How to Leverage Social Listening to Spread Positivity

One of the simplest ways to spread positivity is with a smile.

It’s a quick gesture that, for a fleeting moment, connects two strangers. I don’t know if you remember the last time a stranger smiled at you, but if you’re like me, you find it hard not to respond with a smile of your own. It’s an irresistible reaction.

In the world of content marketing, our agency is continually producing relevant content for brands to form a positive connection with strangers. While there are times we lean into humor, there’s more to how we engage with the audience than just trying to generate a smile. It’s about fostering relationships and building a positive community around a brand.

We cannot see if people are smiling as they experience content on the internet, so we need another way to gauge their reactions. We have to get a better understanding of what’s important to the consumer. And we do this by using social listening.

Social listening is the process of understanding online conversations around your company and industry. This resource gives the ability to keep a pulse on hot button issues and what’s trending on social media. Like throwing a pebble into a pond, the search terms that consumers use ripple out across the internet allowing for a holistic view of various discussions around that topic. One can also get to a granular level with social listening by applying filters that enable the ability to analyze individual conversation streams. Now the question is, what can brands do with all that information?

Power of Listening

With social listening, companies don’t have to initiate conversations with customers to learn what’s on their minds. Whether it’s a concern around a particular product or something that relates to the industry they’re in, social listening allows brands to give consumers what everyone hopes for when they try to communicate —a voice that is heard.

Create a More Positive Community

Social listening offers the opportunity to respond to conversation directly, which is part of community management on social media. People will feel uplifted knowing they’ve been heard and that their concerns are being addressed.

But it goes even farther than a simple chat. Once a company truly listens, they gain the ability to plan more targeted and engaging content that will ultimately be more relevant because they’re already part of larger conversations. A company can then shine a light on a concern and use the information to generate content in a more positive way.

For instance, let’s say a holiday weekend is coming up, and there’s talk about weekend road trips and worry of dead batteries on long drives. Instead of focusing on the doom and gloom of getting stuck with a dead battery, an automotive care company has the opportunity to produce content focusing on the bright side of things. They can use their social post to speak to how a quick battery check when prepping for travel can give someone peace of mind and avoid an interruption later. They’re presenting how they fulfill a need in a positive manner.

These encouraging tones and relevant messages let customers know they’ve been heard and are supported.

Nurture & Grow

Social listening allows companies to spread positivity and nurture their communities and enables them to grow their business as a whole. More relatable content means more engagement, which leads to more customers. By the small act of listening to what consumers want and discovering how to meet their needs, they can make a huge impact for both parties long term.

Unknown weaknesses often impact a company’s growth. By listening to what their customers are discussing, the company can determine these areas and address them. For example, maybe there is a discussion around how complicated it is to make an appointment for a particular service. A service company sees this as an opportunity to improve its website and mobile app’s appointment functionality. A social post ad promoting the new functionality is created to inform customers. The positive reaction of social listening? Customers feel heard, new business takes off and loyalty improves.

The ability to both react quickly to issues and make business decisions is critical for companies trying to keep up in today’s socially driven economy. Companies need to be alerted of negative responses immediately and make the necessary corrections to bring about positive sentiment to keep and grow their customers.

My job as a content marketing copywriter is to harness the power of social listening to help our brands create more personal, positive content so they can continue to build their communities and grow their business.

And when that happens for them… well, that’s something both the client, their customers, and I can smile about.