Hootsuite’s Social Listening Feature – Is It Any Good?

One of the sought-after tools in marketing and public relations is brand monitoring.

Being able to see what people say allows you to respond and guide them to make the most out of their investment.

As a brand management tool, Hootsuite offers a lot of features aligned with the goal of customer satisfaction. One of these is Social Listening.

Here are some of the things to know about Hootsuite and social listening:

Does Hootsuite Offer Social Listening?

The main reason that businesses get Hootsuite is for social listening, or the tracking of keywords and conversations being spread about certain topics, such as you or your business.

Hootsuite gives you options to check on conversations about your product as a whole or industry, which will then give you insight into your customer base and how they are viewing you and your product.

What Exactly is Social Listening?

Social listening is when you track mentions or discussions made on the Internet.

These discussions can cover mentions on your product, your competitor, and the industry as a whole.

In some cases, you also get to see the approval rating, or if the mentions tracked are inclined towards positive or negative reception.

Should I Use This Feature?

Because Hootsuite is ultimately a social media management tool, it would be difficult to get everything you can out of the site without investing your time and energy into the study of social listening.

Whether you choose the limited listening through streams or Hootsuite Insights, you should use this feature. Listening is the best way to improve user experience, as you get feedback from your stakeholders on what they feel when they use your product or service.

As a point of interaction with your audience, being able to see what your market says helps you improve and even develop game-changing products or services, so they continue patronizing.

Responding to the needs of the market contributes a lot to the loyalty of a brand.

How Great is the Social Listening Feature in Hootsuite?

The social listening feature of Hootsuite is remarkable, and here’s why:

Even when using a Free subscription, you can set up search or keyword streams to track mentions on your industry, your product, and your competitors.

These tracking streams also allow you to use filters on the search terms, so you get more accurate results.

Although this mode of listening is limited to Twitter and Instagram, it is still good, as these searches are saved and can be retrieved anytime.

While the Free, Professional, and Team subscription are limited to this listening mode, it is still better than having none at all.

Pair Social Listening with Insights:

Social listening gets better when you subscribe to Hootsuite Insights.

An add-on function available for Business and Enterprise subscribers, Insights collates all the mentions made public by your audience or stakeholders and puts them in one place.

You get a tally of mentions, demographics by gender and location, access to different web platforms for listening, and the approval, or positive and negative rating.

What Exactly Can you Track with Hootsuite Social Listening?

Here is a list of what you can track and what to expect with the social listening function of Hootsuite:

1. Track Terms Through a Keyword Stream

A Keyword stream lets you search up to three (3) keywords you input.

The search here pulls in all mentions made on Twitter. The results you get may include some or all keywords you use.

However, this comes with limitations, as it will also pull up non-related posts, especially if your keywords are generic.

The Keyword stream function is useful when you want to track a unique hashtag related to your product.

The Keyword stream feature is available for all Hootsuite subscribers, whether free or paid.

You can use this function on Instagram, provided that your business profile on Facebook has a verified, or the blue checkmark, status.

2. Track Terms Through a Search Stream

The Search stream is a more flexible version of the Keyword stream.

Here, you can include filters for your search and add geographical demographics.

You can do an all or nothing search, filter to look for mentions in the form of questions, look for content with a negative tone, among other possible filters.

There is no limit to the number of words you use, and this is ideal if you are looking for something more detailed.

The Search stream is limited to Twitter.

On the Insights service, you can expand your search to cover all social media platforms compatible with Hootsuite.

3. The Number of People Talking About Your Product or Service

The social listening on Hootsuite scours the web through the Insights service, for mentions made on your brand, using the filters you set and gives you the number of times your name gets mentioned.

You get to filter this tally by demographics and break down into positive and negative mentions.

4. Approval Ratings

You can gain access to the approval ratings of your product by using the Insights function.

Use it in conjunction with the filters, so you can look deeper into the results and identify the demographics having problems with your product or service.

Doing so helps you tweak your product to please your audiences who may have challenges with your brand.

5. Your Competitors

Hootsuite does not only let you check what is going on with your brand.

You can also check what your competitors are up to and how the public responds to them.

Using the tools listed above, you can search for the products and services of your rival businesses and see what their stakeholders say about them.

You can use these data to your advantage by taking the cue of what works for them.

Or, you can take advantage of their faults and offer their market with an alternative through your products.

Are There any Alternatives to the Social Listening Feature of Hootsuite?

There are plenty of other tools that offer social listening.

Some are free but are limited in function.

1. Google Alerts:

An example of this would be Google Alerts, which alerts you of every time a keyword you often search is mentioned on the web.

However, the results it covers is limited as it does not cover social media.

There are also paid add-ons to your existing subscription.

2. Buffer:

An example of this would be Buffer, which offers social listening for an extra $35.

You gain more monitoring when you subscribe to the $50 plan.

These plans are add-ons paid every month.

3. Sprout Social:

Another option is Sprout Social.

Sprout Social offers customizable plans for your social listening.

The cost of the add-on depends on your requirements.

Sources:

What is Social Listening, Why it Matters, and 10 Tools to Make it Easier

Does Hootsuite Monitor Mentions? (Solved And Explained)

How to Use Hootsuite Insights