Empower my brand
Empower my brand

Top Social Media Trends for 2021

Social media marketing has become the hottest marketing trend, especially since the lockdown. Popular brands use multiple social media platforms to reach out to their target audience. If you don’t want to get lost in the digital shuffle then you must have your social media strategies up to the snuff. The top social media trends for 2021 listed below will help you build a robust social media strategy to eclipse the competition. 

Social media trends for 2021

What are the Trending Social Media Trends for 2021?

The number of Facebook posts shared each minute was 2.5 million back in 2013. It increased by 22% to reach 3 million posts per minute in 2016. Is there a way you could stay ahead of your competitors in this blitzkrieg? Here are the most important trends that will help your brand content stand out in the noise of social media.

Customer service

Smart entrepreneurs make use of social media platforms for customer service. You can gain a lot of information about your users from popular social media channels like Facebook and Instagram. The use of social listening tools is on the rise so you know what your audience members like.  Customer service and the experience get better when you know your audience – and their demographics, interests, etc. Flex your intuitive muscles and think of smart strategies to improve your customer experiences. Real-time consumer insights are your superpower.

Content personalization

Personalization has become a trendsetter, and this trend will continue this year. If you are still wondering how then think about the last time you browsed for a product online, and how the ads for the same items were shown to you the next moment on Facebook or Instagram? In fact, according to recent research conducted by Accenture, eighty-three percent of consumers are willing to share their personal data to have a more personalized experience. Knowing your customer has never been so essential. Listen to your customers to deliver or advertise to them according to their needs and wants. This also increases the chances of conversion. 

Ephemeral content will be popular

Whenever you open social media, you can see a plethora of ephemeral content. A recent report from CNBC talks of how Instagram stories alone have 400 million daily active users. This year the ephemeral content that disappears in 24 hours will keep gaining popularity. 

Memetic messaging 

We have all seen the rise of emojis. Memes are the new emojis. So much so that big brands are using memetic messaging in their campaigns. Memetic messaging has gained popularity, and this trend will continue to soar this year. According to the latest social media behavior survey by Ypulse, around seventy-five percentage of people aged between thirteen to thirty-six years share memes regularly. 

Demands for video content will increase

We all appreciate engaging content and videos are the best when it comes to that. Video marketing has been on the rise. And it is expected to grow this year too. According to Hubspot, 81% of businesses already use videos as a marketing tool. Don’t know what should be the content of your upcoming video? Research and find out! Social media listening will tell you what your consumers see, engage with, and talk about. 

Smart social media strategies can elevate your marketing process and can improve conversions. Listening to the trends and what the audience is reacting to will help you make that smart move. Hopefully, this guide for the top social media trends for 2021 will help you.

Grow and Track your Brand with Instagram Analytics

Are you always checking the numbers on your Instagram page? While the idea is not wrong, this may not entirely be the right way to track your performance online. Tracking Instagram analytics isn’t hard. With the right tricks, you’ll be able to determine where you stand as a brand. Are you looking to increase your engagement rate? Optimize your posts and stories? Here’s a look into a few strategic moves to help you get more out of your Instagram analytics tool.  

Instagram Analytics

 Are you using Instagram Analytics Tools to the Fullest?

Some basic metrics marketers use include reach, engagement, likes, and comments. Yet there’s more to Instagram analytics.

Analyzing your Audience

Once you understand your audience, you can get better at content creation. With Instagram metrics, you can understand your audience better. It will also help reach out to more potential leads.

The free native Instagram insights tool helps you understand your audience by telling you some basic demographic information. Tools like social listening can tell you more about what your audience thinks about your content online, how they respond, and what clicks with them.

If you are using the free tool, analyze the content you are creating based on the following criteria:

  • The highest performing posts in terms of comments and engagement
  •  Type of posts that are performing well. Example: Photos, Videos & Carousel

For paid tools, platforms like Auris send you a detailed study on your dashboard and a report so you don’t have to manually go through the small stuff to understand what works well. 

