Social listening
Social Listening
Social listening is a process in which organizations use big data and other means to monitor and respond to information shared by publics through social media or through other channels. Organizations benefit from active social listening because it allows them to gain insights about their consumers, as well as attend to consumers and participate in conversations online.[1] Social listening is best suited within an “architecture of listening,” in which organizations use multiple channels to enable two-way communication and develop messaging strategies based organizational goals and input received through the various listening channels.[2]
The channel social listening most often refers to is social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) or blogs, but can also include news media sources and digital articles. The process is similar to environmental scanning and social media monitoring, except that it's a broader term that goes a step further in the communication process because it includes the entire spectrum of public opinion[3] and entails feedback.[1]
History
Social listening is similar to listening in interpersonal communication except that it's scaled to larger context and integrated with technology. Communication can be defined as a process in which a sender delivers a message to a receiver, who then decodes and processes the message before delivering feedback.[4] Effective listening in interpersonal communication has not always been comparable, just on a larger scale, for organizations because of the dynamics through which organizations communicated with publics before social media gave a platform for publics to deliver messages and feedback.
Before social media, organizations had dominant access to communication channels reaching large audiences, which led to organizations focusing on sending messages to publics rather than receiving messages and delivering feedback. [5] An organization's reputation is based on held sentiments because of personal experiences or information shared about the organization[3]; social networking has expanded the amount of information shared about organizations because now publics can easily share their personal experiences with an organization to a large audience, whereas before, organizations had more control of the information broadcast to the masses. An organization's communications practices are vital to the health of an organization because they can reinforce or degrade the organization's reputation; as publics gained access to platforms that allowed mass distribution of messages, the standards of effective communication for organizations changed.[3] Social listening is a way for organizations to adapt to the evolved communication dynamics between organizations and publics.
The shift in control of the flow of information from the organization to the organization and publics led to the opportunity for organizations and publics to more closely model interpersonal communication, because organizations as well as publics can now act as senders and receivers of information.[3] Publics now have an expectation they will be listened to, and can harm an organization's reputation if the organization chooses not to listen.
Practical Applications
Social Listening in Organizations
Organizations have an integral role in democratic societies, in which, stakeholders depend on organizations to provide means of living and organizations depend on stakeholders (both as consumers and as constituents who can vote for more or less regulation) to enable operations. [6] Because of this co-dependent relationship, it is essential for organizations to embrace two-way communication with society so the needs of stakeholders are met, and therefore the organization is also able to survive.[6]
Organizations can use social media data analytics to gain insights about consumers; social media management and data analytics programs (such as Hootsuite, Meltwater, Sprout Social, etc.) offer various insights that organizations can use to discover what the needs of stakeholders are and develop marketing strategies.[6]
Understanding Stakeholders with Data
This article "Social listening" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Social listening. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Grönqvist, L., & Hillergren, S. (2020). Listen, Learn, Leverage: How Social Listening Enhance Organizations’ Marketing Strategies.
- ↑ Macnamara, J. (2017). Toward a Theory and Practice of Organizational Listening. International Journal of Listening, 32, 1–23.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Westermann, A., & Forthmann, J. (2020). Social listening: a potential game changer in reputation management How big data analysis can contribute to understanding stakeholders' views on organisations. Corporate Communications: An International Journal.
- ↑ Lunenberg, Fred (2010). "Communication: The Process, Barriers, And Improving Effectiveness" (PDF). Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Place, K. (2019). Listening as the driver of public relations practice and communications strategy within a global public relations agency. Public Relations Journal, 12(3), 1-18.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Macnamara, J. (2019). Explicating listening in organization-public communication: Theory, practices, technologies. International Journal of Communication.
