Over the last few years, the rise of social media globally has sparked a change for consumers searching for products and services in the market. This is due to a large surge in consumers posting on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Although these changes have been occurring in the market, consumer-facing businesses have been slow to react to these shifts by adjusting strategies and practices.
In 2020, there has been a large disruption in the market due to Covid-19, this pandemic has forced many companies to properly utilize social media platforms to push their products or services. This tool is called social media listening, a process that seeks to surface insights from listening data (much of the same data captured in social monitoring activities) that inform broader marketing decisions — think audience analysis, competitive intelligence, uncovering trends, etc.
Another tool that is underutilized in the market is social monitoring, a process that alerts teams when key, specifically defined events occur that require action (monitoring social channels for
customer questions, brand mentions, etc.). Social monitoring serves as the baseline and bare minimum for what a listening platform should offer.
Market research that has been conducted over the last year has concluded that many companies do not utilize social listening although it is the best option to help companies progress in terms of marketing strategies. To put this into perspective, some has suggested that only 8% of brands who leveraged a social listening/monitoring solution utilized it for competitive research and analysis. In summary, with the increased usage of social media, social listening/monitoring will become an essential part of consumer-facing businesses progressing.