Optimize your content based on how well it performs. Additionally, you can make some tweaks every now and then to see what works and what doesn’t.   

Increase your Chances of Discovery with Hashtag Analysis

With each hashtag, you have the opportunity to increase your reach and acquire new followers. Hashtags are one of the most effective organic growth strategies. But, it is imperative for you to use relevant hashtags. This way you can target your audience. It doesn’t make sense if you use popular hashtags that are not relevant to your business.

When using Auris, you will find that the system tracks popular influencers from within your industry and studies all comments around the keywords. This in turn helps the tool to determine the trending posts and hashtags. Hashtag analysis takes time but AI-based tools make the process automated to make it easier and much more beneficial.

Make use of Instagram Analytics for Stories

Instagram story analytics help you track your audience and optimize your content accordingly. Similar to how you check post insights, you can evaluate your story’s performance as well. Click on the Insights tab at the rightmost corner of the profile. You’ll be able to view the basic details like the number of impressions, profile visits et cetera. 

You can make use of an external analytics tool to better track the performance of your Instagram stories. It displays several metrics that you can use to measure the success of each story you post.

The following insights are what you need to reach your audience with stories:

  • Retention rate
  • The best time to post the stories
  • Number of unique accounts reached
  • Number of impressions

The popularity of Instagram is soaring every day; this allows businesses to make the most of it. 60% of people say they discover new products on this platform. Instagram is a powerful tool to reach out to new audiences and increase brand awareness. It is also a great way to establish a community of followers. Understanding what your audience wants and giving it to them is the key to sustaining your presence here.

Ways to Create a Strong Social Media Plan

Every business should mark its presence on social media in today’s day and age. If you aren’t on the bandwagon yet, you’re not doing it right! Putting a strong social media marketing plan in place helps you deliver better results with higher efficiency. However, the real challenge lies in creating a plan which is concise, realistic, and dictates a clear path to attain goals. 

Social media plan

Why do you need a Social Media Strategy?

Gone are the days when social media was simple and straightforward to use. With advancements in AI, even social media algorithms are changing now and then. And keeping up with all this might seem a little overwhelming but it is important. 78% of salespeople are able to outsell their peers with the help of social media. How? 

Here’s a look at how a solid social media plan can help you achieve similar results. 

Ways to Create a Strong Social Media Plan

Here’s a comprehensive step by step plan to help you get started. Consider the following points to create a winning social media marketing plan:

Establish Strong Business Objectives

The primary determining factor for the success of any business is to set up goals and objectives. You cannot measure your success rate without having attainable goals. Start by listing at least 3 goals for your marketing team. Work on these goals one by one and implement them as a part of your social media marketing campaign.

One way to go forward is to stick to the S.M.A.R.T way. That is by adopting specific, measurable, attainable, and time-bound goals. For example, you could have goals like “Getting 20% more traffic to your landing page within the next quarter”.

Know Your Target Audience

Knowing your audience and their preferences are vital for a solid social media marketing strategy. Knowing the likes and dislikes of your target audience helps you understand what they react to, and how they engage. This in turn helps you understand their buying behavior. Taking a lead through the customer journey requires some planning on your part. 

  • Know their demographics, interests, average income, age group. Promoting funky content for a wireless headset to an eighty-year-old gramophone enthusiast would not be of any use. 
  • Make use of social media analytics tools to get valuable information about your followers. AI-based tools like Auris help you delve deeper into the chatter online. Read into the sentiments of the public and formulate your strategy accordingly. 

Choose Your Social Media Networks

Finding out which social media platform is the right fit for your business is also a critical part of your social media marketing plan. You don’t necessarily have to be on all social media platforms. Choose the ones that best suit your business type and strategy. You can do this by evaluating each of the platform’s demographics.

Let’s take Facebook and Instagram as an example. Gen – Z is mostly active on Instagram, whereas baby boomers are more likely to be on Facebook. Depending on your target market, choose one that can yield the most benefit.

