3 Key Social Listening Strategies For Understanding Deeper Consumer Insights

At our first ever SocializeDC, marketers from leading brands and agencies joined Digimind for an informative evening of panel discussions, networking, and after work treats. We welcomed Social Listening and Insights Manager Mary Beth-Levin from USPS, Marketing Account Coordinators Carlos Cruz and Caroline Campbell from Fors Marsh Group, and Sr. Marketing Research Analyst Emily McCormick from Streetsense, to explain their social listening strategies.

The panelists focused on how social listening can be used to derive deeper consumer insights surrounding campaigns, crisis management, sentiment, and much more! Here are three key social listening strategies brands can use to gather, analyze, and understand consumer insights at a deeper level!

1. Measuring Sentiment is Essential For Crisis Management

Crisis management, also known as reputation management, is regarded as one of social listening’s key use cases. According to Inc., sentiment is a key metric that is used by leading brands for this area.

According to Inc. sentiment is largely used by big brands for reputation management, also known as crisis management. Marketing Account Coordinator at Fors Marsh Group, Carlos Cruz, explained “in order to get ahead of that crisis, you need to look at what people are saying, how they are saying it, and what their sentiment is towards that.” Likewise, Cruz also mentioned that when analyzing data in a crisis “there always has to be some human element behind it, especially with understanding sentiment.” Digimind enabled brands to fine-tune sentiment analysis, and as Cruz emphasized, “overtime as you continue to do it, your AI just gets smarter and the sentiment gets more accurate.”

Social listening chart showcasing the evolution of positive and negative sentiments expressed in public discussions around Nike.

Bonus: Discover the 3 essential metrics to track, predict, and measure the impact of a brand crisis.

2. Historical Data Moves Your Brand Forward

With the release of Digimind Historical Search, brands have the ability to analyze up to 24 months of historical data across more than 10 different sources.

As mentioned by Emily McCormick, Senior Marketing Research Analyst at Streetsense, you should take advantage of historical data because it allows you to understand “what are those key topics that are already in conversation, and what people are already saying about your brand.” McCormick emphasizes that in order for your brand to move forward with a campaign, it is essential to analyze historical data and gather a baseline understanding of how your target audience has viewed your brand in the past.

Digimind Historical Search in action.

3. It’s All About the Where

According to We Are Social’s Digital 2019 Report, the number of active social media users has come up to 3.48 billion in 2019 alone. To better understand the interests of these billions of social media users you must also understand where they are coming from. Mary Beth-Levin from USPS explained how social listening allows you to focus on a specific region when building your marketing or outreach efforts. As a marketer it is important to ask yourself “how can we best serve that particular community?”

To better visualize your target audience, and how you can engage them based on their interests, Digimind Social allows you to generate a daily report that allows you to analyze what consumers are saying across different regions, based on data gathered from traditional and social media sources.

Social listening chart displaying distribution of audience breakdown by media.

Beyond the geographical aspect of “where”, Mary Beth noted, “Digimind actually breaks down where you are getting the most traction, the most mentions, and where you are getting the most reach, giving you an idea of where people are talking and who is doing the talking.”

Ultimately, if you know which platforms account for the most volume of conversations about your brand, you can focus your marketing efforts on those channels. Similarly, Digimind allows you to see who is talking the most on those channels, as well as identify potential influencers.

Thanks to our guests and speakers for making our first ever SocializeDC successful! We look forward to seeing you at future events.

In the meantime, check out the SocializeDC live-stream for a full recap of the panelist discussion.

Also be sure to check out the SocializeDC photo album, and tag yourselves!

See how Digimind Social can help you collect, organize and share data throughout your company.