Are you listening?

As social media develops as an industry, ways to better leverage its reach and influence are being developed.

Statista research shows there were 3.78 billion social media users worldwide in 2021 whilst Cybercrew research suggests there were 48 million active social media users in the UK in 2020 (67% of the population), with the average user spending 110 minutes on social media per day.

Whilst social media provides a compelling and often addictive form of engagement, physical spaces and physical retail spaces in particular have struggled to leverage the medium to their benefit, often lacking the brand, content, expertise and frequency of interaction required to truly engage an audience.

We look at how `listening' is a more effective strategy than `monitoring' for social media:

Social Monitoring
Marketers have, for many years, tracked social media engagements – counting opens, likes, click-throughs and tweets – in an attempt to display the impact and value that campaigns, both physical and digital, have on the behaviour of audiences online. Such behaviour is classified as Social Monitoring; quantifying the degree of change in audience behaviour in relation to a brand, place or product.

Many, including those acting on behalf of shopping centres, retail parks and outlets, take this a step further, responding to individual interactions in an attempt to boost engagement, satisfaction and loyalty. However, even when engaging directly with users, such behaviour is still classed as Social Monitoring, reflecting the typically reactive and ad-hoc nature of any responses.

Social Listening
Social Listening is a developing tool, comprising taking online interactions at a macro-level and drawing out insight to inform proactive campaigns, strategies and behaviours. Rather than being focused on a single post, comment or tweet, Social Listening focuses on the positive and negative trends in social engagements concerning a brand, place or product and offers the ability to aggregate and disaggregate by platform, user type or sentiment.

Such analysis allows users to better understand the quality and impact of engagement, rather than just the degree of engagement itself. Nike are a leading exponent of utilising social media to drive consumer engagement and value, with their online behaviour a useful case study to understand the above concepts. Nike’s response to a high profile, potentially damaging incident – college basketball star Zion Williamson’s Nike shoe `breaking', causing serious injury provides a showcase of how to utilise Social Monitoring to listen, collate and respond. Nike’s decision to partner with Marcus Rashford to present a new vision​ for the future of football is informed by Social Monitoring and the changes in user behaviour seen through campaigns including those with controversial NFL star Colin Kaepernick. Whilst Nike’s relationship with Kaepernick provided a short-term hit to Nike’s market value, the use of Social Monitoring has allowed them to fully understand the less immediate positive benefits that such collaborations provide with their user base.

The opportunity for places
The opportunity to enact positive change starts with listening – too many developers, owners and asset managers think they know what is required, based on their own perceptions, experiences and interactions. Engaging primarily with existing tenants and consumers, and restricting use of digital to a reactive, issue-driven approach (Social Monitoring) limits the potential to leverage a prominent, fast-growing and highly influential form of communication. Utilising Social Listening to understand existing and target customers thoughts and preferences around not only an owned asset, but both benchmark and competing schemes, provides highly insightful data to subsequently increase the relevance of owned assets.

When developing a Social Listening strategy we suggest a three-pronged approach:

Engage. Brand building and long-term relevance can not be gained via a cost-cutting race to the bottom. Social Listening presents a cost-effective way to engage with both some of your biggest advocates, detractors and those yet to engage with your brand, place or product.

Be Realistic. Set achievable goals around what you want to learn from Social Listening and who you want to learn it from. Opportunities presented include engagement with a sizeable, young and diverse audience and, though the depth of learning can be limited, provides a strong research component alongside other quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Learn from your competitors. Social Listening is not restricted to your own brand, place or product and so, even with a limited digital presence, there is the potential to learn from what competitors are doing (and not doing well), and take positive action to drive your own learnings and performance.

Andrew McVicker