Make sure you optimize your social media accounts with the right photo and cover images, bio, URL, etc. Analyze your competitor’s profiles and create an optimized profile for your business.

Curate Compelling Content

Content is king, and this saying never gets old. Engaging content in the form of images, videos, blog posts, infographics, and so on is what holds on to your audience’s attention. You don’t want to use too many irrelevant pieces of content that do not sit well with your brand message. 

To help you in all of this, you can opt for a social media listening tool. Listening to what your audience members are saying or what’s trending can help. A look at your competition can also help you get inspired. And automation tools help you with market research, competitive analysis, or actionable consumer insights. 

Track and Analyze Your Data

Last but not least – the most crucial step in determining the success of your social media marketing plan. As basic as it may sound, tracking and analyzing the data and then making tweaks is important. 

If you miss out on this step, you’ll probably lose all the hard work you’ve done in the previous steps. Social media analytics help you keep track of your online performance. You can also opt for real-time analysis with social listening. This in turn helps you prevent any PR crisis situations in advance. 

Additionally, platforms like Auris help you understand your performance across varied platforms and give you a comparative study. Use data like this to build an integrated social media plan.

Social media is a significant marketing tool for businesses of all sizes. Businesses cannot succeed in social media marketing without a well-documented strategy. And now with all the help available through AI-based platforms, you can really hit it big.

How to Choose the Right Marketing Automation Tool?

Marketing activities in 2021 have reached a new level. Yes, we are talking about marketing automation. Most marketers can vouch for the way marketing automation tools smoothen out the process flow of daily marketing activities. But if you’ve been busy doing the same activities manually, you probably did not get a chance to experience it yourself. In that case, this is the right place to start. 

Marketing automation

What is Marketing Automation?

As the name suggests, marketing automation involves using software to automate the repetitive tasks of daily marketing activities. 

One very popular example would be automating social media posting. Most marketers do not have the time to plan, design, and upload a social media post daily. However, it is a task that needs to be done. Social media automation tools allow you to upload all your designs and schedule them for particular dates and times in the future. Once you’ve done this, the tool keeps uploading without any intervention required. 

What Can Marketing Automation Tools Do?

Marketing automation is being hailed as one of the next big things and for good reason. The marketing automation industry is expected to unlock a capitalization of over $6.4 B by 2024. So what can the tool help with? 

  • Automation tools can deliver specific needs based on whether yours is a B2B or a B2C  brand
  • It helps you with better targeting
  • It helps you nurture leads and then convert them
  • Overall it helps you save precious time and do the work efficiently
  • Improves your marketing ROI

How to Find the Right Marketing Automation Tool? 

There were more than 7000 marketing automation tools in 2019. We can only guess the number for 2021. Among all these tools, finding the one your brand can benefit from could become quite a gamble. But here’s a checklist that can help you narrow down your search. 

Your Needs

The first thing to consider is simple. What are your needs? Are you looking for a tool that can help you manage marketing activities? Or are you looking for one that could help you auto-respond to comments and mentions? 

There are multiple tools automating multiple marketing functions. Some examples include Auris, Hubspot, MailChimp, etc. 

Your Budget

Your budget also plays a role when it comes to selecting the right tool for you. Generally, there are multiple tools providing similar solutions and services. And each has a different package. Auris, for example, provides a free trial version, a package for a small business all the way to a package suited for an enterprise. 

And most marketing automation brands follow a similar pricing strategy. Most of them offer a free trial version. So if you’re unsure about making the investment, you can always ask for a demo before taking a call.

User Experience

With software tools such as these, the user experience counts. A tool that isn’t easy to use and understand is only going to make your task even more complex. The interface should be easy to understand even for a person with no experience in using such tools. 

Apart from the interface, customer support matters too. If you’re using a new tool, you’ll most likely have questions. Or you might need some assistance to set it up. Having a readily available customer support team makes it easier for you and your team. 

