CONTENT THERAPY

Why social listening is so critical for developing and optimising content

NB: Your competitors probably aren’t using it

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

It’s 2022, and using social listening to help inform your next marketing campaign should be more of a ‘no-brainer’ than ever.

After all, what better way is there than social listening to spy on your competitors, or find out what’s happening in your industry space?

But it appears to be an eternally underused audience research tactic, from where I’m sitting.

The pandemic triggered a change in an array of online user behaviours, and last year it was reported that:

• 43% of B2C content marketers planned to invest more in their social media channels (Source)
• 46% of B2B content marketers planned to invest more in their organic and paid content distribution efforts (Source)
• During Q1, 2021, marketers spent 60% more on Facebook and Instagram advertising compared to Q1, 2020 (Source)

But what many marketers may still not have realised is that all of this extra activity and investment in social media over the past couple of years has resulted in higher, more concentrated volumes of published social content in the public domain.