The Importance of Social Listening

April 18, 2025

Despite being an integral part of our day-to-day lives, social media is notoriously difficult to evaluate. When it comes to measuring ROI (a.k.a. the statistics that show success), many business owners (and even social media marketers!) don’t know quite where to start.  

For years, we’ve measured social media through what are essentially vanity metrics – likes, shares, comments and followers. But there’s so much more we can do to leverage our followers’ behaviors – and let’s be honest if you know your audience, you understand your audience. If you’re part of the 79% of businesses looking to increase brand awareness, this is especially important. 

This is where social listening comes into play. By listening to your target audience, you’ll find it easier to create meaningful content and unveil hard numbers that prove your ROI.

 

Whether you take the time to scroll through social media – exploring your audiences’ habits, tracking comments and mentions or analyzing shares – or use a tool like Meltwater, social listening will help you: 

• truly get to know your audience. 

• improve your strategies and campaigns. 

• uncover market gaps, which will enable you to differentiate yourself. 

• spot potential crises before they wreak havoc on you or your brand. 

 

So, what does this mean and how can you leverage it to improve your stats? 

 

First, let’s dive into social listening. 

The textbook definition of social listening is “the activity of monitoring and analyzing social media content that is related to or relevant for one’s product or brand, as a means of improving outreach, product development and more”.  

Essentially, social listening tracks every mention of your brand and your competitors. It’s different from monitoring because it proactively identifies trends and behaviors of your target audience.  

Before embarking on a social listening expedition, ask yourself: 

• What are my competitors doing? How do I compare to them? 

• How do customers feel about our brand or product? 

• Are people familiar with or aware of our brand? 

 

Then, identify a few key terms or hashtags. 

As an example, our agency’s key terms may include: 

“New York Public Relations Agencies” 

“PR Agencies”  

“Building Trust with a Public Relations Firm” 

#publicrelations 

#newyorkpragency 

 

Use these baselines to identify takeaways, then get ready for the next step…utilizing your findings.  

 

Now, it’s time to put all that questioning and learning into action! To effectively leverage your key takeaways, use the following tips and tricks.  

Think of your social media strategy and performance as a loop.  

INSIGHTS inform ACTIONS which create an IMPACT.  

Insights about your customers and their behaviors inform actions (a.k.a your strategy and execution), thereby creating an impact for your business.  

Here’s an example: 

INSIGHT: Through social listening, Impact PR & Communications found that its audience cares about team member’s promotions and anniversaries.  

ACTION: Because of this, Impact PR & Communications prioritized posts regarding promotions, new hires, anniversaries and more.  

IMPACT: Impact PR & Communications audience generated engagement with its audience, thereby helping the agency meet its social media and business goals.  

 

So, now that you understand social listening and how to use it to your advantage, let’s identify a few ways to measure and report the initiatives you’ve implemented.  

First, identify your goals and overall strategy. When talking to management (especially as a social media manager), be sure to explain your tactics: 

• What did you learn about your audience? 

• What did you do differently because of these findings? 

• What stayed the same? 

 

After establishing a baseline, you can effectively share metrics relating to success.  

• What results were surprising? 

• What results were the most important? 

For example, did you gain new followers, increase engagement or see a rise in website traffic because of your tactics? 

 

Give a “success snapshot”.  

• Did your followers increase? Did this align with your goal? 

• Did you see an increase in web traffic? Was it more or less than anticipated? 

• Which posts performed best? 

• Did a higher percentage of your target audience engage with your content? 

 

To evaluate your general engagement metrics, use the following equation: 

For this information, it’s useful to provide an overview of previous results. Whether your results were on track with your goals or not, this information is important to share. Often, we can learn just as much from mistakes or missteps as we can from top-of-the-line campaigns.  

 

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to get started: 

• How many times did you post in a given month or quarter? 

• How many followers did you gain or lose? 

• How many likes did the average post receive? 

 

At this point, you can explore other metrics, such as: 

• How many post vs story views did you receive? 

• How many bio or website link clicks did you garner? 

These should be separated by platform.  

 

Finally, identify “standout” results. 

• Did you connect with an influencer for the first time? 

• Did you receive a compelling testimonial through a direct message? 

 

All of this information can be used to audit your social media presence and inform social strategies. For an overview of auditing your social media, check out one of our former blog posts, Social Media Audit Guide.  

 

But, as always, remember to consider the following: 

• • What changes (good or bad) did you see? 
  • Why did these changes occur? 

• • What did you do differently to cause these changes? 

• • What did you learn? 

 

Social media is never a set-it-and-forget-it proposition, but rather an ongoing commitment to sharing, listening and learning.