Features

Like we mentioned earlier, choosing an automation tool depends on your needs. While this is one of the most important things to consider, it helps to keep an open mind. Say you want to automate your social media posting regimen. Tool A charges you $15 per month and automates the posting process for up to 50 posts. Tool B charges you $18 per month but automates the process for an unlimited no. of posts. Additionally, tool B also offers to automate message responses. Which do you think would be a smarter investment? 

Tools that help you with your core problem are great. But it doesn’t hurt to receive extra features at the same price range! Some tools allow you to integrate with multiple platforms. This too counts as a welcome feature. 

Marketing automation tools have been helping business owners find the right market segment to find the right influencer! A little research is a minimal investment that can help you scale your marketing efforts. 

A Guide to YouTube Channel Auditing

Almost everyone knows about YouTube’s phenomenal rise. This video streaming platform now has over 2 billion active users. And over 73% of the US adult population has an account on YouTube. Besides these stats, there’s also the fact that video marketing is growing in popularity and importance. 92% of marketers believe videos are an important part of their marketing strategy. I’m sure there’s no doubt why YouTube is such a lucrative platform for marketers to promote content and find leads. Popular brands like Lego and Disney have used the platform to communicate their message and engage with their audience. However, creating a YouTube channel to reach the right audience also becomes a great factor for the success of this strategy. YouTube auditing is one way to do this! 

Youtube Auditing

Why do you need YouTube Auditing?

Besides being the most used video streaming social platform, YouTube also works as a powerful search engine. Think about it! We use YouTube to look for all kinds of things, sometimes even for the most basic things. 

And similar to the other search engines, YouTube requires SEO too. You need YouTube auditing to improve your YouTube SEO strategy. Without that:

  • You won’t be appearing on video searches, and
  • You won’t be able to reach the right audience. 

Are you New to YouTube Auditing?

No worries, we’ve got you covered. It’s not even as complicated as the term “YouTube Auditing” sounds. It simply means a way to measure if your videos are delivering on the objectives. It also gives you a deeper understanding of the audience. 

  • How do they perceive your brand?
  • Do they like the content?
  • What content do they prefer most?
  • Would they be willing to become potential customers?

On average, 500 hours of new YouTube content is uploaded every minute. Following a few simple strategies can help your content stand out. 

1 Your Brand’s Current Status

Before you jump into any kind of content-creation process, it is important to understand where your brand currently stands. This is where you need to track your key performance indicators or KPIs. 

For YouTube, the primary KPIs would include the current watch time, views, and impressions et cetera. When you know this data, you’ll be able to formulate which metric to focus on and take action. 

Beyond these, use social media monitoring/social listening tools to gauge the audience’s perception.

2 Update and Improve

Once you know all the details about your audience, view time, impressions, demographics you can take action. 

Take a look at what people think about your brand. Based on these sentiment reports, you might need to consider a couple of actions listed below:

  • Rebrand or reaffirm your brand’s message
  • Improve the quality of your content 
  • Produce more of what worked in the past and cut out what didn’t
  • Start including CTAs in videos that have scope
  • Create watchlists and organize your videos in a way that helps your potential customers go through the journey and convert.

3 Optimize your Content

As I mentioned earlier, YouTube works as a search engine. Optimizing your content will help you reach out to the right audience and a wider audience. 

You can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner for your keyword research. If you’re still facing difficulties while researching topics that are trending, try listening to your audience. They’ll tell what they’d like to view. Social listening tools like Auris help you track trending keywords from within your specific industry. 

Have you tried YouTube Auditing? Hope this guide helps you make those little tweaks to get a better understanding of how to improve your YouTube strategy!

Marketing for Direct-to-Consumer Brands

When the digital direct-to-consumer retail model came up, it disrupted the entire traditional brick & mortar, business model. The direct-to-consumer retail brands were establishing themselves as strong competitors across all industries. However, with the recent pandemic, these brands have had their own set of challenges. One of these challenges is steep competition as every business is seeking digital transformation and presence in the online realm to deal with the loss of direct access to their clientele. Consumer spending has also taken a hit. To keep their business running under such circumstances, these brands have to do what they do best – marketing on social media. Marketing for direct-to-consumer brands, however, also has to focus on the key factor of building strong customer relationships. 

