Mediaboss Marketing

Social listening, the process of listening to online conversations to monitor possible or potential trends, is one of the most important tools a digital marketing professional should possess.

Its applicable to all stages of a marketing campaign and serves to measure both positive and negative effects of online conversations.

Social listening can help with message amplification (positive) and crisis-effect mitigation efforts (negative), says Jason Cruz, Social Products Director for MRM/McCann, during the recent lecture on Social Media 102 for the Certified Digital Marketer (CDM) Program.

If done right, it has the power to detect a potential PR crisis, even before it happens, adds Cruz.

Cruz says there are three aspects of social listening: mining, monitoring and measuring.

Mining is simply the act of actively searching for specific keywords and phrases online, for instance, iPhone 6.

Monitoring is actively watching online conversations, based on pre-determined keywords and phrases, to spot possible trends. Social monitoring scales up in accordance with the datafor instance, the frequency of a keywords appearance in online conversations, dictate certain action points.

Measuring is calculating for conversation statistics to predict the possible impact of the online conversations being monitored.

SocialMediaExaminer.com identifies some of the more popular metrics below.

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Social listening 101