Social listening is a must for those organizations that want to learn what their customers, clients, members and other stakeholders want from them, and for those brands that understand the business value of a positive reputation. That covers just about every organization you can think of, including ruling political parties in every nation on the globe.
PR News and Business Wire recently fielded a survey to gauge how PR professionals are using the data from their social media monitoring efforts and, notably, to find out if they feel social media monitoring has made a difference so far in their businesses. The two most common uses of data from social listening among the 300 professional communicators who participated in the survey are "to listen to customers and prospects" (72%) and "to find influencers" (60%). (See infographic.)
When asked if social media monitoring has been effective for their company, a surprising 26% said not yet, while 10% said no. So while the practice is in effect, obvious business benefits are not always clearly seen. One possible reason: Not only is the practice of social listening in its infant phase, the question of how to apply lessons from that data is still murky.
"PR people are good at generating action [on social channels], but not yet understanding what the data can provide internally," said Serena Ehrlich, director of social media at Business Wire, who will be speaking about analyzing PR data at PR News' Measurement Conference in Chicago on Nov. 20. "They need to monitor actionable data for the company to put to use."
The complete results of the survey will be announced at the Measurement Conference and in the Nov. 17 premium weekly edition of PR News.
Learn more about the Nov. 20 Measurement Conference.
Follow Serena Ehrlich: @serena
Follow Steve Goldstein: @SGoldsteinAI