Marketing for direct to consumer brands

Why is Social Media Important for Direct-to-Consumer Brands? 

For any brand trying to reach consumers directly, social media is an obvious platform. Statista reports that about 59% of Americans reach out to a brand on social media between 1-3 times each day. 

And what’s a better way to foster relationships? Your brand’s presence needs to be felt on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. These platforms help you build a two-way conversation with your audience. This in turn:

  • Helps your audience trust your brand
  • It helps you know your audience
  • It helps you monitor your customer’s feedback/needs
  • Discover market opportunities
  • Receive consumer insights to inform your marketing strategy

Social Media Marketing for Direct-to-Consumer Brands

Opting for social media marketing seems like a no-brainer for any DTC brand. 61% of all DTC brands rely on social media as their top acquisition channel. The immense reach, its automation, ability to personalize, variable price models available make it the perfect branding tool. But with more and more players coming into the market, it takes something extra to turn the first-party data into actionable insights. 

Identify Customer Pain-Points

  • Creating a massive brand like Disney or Coca-Cola takes ages. However, with the upcoming direct-to-consumer brands, things could be a little different. People are responding well to genuine content. They are shifting to brands providing authentic solutions to their problems. 
  • Perfect examples of this being Netflix coming up with Netflix Socks which received a lot of positive feedback and attention. Identifying customer pain-points and inspiring authenticity while addressing an issue can be your brand’s unique selling point. 
  • Identifying consumer pain points does not require going through elaborate market research processes. Social media intelligence tools like Auris monitor online content to help you with automated market research insights. 

Nourish Stronger Relationships with Customers

  • More than 86% of companies use user-generated content in their marketing strategy. This helps to leverage your brand image and helps potential customers relate to your brand. 
  • However, reaching a level of relationship with your customers where they would vouch for your brand online requires your effort. Apart from providing a strong product/service, focus on the emotions around the product which makes it more desirable. 
  • Eventually, engage with your customers to make them feel valued. Track industry trends and develop content around them to receive more genuine engagement. 

Personalize your Messaging 

  • We mentioned more and more brands are using user-generated content (UGC)  for marketing. One of the major reasons for this being that UGC makes potential customers relate to the content. It feels personal. 
  • Personalized messages always work better. It can be a marketing email or a little, stylized hand-written note you send with a package to your customers. A perfect example is Roth Martin’s (CEO and founder of Rothy’s) handwritten message to their Facebook fanbase. Its emotional appeal made for a winning strategy.

Social media marketing and making your customers feel valued isn’t as difficult as it may seem sometimes. Especially now, when there are social media intelligence tools to automate most of the tasks for you. Social listening tools tell you everything. These tools help you with segmentation based on demographics. It helps you with content that’s trending. And allows you to improve while tracking and analyzing your reputation online in real-time. 

How to Prevent a Social Media Crisis?

All news travels fast on social media. Remember the photo of an egg on Instagram which became the most-liked image with 18.4 million likes in less than 10 days? That’s the speed and power of social media. This same feature can sometimes give rise to a full-blown social media crisis for a brand. Many corporations have faced backlashes online when a negative review was shared. If you’ve never had to deal with anything like this before, you’ve been lucky. But knowing how to prevent a social media crisis is critical because these are not limited to big firms only anymore. 

How to Prevent a Social Media Crisis

When Nike’s Stock Price Dropped!

During one of the greatest games of Duke-North Carolina in 2019, Zion Williamson, a star player from Duke university suffered a knee injury. This accident happened less than a minute into the game when Zion’s Nike shoe fell apart. 

The event was being broadcast nationwide and the story was being discussed online in no time. Former President Barack Obama and NBA stars like LeBron James posted their well-wishes on Twitter. Social media users began talking and the accident became so publicized that Nike’s stock price dropped by 1.8% the next day!

