Social listening is where you monitor social media to see what people are saying about a brand or topic. This can include:

Finding data

"It's not about the number of users but how representative an opinion is. It could be one post that says "I don't eat meat because xyz" and if it goes viral it's a significant data point. But the number of RTs or likes isn't the only thing - that's relative too. Not all communities react in similar numbers as others, so you have to then look into the community and get a sense of the way they consume social media posts and re-evaluate. Or sometimes it could be a post that's not very popular but is expressing something the local culture tends to not express loudly, so even a few posts could be significant. Or it could be the timing that matters (maybe the volume goes up at one time compared to others, and that tells you something, not the performance of any single post). We don't control what's out there, so you have to go wherever it takes you."

Tools

• Sprinklr, Mention and Talkwalker
• If you have a uni association you can search the meta archive. but its not updated since August 2024

Things I learned the hard way about social listening tools

• Many of the tools are very expensive, so be sure you know what you need them for before you pay up.
• Check what social media sites the tool can do: some of the most popular ones cannot examine facebook or instagram for example, and primary look at Twitter.
• DO Check how far back the tools can search. We were dismayed to find that TalkWalker can only search the last 30 days of content.
• Understand the "search syntax" of the tool you're using. For example, in TalkWalker you can use boolean search, e.g. "Meat" AND "cholesterol" returns contents featuring both of these terms. Or "Vegan" AND ("healthy" OR "environment" OR "kindness") returns mentions of vegan and one of those terms. I understand that no one wants to read technical documentation but its vitla to unlock the power of these tools and avoid making mistakes.
• Do take an iterative approach. Search for terms, examine what content pops up and then refine terms. Sometimes a term has few hits because it isn't really used in discussions, and you should find the right term that people are using. Other times it's because the conversations you are looking for aren't really online.