Social listening - with your ear to the ground

Opinions on the future of X may be shrouded in mystery, while challenger Bluesky rubs its hands. The only thing we can be sure of is that the internet in general and social media in particular are constantly changing. As a marketing manager or as the person in charge of a company's digital channels, keeping up with everything that happens online can be challenging. Even more so if you are also expected to keep track of what all your competitors are doing and thinking and adapt your strategies accordingly.

83% of all internet traffic today is on social media, and the importance of the channels for advertising and marketing shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon, regardless of whether the company operates in B2C or B2B. 84% of B2B purchase decisions are linked to or are direct results of social media marketing. By the end of the 20th century, social media marketing is expected to reach a staggering $400 billion globally. Companies that don't actively work to understand the digital ecosystem that surrounds them will soon be left behind. At the end of the day, it's all about shifting perspectives, and at the risk of beating a dead horse, it's about shifting from an inside-out perspective to an outside-in, outside-in perspective. To lift your gaze beyond the desk lamp where your colleagues sit with similar thoughts and ideas, and open up to data-driven insights. What questions do you need to answer as a marketer in order to shape an effective digital strategy?

• How are you talked about in the market - how big is your share of voice?
• What are your competitors doing?
• How well known is your brand?
• What are the trending topics in the market - what are customers looking for?
• How do customers and users perceive your products and services?

Equally important for B2B

Social listening has long been a go-to model in B2C, but B2B is not far behind. Companies like IBM, Siemens, Intel, Novo Nordisk, Shell and many other international companies all use social listening as an important part of their marketing efforts. And the numbers speak for themselves - B2B companies that use social monitoring have 17% higher customer satisfaction than their competitors and generally show an ROI linked to their digital campaigns that is 25% higher than the average. Why is this the case?

These companies are quick on the uptake and can (often) react in real time to new trends and online discussions, and also deal with negative publicity at a much earlier stage than their competitors. B2B is also about the long term, whether it's the buying process itself or building long-term, trust-building relationships. To achieve this, the company needs to understand the different trends in the industry, what are the trending areas to relate to or to listen to customer opinions and adapt their messages and offers accordingly. As you dear marketers probably already know, this is often a grandiose task, especially if the company is active in several different markets and has a large product portfolio. In addition, in B2B, the conversation is not always taking place only in the usual channels, but you also need to monitor various chat forums, industry media, mobile media platforms (YouTube), blog posts and more. Fortunately, today there are platforms that do this monitoring for us and collect the data we so desperately want.

But it bears repeating that data is "just" data as long as it is not analyzed and processed. What do all those dashboards that the programs spit out actually say? What conclusions can I draw and what effects does it have on my ongoing digital campaigns or other activations we have going on, whether it concerns inbound / growth marketing or performance marketing initiatives. Data needs to be materialized to be useful. Social listening should help your organization sharpen your competitive edge, reach your KPIs and support your business goals, for example by:

• Create content that is relevant to your respective audiences and that supports current online search behaviors.
• Identify gaps or untapped potential in your current product and service offering.
• Ensure that you as an organization are always in step with the times and can respond to changes in the market.
• Refine and optimize existing market activations to get better impact and ultimately better ROI.
• Stay ahead of your competitors whether it's innovation, share of voice or thought leadership.

Working proactively

Working with social listening, whether you are in B2C or B2B, is about being in a proactive state. Responding to change without compromising on quality or relying solely on your own experiences and generalizations about what customers want. Together, we build a customized solution that listens to the online conversations, finds new segments and delivers recommendations on how to improve marketing communications.

Social listening may be on everyone's lips but if you can answer YES to any of the statements below, we at Navigator would like to hear from you:

• Be the first to know about new trends in your industry and make smart decisions.
• Keeping your brand relevant in an increasingly digitalized world.
• Find out what customers "really" think and feel rather than guessing.
• Protect your business when the alarm goes off and become the best at customer support.

Navigators' social listening services

For some time now, we at Navigator have been offering social listening services, either on a one-off basis (State of the Nation) or on an ongoing basis over time (Contiuous Monitoring).

You can read more about what we offer here.