Do You Know What People Are Saying About Your Organization?
The importance of online listening in today’s digital age
The past two decades have seen huge advances in social networks and online media, providing us with a wealth of information. The problem is how to keep track of it all—particularly when it comes to your brand.
Any effective reputation management strategy must now include a robust “listening” component. Knowing what is being said about your organization online, and how that conversation impacts you, is foundational.
However, according to the State of Social Listening 2022, the two biggest challenges to effective social listening are time and employee bandwidth. So, while organizations may understand the importance of social listening, their staff members often don’t feel it is something they can effectively do.
Furthermore, billons of conversations are happening online every day, with more than 500 million tweets sent each day on Twitter alone. Monitoring everything being said about your brand without the assistance of technology is virtually impossible. And while there are many software programs on the market that can help you monitor mentions, they usually require learning technical software.
What is online listening? Why is it important?
Online listening is monitoring online news, blogs and social media for mentions of your brand or key leaders. The goal is to become aware of relevant conversations to better understand the underlying mood or sentiment around your brand. This is extremely important on social media due to the ease with which people can share their opinions and experiences. One post can be quickly shared across multiple channels in a matter of seconds—for good or bad.
Why not just use Google Alerts?
Many opt to use Google Alerts to help keep track of their mentions online. While Google Alerts can be useful and simple to set up, there are significant drawbacks:
The simplicity of Google Alerts' keyword setup means that many stories are not an exact match for what you are trying to monitor. There can be a lot of wasted time reviewing articles not related to your brand or old articles.
Google Alerts often miss articles, specifically when one appears in a smaller outlet.
Google Alerts only monitors news articles and not social media content. This means you are potentially missing an extremely large and important amount of conversation happening online.
Recently, even Google itself declared the tool “broken.”
Compared to Google Alerts, Guardian uses advanced analytics software to build nuanced Boolean searches to find the relevant coverage and conversations about your brand. Moreover, our in-house listening specialist reviews the results empowering our team to include real-life, applicable counsel on relevant mentions and to propose action steps.
What can your brand learn from online listening?
Online listening enables you to understand who is talking about your brand, the sentiment of the conversation and the impact of those conversations. The data can provide insight about what is important to your constituents, prompt ideas for better service and create opportunities for engagement. Armed with this knowledge, you can also quickly make an informed decision on whether a response is needed or bolster strategic decision-making for your organization.
No one likes to be taken by surprise from a threat that could damage their brand’s reputation or miss an opportunity to leverage positive momentum. In today’s online world, your data collecting must include more than traditional news outlets; a single social post or comment often changes how people view your organization or its leaders.
Our team can monitor conversations and empower you with the insights needed to promote and protect your reputation.