Social listening is the practice of monitoring social media platforms for mentions of your brand, competitors, industry keywords, and relevant topics.
Definition
Social listening is the practice of monitoring social media platforms for mentions of your brand, competitors, industry keywords, and relevant topics. It goes beyond tracking your own posts to understanding broader conversations.
Social listening turns the entire internet into a focus group. It helps you understand customer pain points, monitor brand reputation, spot emerging trends, find content ideas, identify sales opportunities, and keep tabs on competitors — all in real time.
A scheduling tool monitors mentions of 'frustrated with Hootsuite' on Twitter. They find 50+ tweets per week from unhappy users. The marketing team creates targeted content addressing those specific frustrations, and the sales team reaches out to offer alternatives.
Key Takeaway: Social listening reveals what your audience says when they are not talking to you — and that is often more honest and actionable than direct feedback.
Monitor your brand name, product names, common misspellings, and your CEO's name.
Track competitor brand names to find dissatisfied customers who might switch.
Set up keyword alerts for industry pain points ('social media scheduling is hard') to find content and sales opportunities.
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Category
12 terms in this category
Share of Voice
Share of voice (SOV) measures how much of the online conversation in your industry or niche is about your brand compared to competitors.
Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis uses AI or manual review to classify social media mentions as positive, negative, or neutral.
Social Media Audit
A social media audit is a comprehensive review of your social media presence — accounts, content, performance metrics, audience, and competitive positioning.
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