Are you listening to your customers? I mean, really listening to what they are saying? Social media is often seen as a microphone to get a message across, but businesses will see the most success when they use social media as a two-way telephone. The whole point of social media is to connect with people and, often, businesses forget that. With social listening, you can monitor various social platforms to influence customers, learn how customers view your brand, and gain ideas on how to better interact with them. How can you still be an effective social media listener with limited time and budget? Use these free tools for social listening to level up your social media pages:
1. BuzzSumo.com
BuzzSumo is described as a platform for agencies to discover engaging content and outreach opportunities. With this powerful monitoring system, you can see how people are sharing your brand across social media platforms. This tool will not only provide you with insight on your social shares, but give you ideas on what hot button topics you might want to share on your pages. Ex: Say your brand is “Discover Lancaster.” On BuzzSumo, you would find that Pinterest and Facebook are the platforms with the most customer engagement. Also, social customers are most interested in budget trips and family fun trips to Pennsylvania. With this information, Discover Lancaster can now write more articles that are centered around these topics for the Pinterest and Facebook audiences.
2. Facebook’s “Pages to Watch”
Pages to Watch is an underutilized area within Facebook’s insights to monitor competitors. By comparing other pages, you can discover industry trends, ideas that might work on your page, or see a different perspective you never thought of. Don’t worry, your competitors will be completely oblivious!
3. Hashtagify.me
This is a quick tool to use for tracking hashtags on Twitter. Find the popularity of your hashtag or related hashtags you may not have thought of. With Hashtagify, you can also find influencers, that use these hashtags, to connect with to expand your audience. Ex: Using the hashtag #LancasterCountyPA, you’ll find other related hashtags that include #TTDLanc, #ThinkLocal, and #DiscoverLancaster. The top influencers that are using this hashtag include Lancaster Online, Reading Eagle, and Tim Buckwalter from LNP Media Group. If you’re looking to reach locals in this area, these would be the best hashtags and individuals to connect with on Twitter.
4. Keyhole
Keyhole is a unique tool for tracking hashtags, keywords, social accounts, mentions, and even URL metrics. The free preview on their homepage is limited but can give you a great start to digging a little deeper into social listening. With Keyhole, you can track your mentions (be sure to search by business name, not just your Twitter handle) and the impressions you received with that mention. Keyhole also provides an in-depth look at hashtags by tracking the number of impressions and users, most influential pages, related hashtags, and even demographics.
5. FollowerWonk
This tool is a way to get to know your audience with the ability to “sort followers.” This feature will allow you to see what followers have a larger authority as well as how many tweets and followers they have. By listening to the chatter, you will increase your online community, expand existing relationships, find out what your customers really want to hear from you, and other ways to reach people you never thought were available to you.