Is Your Brand Listening Through Instagram?
Because Instagram is no longer just a place to post snapshots. In fact, the platform is a prime place to connect with your target audience.
Shout-outs and call-outs. Tags and mentions. Latest news from the industry.
All of the above should be on your radar. This explains the importance of social listening to make better business decisions.
Good News? All the above answers are available If you’re listening for them,
Not sure how to improve key customer conversations and cut through the noise? We’ve put together this crash course to answer all your Instagram listening questions.
What is Instagram listening to?
Instagram listening is the process of tracking conversations related to your brand. This includes industry keywords, competitors, trends, and hashtags.
These interactions are invaluable to your social media content and engagement strategies.
Not sure what to post? What are your followers talking about? Instead of second guessing what people want, Instagram listening provides direct, real answers. Consider how listening insights can empower you:
- Determine your overall brand health and sentiment
- Monitor the activity of your competitors
- Identify potential customers, partnerships and influencers
- Help customers on their shopping path
- Uncover the latest industry trends
Why Instagram Listening Matters
Brands should not live in a bubble when it comes to their Instagram activity. Listening puts your mentions, conversations and comments in context. This helps you to add people and grow your account.
Below are some specific ways Instagram enables you to connect with customers.
Learning what your audience wants on a personal level
Consumers crave association with brands and expect businesses to communicate their values. The latest Sprout Social Index highlights how value and trust translate into customer loyalty.
Are you communicating your values ​​clearly? Is your brand initiative in line with your audience?
Taking a stand on issues and getting personal is the key to building a meaningful relationship. Through social listening, you can double-check whether your message resonates with your audience.
Providing more impressive Instagram customer service
According to our 2022 index data, 35% of consumers (and 60% of brands) use Instagram for customer service. This makes Instagram the second largest social service channel, placing the platform just behind Facebook.
“Good” service goes hand in hand with keeping track of customer questions, comments, and concerns. Through social listening, you never leave an @mention or branded keyword beyond your direct call-out.
Consider that 47% of consumers have a favorable attitude towards social brands that respond rapidly to customers. Tracking the conversation as you go makes it easy to meet response time expectations.
Finding meaningful customer content to promote your brand
Your customers are your best marketers. Listening can give you valuable content and social proof that you can promote yourself. This may include:
- Positive Reviews, Testimonials & Customer Success Stories
- User-generated content (think: customer photos and videos)
- A shout out to potential co-marketing partners (think: brands, influencers, and creators)
Instead of digging for these opportunities, listening makes sure they all come to you.
Instagram Social hear Vs social media Supervision
Quick side note! Let’s take a moment to tell what Instagram is listening to Not there,
Hear @mentions, comments and #hashtags . is more than
Terms such as “monitoring” and “listening” are often used interchangeably between marketers. Although they are not the same.
- social media monitoring Has the function of tracking @mentions, comments and hashtags. Monitoring is an important aspect of listening but it is only part of the process.
- listening to instagram Involves translating conversation and customer talking points into action.
Conversation matters but context matters too. Think about it. Someone is tagging a fashion brand in their OOTD post vs saying that the brand’s products are apples and oranges. Also, not every mention of your business on Instagram includes a direct call-out or tag.
takeaway? If you’re only looking for mentions of your brand name or campaign key words, you’re missing out on key conversations.
You are also missing out on opportunities to intervene and take action to engage customers. That’s why it pays to be proactive through listening.
However, how does Instagram listening work?
good question! Instagram is a strange beast as far as listening to customer conversations go.
For starters, you’re combining a lot of different queries. Tags, mentions and branded keywords are just the beginning.
And although IG search has improved, finding and consolidating conversations often requires some digging.
Instagram Social Listening involves the following three-step process:
- Creating queries based on terms relevant to your business, hashtags, and your industry
- Monitor mentions, tags, comments and interactions
- To take action assessing all of the above
Instagram’s features like keyword search, trending topics, and hashtags can help (see below). With your notifications, you have a pretty good idea of ​​what is being said about your business.
This is clearly a lot to filter by hand. Again, Instagram doesn’t make listening particularly easy by default.