Nike issued a public statement on social media and jumped into action immediately. They sent over a team to Durham and to their manufacturers in China. A month later, Williamson returned for a game with custom-built Nike shoes. He reported that the shoes felt “incredible”. 

So What is a Social Media Crisis?  

The Nike example was just a small vignette into what social media crises can look like. In essence, any online activity (social media) which can harm your brand’s online reputation can be classified as a social media crisis. 

There could be a storm of negative comments/reviews. It could also be an online movement to boycott your brand. Remember the “Boycott Snapchat” movement in India? It happened when the CEO of Snapchat had allegedly said he doesn’t want to expand to poor countries like India and Spain. 

While it’s true that some crisis situations are not fully within the marketer’s control, there are ways to prevent it. If not prevent, at least curb the effects before it blows entirely out of all proportion. AI-based tools like social listening or social media monitoring are the perfect fit for a brand to identify potential threats. 

Social Media Crisis Management 

Nobody can predict a crisis before it happens. But there are ways to identify the symptoms and take preventive action. Having a proper plan of action can obviously help. 

A Social Media Policy for your Brand 

Sometimes an enthusiastic employee might end up oversharing on social media. Sometimes cases like these expose the brand itself in a negative light and can be the cause of a social media crisis. 

Preventing these crises is easy. Maintaining a solid social media policy for your company with clear guidelines can help employees understand the limitations. Some of the pointers to be mentioned include copyright guidelines, privacy guidelines, brand image guidelines et cetera. 

Securing your Social Media Accounts

Securing your social media accounts is more important than you would think. Ex-employees, hackers, or even current employees can cause trouble. There have been instances when employees took to a brand’s social media accounts to post memes or funny GIFs which affect its reputation. Sometimes, it could be the work of hackers or disgruntled employees, leaving the owner of the account scrambling for cover. A case in point would be the recent likes offered to scantily-clad models by the official Instagram account of Pope Francis.

The easiest way to avoid such crisis situations would be to secure your accounts and limit access to only a few of your team members. Use a centralized system to grant access to members. This also allows you to remove the access when an employee leaves your firm. 

Social Listening Alerts

Another major contributor to social media crisis moments is negative feedback/comments left by customers. Sometimes, internet trolls or competitors too can leave negative comments on your posts. These comments can harm your business, especially when they are left without a suitable response for a long time. 

Monitoring all online mentions without the use of technology is definitely impossible as the number of notifications that come in run into thousands per second. It is difficult to monitor every single mention and the fires could go unattended and the damage could be done before one wakes up. For situations like these, social listening tools offer the best help. Listening to online conversations helps you capture public sentiment at all times. Any spike or peculiarity in the number of mentions or sentiment can be monitored. With social listening, you also have the ability to investigate the issue in depth. 

Tools like Auris send you alerts in real-time, and such real-time alerts help you to initiate action without delay. With social media, a timely response is of utmost importance. The longer a negative review stays online, the more opportunity people will have to view it and form a negative perception. This can cause massive damage to your brand’s reputation. 

Preventing a social media crisis isn’t as big a nightmare as it sounds. With simple steps and the right tools in place, you can avoid these situations well in advance. 

Is Social Media Listening Enough?

Business people and marketers today rely more on data to make decisions. 76% of marketers say they base their decisions on data analytics. And in this context, the social media analytics market is the one making all the waves. The social media analytics market is expected to grow to $15.6 billion by 2025. With access to a landscape so rich with data and insights, the question remains “Is social media listening enough?” In the absence of meaningful content to validate the quantitative findings, the data doesn’t provide much value. Hence, current methods of social media analytics offer a deeper social understanding of their audience members. The use of social media listening when limited to online mention monitoring can produce weak results. However, the same technology is being used today to understand the volatile social climate, consumer behavior et cetera. Adding these to the context makes social media listening enough!

