: Your Key to Understanding and Engaging Your Audience
• 11 Share of Voice Tools That is Making Marketing Gurus Rage With Envy

References

• Hubspot.com

• Linkedin.com

• Sproutsocial.com