How Can Social Listening Help Differentiate Your Brand’s Content?

What’s more exciting than spying on the competitors and having an understanding of their content strategy? If you are wondering how exactly you can turn the content tides in your favor, social listening can be your ace up the sleeves. Today, every brand is trying its best to win the social media race, and social listening can be the extra shot of adrenaline for your brand to reach the finishing line the fastest.

Before we begin today’s discussion on how you can make your brand stand out from the crowd using social listening, we have to lay the groundwork. So, let’s understand what it is and why it is necessary for your brand.

What is Social Listening?

The process of monitoring social media platforms to analyze your brand’s social media presence using a social media analytics tool is referred to as social listening. You can do it by monitoring the direct mentions of your brand, customer feedback, and ongoing online discussions about trends in your industry, competitors, pain points, etc. After compilation and analysis, you can use this information to improve your brand’s image and build a loyal fan base.

Why Is Social Listening Essential for A Brand?

Now that we have a brief idea of what social listening is, let’s move on to the next part of our discussion, why it is so important for your brand. 

Social media consumes a large chunk of our daily lives. Brands, too, are leveraging the social media bandwagon to build a more intimate bond with their customers and prospects. For example, Netflix built a strong social media presence using trending memes and witty posts to connect with the young generation. Brands like Zomato, Dominos, Swiggy, and many more followed suit and started creating content to drive people to their social media handles to build a positive perception in their minds.

But that’s not all, simply posting memes and witty posts won’t make your brand the social media king. You’ve to also focus on being informed about the image your brand carries. This is where social listening comes in. You can:

• Get To Know Your Competitors

You cannot dream of taking your brand to the top without having a proper idea of the competition. Some brands might not be successful in building a loyal customer base using certain strategies. 

Similarly, there might also be some whose strategies are not up to the mark or are working wonders. 

But how do you analyze it? Surely, you can’t simply go and ask them? This is where the power of social listening lies. Listening to what people are saying on social media about your competitors will give you an idea of whether you or your competition have been successful in connecting with the public or not. Based on this information, you can build and modify your strategies to project a much more relatable image of your brand.

• Find and Connect with Like-Minded People and Industry Influencers

Building connection with like-minded people and organizations goes a long way when it comes to winning the trust of the public. When people whom they follow resonate with your company’s image, they are more likely to trust you than they would have in other cases. With social listening tools, you can analyze the type of content they post and how the target audience responds to it. 

• Know the Pulse of Your Customers

People love to talk about products or services they like and share them with the world through social media. Suppose someone bought a new smartphone and shared their wonderful experience using that, it is very likely that the people that follow this individual will also be more inclined to buy the same brand the next time. 

In the same way, if anyone is not satisfied with the product or service of a company and shares their bad experience online, others might also think twice before going for that brand in the future. 

Through social listening, not only can you know the Likes and dislikes of the potential customer base you want to connect with, but you can also keep track of the market’s current trends. This is because people change with time, and so do their preferences. 

• Look Out for Pain Points and Use Them to Your Benefit

Sometimes, despite the industry being saturated with prevalent players, there remains some gap between the companies and the public due to the lack of certain services or products that the companies might have never thought of. 

People are much more likely to express their needs online, and having access to that information can help you develop the required product and move ahead of your competitors. Using social listening, you can also keep track of whether people are favorable to your product. Based on this customer feedback, you can work on revamping your business strategies and improving the product line-up.

• Build Your Own Identity

Companies offering the same services or products most of the time try to copy each other’s strategies. It becomes very difficult for the customers to differentiate one from the other. Using social listening, you can look out for the tone your customers would best relate to and determine if it sounds similar to competitors. If so, you can find a different and more relatable tone to connect with the customers and, in turn, build a separate image for your brand.

Conclusion 

If done properly, social listening can immensely contribute to brand building. As people are consuming more and more content online, it has become integral for brands to channel their resources into creating compelling content. Social listening can pave the way for your brand to spy on the competitors and build a content strategy that will differentiate your brand from the rest.