Is social media listening enough

Mainstream Social Media Monitoring  

We are past the time when online presence meant maintaining a business page on Facebook and Twitter. Social media listening now informs marketers of every conversation around their brand. These have helped managers control and monitor conversation spikes, understand platforms et cetera. 

However, mainstream media monitoring is like exploring only the surface of an ocean. For instance, say somebody promotes a hoax that involves your brand name. People start talking about it. The hoax has now spread all over the internet. With social media monitoring, you would only know about the number of mentions you’re getting. You will have no idea if it is good publicity or bad. By the time you realize, the news would have spread and the damage would have been done. Your market and your stock price would have taken a hit!  

Qualitative Social Media Listening

In more recent times, a more qualitative approach was adopted for social media analytics. This approach helped marketers to understand how online conversations manipulate or are connected to consumer perceptions, behavior, etc. And to make this happen, a combination of AI tools and human interaction has to work together. 

Simply put, when human beings hold conversations and make comments online today, these tools gather the relevant bits of information from such content. The data is then quantified and processed to deliver a richer understanding of human needs. How does it help? Imagine the scenario mentioned earlier, with this new ability to read into data, the tool is able to alert the brand that most of the mentions are negative. The tool also alerts the team of the trending keywords being used. The team would know about the hoax almost instantly and could jump into action before it spreads around. 

And this is just one example of social listening being helpful in the case of online reputation management. This tool has been and is being used by many to:

  • Filter real-time feedback
  • Monitor industry news
  • Manage influencer marketing
  • Strategize social media plans and business operations et cetera.

Gathering real-time insights helps you understand the immediate needs of your customers. It can be their sentiment towards a new campaign you launched or a certain business function. Getting direct feedback helps you act faster than having to sit and make assumptions about what to do. If you are investing in building a brand, invest in the right solutions. The question of “Is social media listening enough” doesn’t come up if you’re using the right tool in the right way.

How do Marketers Reduce Noise in Social Listening?

Ever seen an advertisement that made you feel that the brand must have read your mind? It may seem like a trick, but this little magic trick has a lot going on behind the scenes. This represents the power of social listening and the analytical tools which come with the platform. The brand that showed you the ad could be practicing social listening. Simply put, it is all about tracking data on social media. Relevant bits of the data collected is then strategically used to inform business operations/decisions.  Listening to customers has been more than beneficial for marketers and hence the use of social listening is on the rise. However, social media is a busy place, with Twitter alone seeing over 6000 Tweets posted every second. And about 80-90% of this data is noise i.e, irrelevant. So how do marketers successfully reduce noise in social listening? 

How to reduce noise in social listening

The Power of Social Listening 

If you’re reading this article, chances are you have already heard of this tool or perhaps even used it sometime. Social media listening tools have already built a massive reputation among marketers. So what makes this tool so powerful? 

  • It uses real-time information to alert you of your competitor’s strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and tactics. 
  • Identifies trending content topics, trends, industry news, and much more.
  • Identifies gaps and opportunities in the market.
  • Improves customer servicing efforts. 
  • Informs research and development activities. 
  • Helps automate most marketing activities. 

Social listening is far beyond monitoring brand mentions. It pays attention to the full picture lurking behind these mentions. Auris, for example, helps you start analyzing things like:

  • Brand name mentions
  • Product names
  • Industry/brand-related buzzwords
  • Campaign keywords/phrases
  • Influencers
  • Audience sentiment 
  • And more…

Social listening lets you look at real-time consumer insights and make actionable decisions. And thanks to the rise of social media, every individual online is literally talking their head off. People are expressing their views at a rate of over 4.5 tweets per day. And 4.5 times of 152 million Twitter users can translate to a lot of irrelevant content. As already mentioned, that is on Twitter alone, without bringing Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and the likes into the reckoning! Sifting out valuable data from the noise is the key to success at social listening. 

How do we Reduce Noise in Social Listening?

Consider the example of Apple Inc. Trying to listen to every conversation around Apple will bring in millions of mentions. And these mentions will also have mentions referring to the fruit. Listening to the right keywords is hence critical. Sometimes, however, the brand name is an extremely common term. 

