Social listening is more than just a 'nice to have'. It helps brands to identify their reputation’s strengths and weaknesses, as seen by their audience. This can include anyone from the customer, the competitor, to someone who has only just interacted with your social media post.

It also better equips brands to improve their strategies and performance going forward. Keeping the pulse on your social media can also help to identify new trends and opportunities for marketers, whilst notifying the public relations team of any potential crises. It's all about immediate action; social listening is designed to offer you real-time data, so that you have immediate insights to act on — ASAP. Quite a powerful offering, right?

With this in mind, here are three reasons why your brand needs to invest in social listening:

1. You require up-to-date tools to build successful strategies

When it comes to digital marketing strategies, you need to have only the best tools at your disposal in order to achieve your goals. Social listening is definitely one of them.

This technology can help your brand gain an advantage by keeping an ear out on what others have to say about you in the digisphere. This allows you to identify areas where the public feels that you are gaining success, the spaces where consumers are noting their concerns and areas of potential crisis. Even better is the ability it provides to gain a glimpse into the life of your competitor so that you can stay one step ahead of the rest.

But here is where you can do even better: Every tool, tech and tip will eventually become outdated. And this is why you need to keep a close eye on the social listening tool that you use.

Check out how often it is developed and updated with newer software and features because this will ultimately impact its value when it comes to assisting your brand and building strategies.

amaSocial, for example, has its own in-house team of developers for this exact reason — we have first-hand experience in recognising the importance of keeping up to speed and we have responded to the call!

2. You need to give the consumer what they are looking for

It goes without saying that if you do not offer what the consumer is looking for, your offering will not sell. This means that your product or service needs to be meeting a certain set of criteria, as set by your target market.

What does this mean? Well, you will need to be able to discover changing consumer needs and trends within your industry, so that you can adapt your offering accordingly.

For example, when lockdown first hit, it was the main focus of conversation. However, in order to be sure that their audiences were discussing it too, many brands turned to social listening to see which types of consumers were being hit by this the hardest.

They could then change their strategies accordingly; for example, more retailers added a delivery option to their website. This could only be done by having a tool that allows you insights into what these needs and trends are.

This is where our social tracking can be invaluable. amaSocial also offers features such as influencer management. So if someone with tons of followers is frequently speaking positively about your brand, you can instigate that partnership by adding them as an influencer on the platform and then reaching out.

There's also an author-function that helps you identify and accommodate upcoming requirements, as well as to retain your target market.

With these features in your hand and your goal in your heart, the path to success is officially paved!

3. Your brand has the potential to lead in your industry

What makes a brand stand out from the rest? Its ability to lead by example. Most brands, if not all, strive to be the trend-setter and way-maker for their respective industries, and you should too.

This would mean offering a solution that resonates with your customer base and going about business in a way that stirs up respect and admiration from the public. It also means having an understanding of people and how they think, as well as for what’s to come in the industry — because keeping up with change and growth is key.

The social listening tool has been designed to assist with achieving all of this. Features such as amaSocial's heat map and sentiment analysis help you to not only see what is being said about your brand but where, when and how.

With these insights, you'll be able to:
  • respond to consumers and other brands appropriately
  • gain insights into upcoming needs within the market
  • plan future strategies based on identified trends
  • strengthen areas where your brand may be lacking, and
  • engage with the public in the best way.
For more information, visit www.amasocial.co.za. You can also follow amaSocial on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.