The good news is that there are tools out there to help. For example, sprouts listening to social media The features serve to aggregate Instagram conversations. Brands can create their own listening queries for Instagram through Boolean syntax and rules logic.
Non-technical translation? You can uncover important customer conversations without having to search manually. Consolidating all of these in one place with your messages is a nice added bonus.
How to Build an Effective Instagram Listening Strategy
Of course, listening to Instagram and understanding how it works is only half the battle.
How do you turn all these metrics and observations into action?
Your social listening strategy is ultimately limited to your goals. Below is how brands can use Instagram to enhance their marketing efforts.
Conduct competitive analysis to find ways to stand out
Perhaps one of the best uses of social listening is competitive analysis.
Consider highly-competitive markets such as the beauty industry. New products are constantly coming from one brand to another which means more listening. Tracking tags and popular posts from other brands in your location can help you better position yourself in the face of tough competition.
Meanwhile, direct mentions and hashtags highlight what sets your brand apart.
Uncover opportunities to improve your products
If you want to know how to improve your products and services, who better to ask than your own customers? Prompted or not, followers can let you know about new ideas.
Of course, not all reactions from your followers will be direct.
Some critics may see “likes”, comments, and shares as simply pointless metrics. Still, they can be a valuable currency for determining the products your customers prefer. Look at the influx or “likes” or interactions on product posts as a possible indication.
Build valuable customer contacts on the road to purchase
44% of Instagram users use the platform to shop for and browse products weekly. Serving as a social media concierge can help you earn more sales.
Instagram comments are a goldmine for finding people interested in your products. This is perfect for those who don’t know about you yet either Maybe you are looking for a new place in your place.
Listening also makes it easier to maintain relationships with satisfied customers. This includes check-ins and opportunities to earn more UGC.
Find relevant industry and content trends for your followers
Social listening is invaluable for keeping track of industry trends. For starters, you should know which tags your audience follows. But do you know how they are reacting to such trends in order to impress? How can you apply them to your own campaigns?
On a related note, listening to Instagram can keep you from copying your competition.
For example, brands need to differentiate their tone, content calendar and captions if they want to stand out on Instagram. Listening effectively can help you uncover tags and trends that may be missing from your competitors and how you can fill the void.
Keep track of your customer sentiment and keep people happy
Let’s say you’ve launched a new product or campaign.
You obviously want to know how your audience feels about it, right? Is it creating buzz?
Again, you may not always get those answers from direct references. Chances are there are users out there who can provide a solid answer, though.
Social listening goes hand in hand with emotional analysis. In other words, how are people reacting to your brand on Instagram? Whether it’s “or,” “no” or “meh,” sentiment analysis can inform you to better serve customers and get more love from your Instagram followers.
What Instagram listening tools are available to brands?
Let’s say you want to hear everything on Instagram.
Basic brand listening is possible through local searches on Instagram. Still, to say that listening manually is tedious is an understatement.
After all, brands need to track multiple tags and competitors. It is not even considering your own mentions and branded keywords. Considering the massive amount of content posted on Instagram daily, all this is no small feat.
With the help of an actual Instagram listening tool, digging into the industry conversation doesn’t have to be a time-sink.
Again, Sprout’s strong suite of social listening features is a game-changer for brands looking to grow their Instagram presence. Businesses can track dozens of queries beyond simple hashtags with the help of our query builder. Doing so ensures that you have an overall understanding of your brand and industry.
Reporting and analytics provide a quantitative look at your listening so you can make data-driven decisions. Second guessing a campaign or anticipating your next move on Instagram? Look no further than your number for peace of mind.
Is your brand on board with Instagram Social Listening?
Social listening is the key to connecting with customers who expect well from brands, hear To those.
And with the current rocket being linked to Instagram, the platform should be given top priority as far as hearing is concerned.
Don’t let those important conversations and moments with your audience put you on edge. Smarter Instagram Listening informs everything from campaigns to your social strategy at scale.
If you haven’t already, give Sprout’s social listening features a test drive to see how much better listening translates to better business.
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