As social networks evolve, social listening has also developed accordingly to catch up with the need to understand users of marketers. How has social listening been applied to social media marketing over the years? Is Social Listening a Measurement Tool Anymore?
Along with the development of social networks, Social Listening is also growing in application capabilities. If in the past, Social Listening was only about collecting social media data, today data collection is only a part of Social Listening. Measuring buzz volume or sentiment is no longer the only function of Social Listening. In the context of this article, let's look at old questions through a new lens: What is social listening and what role does it play in social media marketing?
Social Listening is a form of market research whose object of analysis is the discussion of users on social networks. Typically, to solve a Social Listening problem, the researcher will go through the following steps:
In general, the analysis process of Social Listening is similar to traditional research. The difference is that traditional research can deepen the problem through interview and survey methods but is time-consuming and costly if done on a large scale. Meanwhile, Social Listening data, which is social media discussion, is “readily available,” shortening research time and reducing the lag between research results and industry reality. In addition, the user's discussion is not affected by the subjective opinion of the researcher, so it is possible to ensure the objectivity of the data.
Initially, social listening was seen by many marketers as a pure measurement tool, providing some basic indicators about the campaign or brand with competitors (number of discussions, number of people discussed, sentiment indicators, etc.). However, over time, the social network has expanded in size, users have become familiar with the Digital Transformation and therefore shared more than before. Trends coming from social media have become more and more common. Social Listening has also changed to meet the diverse research needs of marketers.
Brand Health Analysis: As one of the original applications of Social Listening, it helps brands track activity on social networks and compare with competitors in the same industry. Thereby, help the brand get an objective perspective on its current position in its related industry.
Campaign Analysis: Social Listening was once seen as a “post-campaign tool,” which only came to measure when a campaign was over. Today, more and more brands are using Social Listening for the pre-campaign phase, helping brands connect with users in real time. In fact, some campaigns have used Social Listening at the same time as the campaign to build content.
Special Occasion Analysis: The special occasion on the social media will be very different from the special occasion in reality. Let's take a simple example: If April Fool's Day is a day of lies, for social media users, it's a day for all people to confess their love. Social Listening will analyze and help marketers discover unique points about social media users on special occasions. With data collected in real time, Social Listening proves to be extremely useful when brands need to keep track of special occasions such as the New Year, or special occasions that do not have a specific start and end time (hot season, rainy season, milk tea time, sleepy time, etc.)
Crisis Management: The media crisis has always been a major concern for brands and is becoming increasingly complex. BuzzMetrics' consolidated report shows that the risk of a second outbreak during a crisis is increasing, as well as the duration of the crisis is getting longer. Users instead of sharing on personal pages have turned to community pages with the desire for their voices to spread more strongly. In this context, Social Listening helps to warn the brand about the risk of crisis and gives suggestions on how to handle it.
User Analysis: Social Listening helps marketers understand users from a variety of perspectives, be it their behavior and attitudes within a single industry (UnA Research), or analyzing customers by large user groups (Gen-Z, Millennials,...). With the increasing data coverage of Social Listening, every user attribute such as personality, lifestyle, style, interests can be thoroughly analyzed. From there, Social Listening indicates the characteristics of users belonging to an industry, or differences between groups of users from one another.
Trend Analysis: On average every month, the social network has more than 200 hot topics. Even so, not every hot topic can be leveraged to build a brand image. Social Listening helps marketers identify hot topics that are relevant to the brand on social networks, social slang that are popular so that brands can include in articles and become closer to users. With the development of A.I., brands can now track the development of hot topics of each major concern in real time.
There are many social listening platforms for marketers to choose SocialHeat is an example.
The platforms may vary in terms of data coverage and data processing/retrieval features, but will generally provide the following basic metrics for marketers:
Buzz Volume: Discussion volume, the most basic indicator in Social Listening reports, indicates how many discussions (posts, comments, or shares) have been made on a topic.
Share of Voice: The brand's discussion rate compared to competitors from the same industry. This is an indicator that helps determine which brands are of most interest on social networks
Audience Scale: The number of participants discussing a topic. Together with Buzz Volume, showcases a topic's ability to spread on social media.
Sentiment Score: Expresses the user's feelings towards a topic, whose value is in the range of [-1,1]. Moving closer to 1 indicates how positive the user is and vice versa
To learn more about metrics, marketers can refer to here
Occasion-based marketing is a strategy to help brands connect customers to special occasions or product selection contexts.
