What is social listening?

Reading what people say about a brand, product or topic across social media and the web.

Social listening means reading what people say about a brand, product, title or topic across social platforms and the wider web: Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Discord, reviews, forums and more.

A dashboard of mentions tells you how loud it got. Useful listening counts specific things a team can act on: the words people use, the formats they reward, the complaints that keep coming up. In a real Arcus audience report for a streaming service, counting 6,622 comments showed that one word in 62 was slang, and the slang words brands like to borrow barely appeared. That changes how you write a caption.

Why it matters

Most listening tools summarize sentiment. Useful listening counts specific things, like the words fans use, and checks them against sales.

An example

Example (made-up numbers): of 2,000 comments under your last ten posts, 300 mention one flavor and 40 mention the price. That tells you what to post more of, and what to keep an eye on.

Where it misleads

Reporting share of voice and a sentiment score, then changing nothing. If a listening report doesn’t change a decision, it was a summary.

How Arcus handles it

We plug in the listening tool you already have, read and count conversation in the rooms your audience uses, and have a person check the labels. Every finding shows the real lines people wrote, with counts attached. Then we line it up with your own numbers and end with what to make next.

More in our guide: Social listening that counts, not guesses