Social listening uses web-based tools that connect to social media platforms to gather opinions, news, and sentiment about a specific topic, brand, or situation.
Social media platforms are an abundant source of consumer views, opinions and thoughts. For this reason, many marketers use it as a source of qualitative information. For example, we can search for competitors and discover trends in brand interest or attrition.
Nevertheless, social media data can often lead marketers to echo chambers full of confirmation bias. Consider the following when conducting marketing research on social media:
Where are your consumers talking?
Even though consumers are everywhere on social media, consumer groups tend to gravitate to different platforms. For example, older Hispanics are heavy Facebook users, while younger consumers disdain the platform and flock to Instagram and TikTok. Therefore, knowing where your consumers are is key to determining whether or not social listening is a good fit for your research.
These tools can only gather what the platforms allow them to, meaning that each social platform imposes its own set of limitations. Here are some examples:
- Facebook: Limited to Facebook Pages. Most groups are off-limits, as well as personal profiles.
- Instagram: Will gather data from feed posts on public accounts. It will not collect data from stories or reels.
- Twitter: Gathers from public tweets, and it is the #1 data source for listening tools.
- LinkedIn: Mostly closed off to social listening.
- TikTok: Still not open to listening tools at this writing.
- Reddit: Open to social listening tools and is a rich source of deep “rabbit hole” conversations. Reddit comments and threads are an x-ray type discussion.
High Risk For Confirmation Bias
Your social media followers might not be your best choice to conduct marketing research. Owned social media channels often lead to confirmation bias as audiences have an established sense of affinity, experience, or familiarity with a brand. On the other hand, if you need to research those passionate about your brand, your channels are your best recruitment tool.
Audience Size
In 2019, while working for an advertising agency, I conducted consumer research via social listening for Southwest Airlines. I was tasked to find conversation patterns, interests, and passion points for Hispanic travelers in the U.S. The end goal was to create a digital campaign built and inspired by these insights. Social listening provided rich qualitative data on how often Hispanics talk about travel, vacation, airport experiences, and issues. The success of this research was due to the large audience size I was able to work with. On the other hand, social listening is not great when working with niche subjects and small or emerging brands. Large audiences generate tons of data, thus are best for social listening.
Conclusion
Social listening can be a great starting point for marketing research if our intended audiences and goals are compatible with the platforms offer. My advice is to use social listening to probe consumers and form hypotheses that can be tested or proven with more thorough research.
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