Want to discover what you can do with social listening? Here are 7 social listening examples of brands listening to consumers to drive results. Here to inspire your marketing strategy.
The Power of Social Listening
Social media is the channel for communication and engagement. People share their opinions, experiences, and feedback across all social media platforms. So listening to what people are saying on social channels is a powerful insight tool for brand strategy
By using social listening tools and techniques, you can make informed decisions based on this consumer data. Identifying issues or opportunities, and building stronger relationships with your customers.
What's an example of social listening?
Here’s a simple example. You can set up a search for mentions of your brand, products, or stores online.
If you find a negative mention, you can respond to the mention and resolve the issue. Simple.
You can take this further, by:
- Identifying if that issue is a one-off or a regular occurrence (i.e. could it scale?)
- Monitoring if that issue has caused negative press or media coverage (i.e do you need to respond?)
- Tracking additional trends that could impact your brand in the future (i.e Is it a communication opportunity?)
- Creating campaigns that align with your consumer sentiment
A social listening strategy can do so much for your brand. Below, we’ve found 7 social media listening examples. Showing how brands can listen to their consumers online and deliver genuine results.
1: Trend Analysis - Australian Lamb
One of the biggest opportunities for brands is to engage with trending topics. Social listening helps you identify the trends people are discussing. So you can create content that connects with them.
That’s what Australian Lamb did with their ad in January 2024. In the three months prior, English social media conversations mentioned the ‘generation gap’ 26.6k times. This identified it as a worthwhile conversation to be a part of.
Australian Lamb’s ad hit the topic head-on. The fun ad includes generational stereotypes that resonate and amuse consumers.
1.4 million+ people have viewed the ad, with mentions across the globe. This boosted awareness of the brand and ultimately, should show an increase in sales.
Takeaway
Finding content that resonates with your audience comes from understanding consumers. Monitoring social media gives you insights at micro and macro levels. Helping you create effective campaigns.
2. Customer Satisfaction - Stanley
Stanley specializes in thermal bottles, travel mugs, and campware. Originally, they targeted a broadly male demographic, catering to workmen and outdoor enthusiasts. But over the last few years, they’ve pivoted to a wider audience, with a particular focus on women.
And sales have boomed.
As part of this pivot, they actively listen to their audience online. Not just to engage in trends, but to also grow the Stanley community and improve customer service.
In November 2023, this TikTok caused an online sensation.
After a car fire, @danimarielettering discovered their Stanley Mug intact, with ice still clinking inside. This incident perfectly exemplified the brand's "built for life" message. 95.4 million people have watched this TikTok so far.
The story could have ended there. However, Stanley was listening. The Stanley President replied to the TikToker, offering to replace the car. This response helped boost brand sentiment and gained them an additional 21.8k mentions.
Takeaway
User-generated content is a powerful medium for brands, with 79% of consumers saying UGC impacts their purchasing decisions. Use social listening to find this content. Then promote it to drive effective brand messages.
3. Product Insights - Starbucks
Every year, pumpkin spice becomes a seasonal trend amongst coffee and autumn lovers alike. Starbucks is the biggest brand to engage with this trend, with 99.4k conversations mentioning both topics over the last 12 months.
But if your brand relies on a global trend to drive sales, you can use social listening to understand how that trend is evolving.
Comparing mentions of pumpkin spice year on year. Talkwalker Social Listening
Comparing the months of August & September in 2022 with 2023, mentions of pumpkin spice dropped by 4.5%. And the net sentiment around the topic dropped from 60.9% to 47.9%. Consumers discuss the flavor less and in a less favorable way.
Takeaway
Consumer conversations are a great source to tap for product insights. Social listening monitors trends in the short and long term, enabling you to create products targeted toward consumer interests.
4: Crisis Management - Lyft
In September 2023, Lyft faced a particular challenge. Following a journey to the vet, a client’s cat went missing.
The cat’s owner posted about the issue on X / Twitter, with the post hitting 26.9k engagement, and over 10 million views. The story of ‘Tux’ soon went global, pushing up negative mentions of the brand.
Lyft’s social media listening helped them out of a potential crisis. They quickly engaged with the post, and provided additional support from investigators. Thankfully, they quickly found Tux.
The company also announced the return of Tux on their channels, much to the relief of the followers of the story. They also promised an investigation into how the situation happened.
Takeaway
Real-time social listening helps you engage with consumers faster. It can also help find those hidden complaints that don’t tag your brand. This can help win back dissatisfied customers, drive loyalty, and prevent your brand from facing a PR crisis.
5. Brand Reputation - Airline Industry
Sometimes brand crises are outside of your control. But how you handle those crises can impact your brand reputation.
In August 2023, the UK’s flight planning system crashed, causing travel chaos. This led to the cancellation of more than 500 inbound and outbound flights.
This had a significant impact on airlines (and Eurostar) as travelers vented about canceled plans. This negatively impacted the sentiment for many brands.
The sentiment of conversations mentioning travel brands and the flight planning crisis. Talkwalker Social Listening
Social listening would have been valuable in monitoring the crisis and identifying key pain points. This would have helped these brands to directly respond to complaints. And identified information that would have helped consumers more broadly.
In this case, there was much confusion over what compensation or assistance disrupted travelers could receive. Brand-led content on this topic could have reduced the impact the crisis had on these brands.
Takeaway
Don’t just monitor your brand on social listening. You should also monitor your industry and any topics that may impact you. That way you can proactively engage with global issues or crises in a way that genuinely engages your audience.
6. Campaign optimization - PayPal
Every campaign you create should work as hard as possible. Whether a small business or a global brand. In August 2023, PayPal launched a new cryptocurrency called PayPal USD. On the day of launch, the campaign boosted brand mentions by around 58,000 mentions (approximately +50%).
However, through social listening, you can learn more about who engaged with the campaign. And identify ways PayPal could optimize future content to boost impact.
In this case, only 10.7k unique users discussed the campaign. With 24% of those actively involved in the cryptocurrency community (i.e. with crypto-related keywords in their bios).
To have more success, PayPal should aim to engage a wider audience. Social listening can help identify the crypto topics the wider population discusses and shape their future campaigns around it.
Takeaway
Consistently monitoring conversations helps you engage your audience in the language they speak. This will help boost overall engagement and campaign results.
7. Influencer Marketing - GTA6
At the end of 2023, RockSteady Games hit the record for the highest number of YouTube views in 24 hours. And it was all down to the trailer for their next game, Grand Theft Auto 6.
The game series has always been a fan favorite, bound to create social media buzz. Some significant influencers and media outlets also helped by sharing the content.
Top influencers for GTA6. Talkwalker Social Listening
Social listening can help you identify and engage with relevant voices within your community, to boost overall reach. In this case, Entrepreneur Elon Musk and TikTok superstar Lame discussed the topic with their fans. Their posts reached over 300M users alone.
Takeaway
Influencers are invaluable for brands as they often have an engaged community that can be tapped into. By identifying the key voices in your industry, you can optimize reach and profit from that valuable expertise.
Market Pulse Insights
We took these social listening examples from stories in our Talkwalker’s Market Pulse newsletter. To get inspiration and ideas about the latest happenings and trends, you can sign up now.
Learn more about social listening
These are just a flavor of some of the things you can do with social listening. As a leading social listening platform, Talkwalker brings years of expertise to the market. To discover more about our innovative AI technology and the wide range of social media channels we monitor, click below.
