Social listening allows you to constantly take the pulse of your community. Real-time data about their interests, questions, trending topics and demographic characteristics can give you the edge you need to ensure your content is relevant to your target audience. This presentation provides an introduction to social listening techniques for audience and content research (using both free and paid tools) and examples of how campuses are using the technique to inform their content.
Presented at the eduWeb Digital Summit 2017, and voted "Best of Track" for Content and Email Marketing.
We have to stop thinking that what happens online doesn’t matter. There’s no more “online” and IRL. The internet is real life. And what I want to talk to you today is why you can and should be using the wealth of information available from the online conversations of the general public to inform your marketing and communications strategies.
It’s not all political
This was a drink specifically made to drive social media buzz. Did you know that there were 3 other special Frappuccinos released this spring? I didn’t.
https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/frappuccino-happy-hour-starbucks/
You can find and analyze these insights using a process of social listening. If you’ve read anything I’ve written or heard me speak in the last year, perhaps you’ve heard about it. I can’t stop geeking out about it. This is a game-changer, folks. And I hope you’ll be as excited about it as I am. So what is it, exactly? Well, if online conversations = real life, social listening is real life transcribed, categorized, and analyzed to provide your institution with the insights it needs to support data-driven strategies.
The internet, particularly social media, is an “always on focus group.” Social listening allows you to mine that data—in real time if you like– to gather intelligence based on either a particular conversation topic or a group of identified users. The tool you’re using will determine your level of sophistication in this area, but there are already some great campus examples out there that I’d like to share with you today.
This example is from Nicole Carlone Losi, the Director of Social Media at Kent State. Nicole started at Kent State in 2014, and has been using Hootsuite Enterprises with the Insights Add-On since that summer. Nicole told me that one of the many inputs into her monthly content calendar are insights rom social listening – they try to pro-actively answer questions they’ve seen students asking on social media through their planned content.
They also use social listening for crisis awareness, searching for Kent-State specific issues, and capturing opportunities to amplify and engage with user generated content. Nicole shared a few examples with me of the type of content she’s been finding through social listening.
Wait for it……
I get pretty jazzed about this next example, and I know the folks at CASE did too, as it won a Bronze Award this year! I spoke with Meghan Cocurullo, Digital Engaegment Officer to learn more about the Kind Mail Project that Western University’s Alumni Relations & Development Departmentlaunched last December. It’s an amazing campaign that started because they were listening to the voices of their audience on social media.
They were using Sprout Social to listen. Have since moved to Hootsuite Enterprise
The fact that each response included a specific residence hall room was surprising and interesting to the Western team. They didn’t have a plan yet, but they knew they were seeing a content trend. The inclusion of the residence hall room in response to their test sparked the Kind Mail Project idea.
They went from pitch to rollout in 3 weeks.
Yes, they were all hand written!
They went from pitch to rollout in 3 weeks. 15 staff members spent a few hours per day hand-writing all the postcards over 4 days
They’re also tracking if alumni who participated in Kind Mail are more engaged.
They’ll be adding a mass email to alumni
The culture writer from Five Thirty Eight found this. He has almost 18,000 followers.