What Is Social Listening?
We got a great reader question recently: what is social listening? Sounds like someone heard that Galvanize USA’s research team is adding “social listening” to their toolbox to learn even more about our audience of ideologically-moderate women. Let’s dig in and learn why social listening will help us get to know women even better!
Social listening is just monitoring what’s happening on social media: what people are saying, who’s having what conversations, and what content is gaining traction. It uses tools that analyze public posts, keywords, topics, and engagement trends to surface patterns at scale. It’s not accessing any private data or personal information and not “listening in,” it’s simply tracking already-public conversations to better understand what’s resonating online. That’s valuable information we can use to guide our data-informed approach!
Social listening can help us answer questions about what our audience is experiencing online! For example, our last deep dive into women’s social media preferences showed us they like humor. But what’s funny to them? Which accounts do they follow? What kind of content will catch on best? These are the kinds of questions social listening will help us answer!
We learn a lot about our audience through our research, but this adds a new layer of data-backed, real-time insights. It also cuts down the reliance on self-reported data!
Social listening tools can also answer timely, topical questions in critical moments, like “What were women seeing and hearing about Alex Pretti the week after he was shot versus now?” “What was the dominant narrative they heard?” “What were they saying about that?” This can help us respond to specific disinformation narratives faster and more effectively.
That means Galvanize USA can improve the timing and relevancy of our “always-on” content and bring real-time insights to our work. When our audience is trying to make sense of major current events and trying times, we can be right there with them with content that meets them at their values and makes them want to click.
Of course, this doesn’t replace the deep relationship we already have with our audience, it builds on it! For nearly a decade, we’ve invested in understanding ideologically-moderate women: their values, concerns, hopes, and the real-life pressures they face around economic security, health, safety, and community. Social listening simply helps us stay current in a fast-moving media environment, so we can continue meeting women where they already are with content that feels relevant, respectful, and supportive. It’s not about watching individuals, it’s about understanding broader trends and conversations so we can better serve our community and create programming that counters toxic narratives with clarity, connection, and hope.
