Companies that listen to social conversations about their brands and their competitors are more able and likely willing to adjust strategy based on what they 'hear' versus those who bury their heads in the digital sand, hoping for success.
Social media listening isn't just for competitive monitoring, however. Along with keyword research and identifying a company's
target audience, using a social listening platform (
Forrester believes the most significant ones are Brandwatch, Cision, Clarabridge, Crimson Hexagon, NetBase, Networked Insights, Oracle, Prime Research, Salesforce, Sprinklr, Synthesio and Sysomos) can help marketers understand what people are currently talking about and use the findings to influence blogs, social posts and other timely marketing collateral to increase engagement and readership.
In the spirit of the season,
Tracx (
a social listening platform that monitors 1 billion social interactions daily across 14 different social media channels) used its data to find out what Easter candy lovers were chatting about, discovering:
1. "Adult" Easter is trending, notably Cadbury egg shots (top five posts are listed below)
2. Reese's Eggs didn't even crack our top five (winners are listed below)
3. Nearly 82 percent of the conversations are driven by women
Top 5 Posts:
1. Delish FB Page, Cadbury Crème Egg Shots (
10 million views as of publishing)
2. Delish FB page, How to Make Cadbury Egg Stuffed Biscuits
3. Tip Hero FB page, Easter Cookie Bars (ft. Peeps)
4. Country Living Magazine FB Page, Truffle Bunny Shots
5. People FB Page, Reese's Créme Egg Gives Cadbury a Run for Its Money
In Easter candy chatter, the Tracx study revealed over 20,200 conversations; 54,500 posts; and over 1 million interactions:
- Cadbury Eggs Dominate - 28,747
- Chocolate bunny - 12,727
- Peeps - 10,816
- Jelly Beans - 2,773
- M&Ms - 2,109
- Reese's Eggs - 1,300
- Hershey's Eggs - 130
Even for those not in the Easter candy business, there are advantages to monitoring and adding to popular conversations when the aim is to drive blog traffic and increase brand reach - but it starts with listening.