Here are some tips on how to reduce noise in social listening:

The Right Keywords

Social listening tools aren’t very complicated to use. Setting up the right keywords can be a little tricky though. Getting the right set of keywords is key to yield the best results. The most obvious keyword for your brand would be your brand name, product name, company phrase et cetera. 

To reduce noise while tracking your brand’s name, make sure not to make typos or use generic terms. For instance, for Apple Inc, listening to the term Apple will not be ideal. It would be necessary to add keywords like Inc. and say “Apple Inc.” or “Apple phones” “iPhone” et cetera.

If you wish to track competitor mentions use their brand keywords. You can also use your brand name alternatives like “ABC alternatives” “ABC substitutes”.

The use of negative keywords and industry/niche-related keywords is another way to reduce noise. 

Using Filters

Auris offers many filter options to a user. These filter options allow listening to only the most relevant conversations. Another filter allows you to opt for listening to influencers based on their influencer scores. 

Setting up specific search queries along with the right filter can allow mining the exact data you’re looking for. 

The power of social listening has been realized by most successful brands. They use it for more than merely social media monitoring. This tool can help businesses analyze consumer behavior in generating quality leads. Hopefully, this guide helps you reduce noise in social listening and make the most of the tool. 

Top 5 Marketing Automation Trends for 2021

2021 is now here. Let us take this opportunity to look at the marketing automation industry. Why? According to Emailmonday, an average of 51% of companies are using marketing automation already and another 58% plan to use it in the near future. This only shows that the marketing automation industry is expected to grow and rightly so. Looking at these marketing automation trends, you’ll see how it streamlines your business. 

Top 5 Marketing Automation Trends for 2021

Marketing Automation Trends from 2020

2020 has made consumers stay online more than ever. 2021 will be about evolving in this sphere. It will be about providing unique and engaging experiences to the super-connected consumers. Here are some marketing automation trends which catalyze the said evolution. 

1 Marketing Automation will Continue to Grow

  • The marketing automation industry has been growing year-on-year. A study shows how it has grown by 27% in 2018. Studies also slate it to reach $25.1 billion annually by 2023. 
  • 75% of marketers are already using at least one marketing automation tool for their daily marketing operations. 
  • Over 70% of Indian marketers are using marketing automation for better lead conversion. 

2 Presence on Multiple Channels

  • Creating an omnichannel presence helps brands create a seamless experience for their customers. Automating specific processes across emails, social media, or search engine marketing makes the process less laborious. 
  • Integrating various platforms/channels to a single automation tool helps the brand. They can deliver more accurate, timely, and consistent information to the customers. 

3 Chatbots

  • Chatbots are already being heavily used today for automating the process of conversation with users. It will continue playing a crucial role in customer service.
  • Advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) are allowing chatbots to become smarter and capable of behavioral recommendations. 
  • Chatbots enhance the customer experience. When a customer drops in a query, the chatbot responds immediately. Such rapid response enables the customer to trust your brand and builds goodwill. 

4 AI in Marketing 

  • According to Gartner, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be a mainstream customer experience investment in the next couple of years.”
  • 2020 has seen an enormous increase in the use of AI and Machine Learning for marketing operations. AI is helping companies reach the perfect audience with the optimal message. It helps with segmentation, workflows, data-driven decision-making, and much more. 

5  Automated Social Media Marketing 

  • The time we spend on social media has dramatically increased over the last year. Brands are hence making efforts to get a bigger piece of the audience’s screen time. Social media automation tools have come in handy to reach out to the right audiences. 
  • Social media automation tools like social listening also provide help with regard to other business functions. Brands have been using these tools for competitive analysis, ad targeting, influencer marketing, and much more. 

In Conclusion 

Automation has made its mark in almost every industry. Marketing automation trends for 2020 show us that this industry is not behind either. Brands are scramming for ways to create more engaging content, put out personalized online experiences. And automation tools deliver the best on all accounts.