How to Step Up Your Social Listening on Twitter
When it comes to managing your social media presence, you probably have the basics covered. You’re scheduling posts and sharing all your latest content. You engage with your community from time to time. Maybe you even participate in some Twitter chats each week!
But if that’s all you’re doing, you’re missing one key element that’s important for any social media strategy… Social listening! But what exactly does that mean? And how can you implement social listening on Twitter? This post is going to break that all down for you.
What Exactly is Social Listening?
If you’re not familiar with the premise of social listening on Twitter or any other social media platform, let’s cover what it means before diving in. The good news is, it’s actually a really simple concept. Social listening is just listening to your audience. And when you’re listening, you’re monitoring your notifications and any mentions or conversations that are happening around your brand online.
Sounds great, right? But then you’re probably wondering, what in the world do you do with this information once you have it? Well, there are really a number of ways social listening on Twitter can be beneficial for your brand. For one, it can help you identify some of the pain points that your target audience struggles with. This just might be what you need to spark ideas for content and other offerings that you can create. Ultimately, it’ll allow you to create more of what your audience wants and needs to best serve them.
Through this process, you can also spot the influencers in your field, as well as any brand advocates you currently have. You may even notice certain trends taking off in your industry, which can also influence your content and what you post online. But not only that, social listening can also help you learn more about your competition and how their audience is responding to them. There are truly so many ways this can be helpful for you. However, in order to be successful, you need to be a great listener.
5 Tips for Great Social Listening on Twitter
Before you rush off to start practicing social listening on Twitter, there are a few tips you want to keep in mind to ensure you’re getting the most out of this practice. Here’s what you need to know:
1. Conduct Your Social Listening on the Platform Your Audience isIs Most Active
For the sake of this post, the focus is on Twitter. However, you can practice social listening on any social media platform that you use. The key is to give this a go on the platforms where your audience is actually spending a lot of time and posting. If your audience isn’t on a platform, you’re not going to find much information to work with because they aren’t sharing content there. You want to be where they are so you have the chance to see their conversations.
2. Respond in a Timely Manner if Needed
It’s not exactly a good look to take days to respond to a comment you receive on social media. That’s why it’s important to set a reminder to check in on your Twitter notifications once or twice per day at least to respond to those who reach out to you. However, you can’t just rely on the notifications that show posts where you were tagged!
The reality is, people won’t always tag you in posts. So, if you aren’t searching your name or your brand name when social listening on Twitter, you could be missing out on important conversations. Make use of Twitter’s Advanced Search feature to help with this.
Of course, there will be times when social listening won’t actually warrant a response. If you’re just observing what others are saying and sharing, you might not necessarily need to reply. However, if the opportunity is there, make sure you respond promptly.
3. Focus on Providing Value
And when you do respond to posts that you see, adding value in some way should always be your priority. There’s a time and a place for pitching your business and your offerings. But this is a time for showing up, serving your target audience, and building the foundations of a relationship. Any random sales pitches may be seen as sleazy.
4. Acknowledge Posts Whether They’re Good or Bad
It’s likely that you’re going to encounter some posts where people are voicing their opinions about your brand. Sometimes that will be positive and sometimes it won’t be. Don’t just respond to positive posts thanking people for their kind words while ignoring anything else. Those negative posts deserve a response as well because you want to ensure you’re making things right with unhappy customers. Just respond as quickly as possible, while still being respectful, and aiming to resolve the situation.
5. Use a Tool like Brand24 to Track Conversations
The good news is, there are actually a number of tools that can help you keep track of conversations and any mentions of your brand. If you want to make social listening on Twitter much easier for you, I highly recommend Brand24. I’ve written a post about this tool before.
With Brand24, you can easily see all mentions of your brand, monitor sentiment (which allows you to see if a post is positive, negative, or neutral), and use their analytics feature. It will really come in handy and it’ll prevent you from having to manually search for your brand all the time. Plus, you’ll never miss the posts that are most important to you.
What You Should be Listening For
Before sending you off to start social listening on Twitter, keep in mind there are some important things to be on the lookout for. Pay attention to what people are talking about to discover the types of content and offerings they may want or need. Watch for complaints from customers to address issues quickly and use constructive criticism to make improvements. Keep an eye on what people say about your content so you know what’s resonating and what’s not. And finally, occasionally check in on your competition to see what’s going on in their world and what their audience is saying about their content and offerings.