Pro’s and Con’s of using Social Media Listening Data in a Marketing Plan

We live at a time when consumers’ voices have never been heard louder. Social media has given marketers and communicators the tools to leverage the internet as a keen ear to tap into those voices.

Consumers love & hate relationship with brands

Consumers take to social media to talk about companies when the experience or value they’ve received does not meet or over exceed their expectations (or just to show off a desirable purchase). It takes an overwhelmingly negative or positive experience to voice one’s opinion without prompt. These experiences can leave a trail of content that can be easily found (to the detriment or benefit of the brand) by future consumers in their research phase.

Even though social listening data is a great complement to your marketing plan, remember that you are not getting the full picture. Social listening tools are limited to what the platforms are willing to share.

Social Listening Data

Listening data feels right at home within the market research portion of a marketing plan. Secondarily, it works to add supplemental sentiment data on the post-campaign evaluation.

This data is plentiful and easy to find. Still, it takes a trained eye and the right tools to go beyond consumer opinions and feedback to truly grasp the sentiment of a consumer segment or group about a product, industry, or service.

Some applications for social listening data:

Measuring interest and consumption behaviors.
Perform competitive analysis. How are they engaging with similar offerings?
Product development research. What are consumers wanting? What needs remain unfilled?
Measuring excitement or buzz around a pending release. For years, movie production companies have used these tools to predict box office returns.
Finding consumer pains, desires, ideas, and opportunities. How much of it is there? Is there a recurring theme?
Discovering seasonality. Is there a pattern to the conversations that can present an opportunity for a campaign run or product release?
Discovering seasonality. Is there a pattern to the conversations that can present an opportunity for a campaign run or product release?

Benefits of Social Media Listening

Can uncover data at scale.
Enables research into the past, adding seasonality information.
Can quantify sentiment.
Provides word clouds, showing marketers which words often accompany a brand or product. Can or should these be attached to upcoming ads?
Allows marketers to dig in and search for word/sentiment affiliations to quantify how often a brand is mentioned with a specific set of keywords.

Cons of Social Media Listening Data

Data for niche or small markets and demographics is limited and hard to find.
Only available on platforms where users post publicly. Newer platforms like TikTok have not yet enabled social listening.
Social listening tools are expensive.
Consumer opinions on specific products or services can be heavily biased as consumers take to social to call out companies. Positive reviews are not as common unless they involve an overwhelmingly positive experience.
Writing queries in boolean can be a difficult learning curve for some.

Popular social listening tools include Brandwatch, Meltwater, Talkwalker, Sprout, and Netbase Quid. Social media offers a trove of data that can supplement a marketing plan. Nevertheless, this data must be used with caution as it does not always reflect the true sentiment of a consumer group. One must be tactful when setting up searches on social listening tools and strategize on what data is necessary to complement the marketing plan. Keep in mind that not everything will be worth keeping. Use this data to support the SWOT analysis, better understand the consumer and uncover opportunities.

Published On: January 16, 2022 / Categories: Content Marketing, Social Media /

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Consumers love & hate relationship with brands

Social Listening Data

Some applications for social listening data:

Benefits of Social Media Listening

Cons of Social Media Listening Data

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