Occasion-based marketing is a strategy to help brands connect customers on special occasions. By showing up at the right time, touching the specific needs of the customer at the time, the level of engagement and purchasing intention will increase. Occasion-based marketing helps customers answer when they should buy products of a brand, giving customers reasons and occasions to remember the brand.
Just by correctly identifying the concerns during a special occasion, the brand will able to reach customers. This is something not easy to identify on “normal occasions”
Event-Based Marketing is a solution that helps marketers target a group of concerns that have a strong impact on a large number of customers but only appear in a short period of time
There are many shopping decisions that are made at special occasions. If the brand is able to connect with customers on these occasions, the chances of being remembered and chosen by customers will be higher. Occasion-based marketing also helps increase consumption by encouraging users to use the product at more times.
It is advised to consider the case of 7Up Revive Isotonic Drinking Water. Since 2014, 7Up Revive is the brand of energy-intensive sports activities. Since 2016, 7Up Revive has been associated with everyday activities such as walking, playing or working in sunny weather. Thus, Revive has expanded the theme of products from “exercise/sports” to “dehydrated activities” to increase product consumption.
In a more strategic perspective, occasion-based marketing is used to emphasize the differences between brands.,especially in the catering industry (F&B) - where dining activities are heavily dominated by the times.
Kitkat is one of the best examples of using occasion-based marketing to strengthen brand positioning.
In Vietnam, occasion-based marketing is most popular on major holidays such as: New Year, Summer holidays. However, there are still many other special occasions and moments that the brand can take advantage of to attract more customers.
For the convenience of determining the tactics of choosing a special occasion, Buzzmetrics divides all types of special occasions into 4 categories based on differences in characteristics, frequency of occurrence, and time of occurrence:
Especially suitable for brands that want to take over the platform by creating a big bang throughout the year, to help customers remember them every day.
Usually suitable for brands that want to appears frequently, every day, tightly tied to the life of the consumer.
There are so many moments in life when a consumer becomes especially “sensitive”, letting unexpected concerns and needs appear. With the advent of social networks, consumers tend to share more oftenabout each moment in their lives in search of empathy. Especially at sensitive times, consumers are more motivated to share these things on social media as well as seek out people with similar situation, to talk about common concerns. This makes it possible for the social network to record such special emotional moments of a consumer. There are more and more “Special Moments” that social media marketers can exploit to help brands find new opportunities. For example:
These “Special Moments” are predicted to be the future of Occasion based marketing because of the high frequency of repetition (usually daily/weekly/monthly). The brand only needs to capture a “Special Moment” to become a part of a customer's daily life.
Special seasons are similar to special days. They are for brands that want to put resources into a specific period of a year, using different tactics to convey brand message. Special seasons last longer than special days, which is suitable for brands telling a longer story. They are recommended for brands that want to change a longtime habit or behaviour of consumers, which is not easy to adjust in a short time (1 day/1 week).
Hot events are often predictable and therefore difficult to plan in advance. However, a hot event really needs to be taken advantage of when the target customer is the most affected in that event. This is a golden opportunity for the brand to get closer to its target consumer, sharing the same atmosphere and concerns.
Hot events are a must since a brand can gain high attention in a short period of time. However, if the brand image is in contrast or irrelevant to the theme of the hot event, trying to make use of that event will bring no benefit. In fact, brands can experience negative feedback when they try to become “an attention freak” in the eyes of consumers. More dangerously, brand image and personality will likely suffer greatly, and leave a bad impression on consumers.
- Relevance: There are many special moments but depending on each brand, only some moments are worth using.
- “Deep” or “wide”: If your brand is overly focused on a special moment, you can miss other moments. You can try to "conquer" one special moment, but please be aware of the others.
- Understand the target customer: Look closely at every moment in the life of your target customer. There are very ordinary moments In everyday life that can provide opportunities for brands to engage with customers.
- Target customers are always changing: Always listening to consumers to discover a new special moment and connect with consumers through that moment.
The Syndicated Report Hub online reporting library aggregates research proactively conducted by Buzzmetrics based on observations of common market needs. These studies do not serve a specific customer but will provide a panoramic view of users and the goods industry on the social network.
