Some of you may be wondering whether businesses actually use social media listening and monitoring technologies, given the tremendous buzz surrounding them. The truth is that social media significantly influences people’s lives today. Therefore, social media marketing is essential for any brand that wants to stand out. Furthermore, according to 90% of marketers, social media is vital to businesses. But you already knew it, didn’t you?
For social media marketers, social media listening can be a priceless tool. We’ve underlined the value of social media listening in some of our previous articles; you can find them here and here. And to highlight it further, we’ve gathered some stellar examples of social listening in action in case you are still unsure about this tool’s effectiveness. These businesses use social media to monitor the conversation and get intel from the observations, and you could do it, too.
Starface
A content producer named Sarah Lugor uploaded a video of her wearing pimple patches from the Starface cosmetics line. Although she didn’t include the company’s name in the video, Starface’s social media monitoring team discovered the video and published it on their own Instagram page.
In this case, Starface demonstrates how it employs social listening to find user-generated material from its target audience that will provide them with useful social proof.
The image below shows the original TikTok post on the left and the Instagram share by Starface on the right.
Spectrum
Social listening isn’t just for finding excellent UGC or basking in compliments; it’s also about finding unsatisfied customers and helping them with problems they encounter while using your product.
Take, for instance, Spectrum and its monitoring of mentions of business-specific keywords used on social media (in this case, ‘Spectrum’ and ‘outage’) to find conversations in which they weren’t tagged directly.
Now, take a look at the example below – the user complaining about the Spectrum outage did not tag the company in their tweet; however, that didn’t stop Spectrum from finding the conversation and replying to their customer.
P.S.: WE HAVE WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR
Netflix
Sometimes just showing that you’re listening wins in a big way. Take, for instance, Netflix – the streaming platform that has listened to people who complain that they often find themselves snoozing through the series or movies they chose to watch, waking up just as the credits start rolling. So, Netflix came up with an ingenious ad addressing this problem and offering people to wear special socks that automatically wakes them up.
And although falling asleep while watching movies is absolutely not Netflix’s problem, their response to users’ comments granted them tons of positive reactions and even landed them a Shorty Award for exactly this project.
Chipotle
Chipotle is a great example of a brand using social listening to find creators and influencers who are a part of their target audience.
Take a look at the example below (or click here for the full video) – Chipotle commented on a video from TikTok’s famous creators, The Cheeky Boys, and asked them to deliver a Chipotle burrito to space. Now, it seems like an absurd prompt, but it worked!
The Cheeky Boys responded to Chipotle’s comment, created a video on it, and the brand reposted it as user-generated content to their own Instagram. It was also seen by a hefty audience that The Cheeky Boys have on TikTok, too!
Fitbit
Fitbit, a health and fitness tracking device brand, was always known for listening to its customers, offering support whenever it was needed, and taking into account its users’ suggestions on improving the product.
An excellent example of that is Fitbit’s ‘Reminders to Move’ feature (it asks the user to get up and move a bit every hour), which was implemented into the product just because its users asked for it!
AGENIC CONTROL – THE ULTIMATE SOCIAL LISTENING TOOL
Slack
If you aren’t following Slack’s socials, do it now – it’s positively hilarious. But, besides providing us with highly entertaining content, Slack’s social media content isn’t limited just to that, and it is evident that the messaging platform is all ears when it comes to social listening.
Take, for instance, their ‘It could’ve been a huddle’ post which is a clear spin on the ‘It could’ve been an email’ meme concerning employees and their dissatisfaction with unnecessary meetings.
With the post, Slack tapped into the trend and showed its customers that it listens and hears them while also managing to deliver engaging content.
Arby’s
Arby’s has been known for their killer sandwiches since, well, forever! However, because of social listening, Arby’s found out that one-third of comments about the brand were not about the sandwiches, but… About the sauce and how much people feared running out of it.
After finding this saucy bit of info, Arby’s tapped into the sentiment and started selling their sauces by the bottle with an ad campaign designed around it. Then, the brand asked people to share their worst stories about sauce-less meals and created posters based on them to engage with their audience further. Which, of course, proved to be a huge hit on social media, reflecting well into sales, too.
Conclusion
You must have figured out by now that keeping a close check on social media significantly contributed to the success of the aforementioned businesses. If you feel inspired, too, you might want to consider trying out the Agenic Control tool to help you with all your social listening needs. After that, who knows, it might be your brand’s story that’s featured in our articles next!
SOCIAL LISTENING ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE
