Do you know what people are saying about your business on social media? Social media listening enables you to do so. All too often, social media monitoring and social media listening are used interchangeably when discussing social media strategy. While both are incredibly important, they are also very different.

Let’s say, for example, that a customer complains about a product you sell on his Twitter feed. As you are monitoring for mentions, you see the tweet and respond to the customer directly in an effort to mitigate the problem. This is an example of social media monitoring. You monitor mentions and address customers’ questions and complaints one at a time.

Social media listening, on the other hand, requires a business to take a bird’s eye view of how the brand is perceived by users on social media. By using aggregated data from various social media tools of social conversations, leadership can take steps to resolve macro-level issues, assess overall brand health, set up new campaigns, and deliver content friends and followers will like and want to engage with.

In describing the difference between social media monitoring and social media listening, Dan Neely, CEO of Networked Insights, said the following:

“Monitoring sees trees; listening sees forests.”

Social media monitoring is very important and should be done daily. You are tracking mentions and interactions to taking immediate action when necessary. Dominique Jackson of Sprout Social makes the point, though, that there are over 25 billion social interactions that take place on Twitter every day. It may be impossible for most companies to go through every mention and doing so would make identifying Big Picture trends more difficult.

By using social media listening in tangent with social media monitoring, you can gain the best perception of your business in social media, identify key trends surrounding your business and industry, and create the best brand strategy to reach your customers.

How Do I Start?

There are many platforms out there that can provide tools and analytics, including Hootsuite and Sprout Social. In addition to that, you can also get help from the experts. As one of the best social media companies in Philadelphia, our team can help you launch successful cross-platform campaigns that will allow you to communicate effectively with your clients and customers. Contact us today at 215-987-5500 to learn more.