7 Ways Social Media Listening Tools Can Improve Your Content Marketing

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In an age where we’re surrounded by AI tools and a plethora of customer data, using social listening tools seems like a no-brainer (especially when it comes to improving content marketing efforts). 

But even with the benefits these social monitoring services offer, it can often become difficult to identify the unique use cases they can serve‌ — ‌perhaps because most of us are still relatively new to these tools and are trying to understand their capabilities. Don’t worry‌ — we’ve been there! 

If you’re trying to get the most out of your social listening strategy (and your customer data), you’re in the right place — dive in to find out how experts use these tools to improve their content marketing campaigns.

The basic use cases of social media listening tools

Before we dive into ‌expert-led insights, it’s also important to highlight some basic use cases almost every social listening tool can serve, such as: 

• Identifying content topics you can target. If there’s a common theme of questions in certain social conversations, you can target those questions and create content around them. You can even go one step further and filter trending questions/topics by customer location and other attributes. 

• Finding new and relevant keywords. Just like the above, social media listening tools can also help you find new and emerging keyword ideas (as well as hashtags, visuals, emojis, and mentions). Safe to say, they’re a godsend for SEO!

• Getting updates about relevant things in your industry. For example, you can keep track of new government rules or social media policies and updates through online conversations.

• Identifying the right influencers. You can find out the types of influencers your competitors are targeting. The influencer names your current (and potential customers) repeat, and the content/engagement of specific influencers (in case of potential partnerships). 

• Finding brand mentions that might require crisis management. Another helpful use case of social media listening tools is tracking brand mentions. You can find negative sentiment or situations where a crisis may arise that might require company intervention.

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How experts are using them to improve content marketing efforts

Let’s dive into a few insights from subject-matter experts surrounding social media listening and content marketing.  

1. Finding new trends as they emerge

As a seasoned digital marketer, Nick Drewe uses social media listening tools to analyze trends and find audience sentiments. 

For example, his team at WeThrift (a company that aggregates coupon codes) was able to identify a trend of users seeking discount codes for lesser-known brands using social media listening tools.

WeThirft used this data to tailor their content, focusing not just on big brands but also on promoting small-to-medium-sized online stores. The end result? A whopping 38% increase in user engagement.

In another instance, a divorce mediator in Arizona, Aurit Center, did a deep dive into their social media platforms and saw a trend of most of their target audience talking about co-parenting. They now post plenty of content about co-parenting on their social media platforms.

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Note: These tools are helpful in finding trending content topics but can also help you find new trends in general. For example, certain topical trends and memes can be marketed with the help of social media listening tools.

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2. Identify content/audience that can partake in user-generated content 

According to Jessica Bane, director of business operations, her company (GoPromotional) invests in social media listening tools primarily for creating UGC content.

In her own words, “The tools helped us identify what consumers were saying about the brand and the emotions connected with it. 

By doing so, we discovered an enthusiastic community of users sharing cocktail recipes involving our client’s product. 

We capitalized on this insight by creating a user-generated content campaign around these innovative beverage mixtures, which increased engagement and regenerated interest in the brand.”

Like GoPromotional, you can also use these tools to identify the UGC content you can use and the brand loyalists in your audience you can partner with to create such content.

3. Understanding the language and terms used by the target audience

For Casey Meraz, the founder of Juris Digital (a digital marketing company for law firms), one crucial aspect where social media listening tools aid is comprehending the language and terms the potential audience uses. 

He believes marketers can identify expressions and popular jargon by analyzing most shared posts, comments, reviews, or social discourses. These can then be incorporated into the content, making it more relatable and engaging to the target audience.

Elaborating further, he provides the story of what they did at Juris Digital as an example. 

“Through social listening, we noticed that potential clients often used phrases like ’online court proceedings,’ ’virtual notary,’ and ’digital law consultation,” he says.

“These phrases were not previously part of our content strategy. Implementing these into our content remarkably improved its relevance and traction.”

4. Analyzing competitor strategies

Laia Quintana, the Head of Marketing and Sales at TeamUp, says her company uses social media listening tools to analyze competitor strategies for content differentiation.

“Social media listening tools allow us to monitor our competitors’ content and identify what resonates with their audience,” Laia states. 

“We can discern patterns in their posting schedule, content themes, and engagement metrics. This information helps us understand what sets their content apart and how we can differentiate our own.

These insights also enable us to tailor our content to fill gaps in the market and meet the unique needs of our audience. By understanding the competitive landscape, we can create content that not only stands out but also adds value to our audience.”

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5. Finding user interests based on content published online

Several experts are using social media listening tools in different ways to extract the most value from already-published content online. 

For example, Mark Hayes, the Head of Growth Marketing at Task Group, uses these tools to monitor real-time traffic from their social media channels to their website. This allows them to see which socials are driving traffic and what audiences are engaging with most during their visit.

In his own words, “This insight helps us tailor our social media content and campaigns. For instance, if we notice a high interest in a specific article or offer, we can use this information to tailor our social strategy or run some social ads (that will further reach the target audience consuming their content).”

In other instances, experts have used these tools to find out which content formats and topics convert well and which have had less-than-impressive results. This ultimately allowed them to invest more resources in topics/formats that have had a positive ROI. 

For example, Beaches of Normandy Tours (a travel agency that offers World War II historical tours) used listening tools to identify “Did You Know?” Topics worked really well for them, and, in turn, they have leveraged this knowledge to create social posts and blog content around “Did You Know” content. 

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6. Finding areas of concern or misunderstandings 

Gabriel Lukov, the Head of Inbound Growth at BusinessMap, says these tools inform their content creation process by highlighting areas where they need to boost their image or clarify misconceptions.

He elaborated further by providing an instance. “A prime example was when we noticed a persistent misconception among our prospects about a new feature in our software,” he said. 

“In response, we crafted a series of informative posts and explainer videos to alleviate these concerns.”

BusinessMap has been pretty proactive in using social media listening tools to their full capacity, too. Another internal member of the company, Pavel Naydenov (Marketing Head), said that these tools have also helped them: 

1. Identify a growing interest in topics
2. Gauge the sentiment around their brand (after a major product update)
3. Find the audience’s thoughts and preferences

7. Analyzing audience sentiments

Sam Browne, the founder of Findaband, an entertainment booking company that heavily uses social media listening tools for sentiment analysis. Social platforms hold a treasure trove of information.

He said, “These tools help us identify what content resonates with our audiences.”

“For instance, we monitor discussions and trends around live entertainment and music genres. This data shapes our blog posts and promotional content, ensuring they’re timely and engaging.

One specific example of how we apply social media listening in our content strategy involves tracking upcoming wedding seasons and preferences. 

By analyzing conversations about wedding planning and music choices, we tailor our content to provide valuable insights on choosing the right band or DJ, directly influencing our clients’ decisions and improving our content’s effectiveness.”

Supercharge your social media marketing strategy with The Social Hat

Love it or hate it, you can’t deny social media tools have become an important part of the marketing landscape‌ — ‌hence the invention of social media listening tools and the privatization of a social listening strategy.

As a marketer (or someone who handles social media posts for their business), you need to be updated about every single trend or update that’s happening on social media to make your company stay relevant in the customer’s eyes.

Now, that’s no easy feat‌ when you are juggling your social media strategy — ‌but we can help. The Social Media Hat works as a digital platform where top marketers (and Mike Allton) share their insights about social media, digital marketing, and all the industry trends in the marketing/social world.
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