This week on #bufferchat, our community chatted about social media monitoring and how to listen to your audience and adjusting your strategies accordingly.
Read on to discover all of the awesome insights shared during the chat!
Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, at TWO times every Wednesday for valuable industry insights and to meet hundreds of other smart marketers and social media enthusiasts. Same topic, same place, just at different times – feel free to join in to whichever chat time works best for you!
4 pm AEST (Sydney time)
9 am PT (San Francisco time)

This week’s stats:
Bufferchat #1 (4 pm AEST): 25 participants; reach of 968,426
Bufferchat #2 (9 am PT): 87 participants; reach of 1,288,458
Q1: How important is social media monitoring or listening to your marketing or communication strategy?
From the community:
A1: Social listening is very important to understand your audience better; also to gain insights about your market,what competitors are doing etc. #BufferChat pic.twitter.com/UHM84IoxY6
— Isil Simsek (@IsilSimsek) November 8, 2017
A1: monitoring/listening should be a priority. This allows you to engage with your audience, good or bad. Helps with customer service! #bufferchat
— Cindy (@CindyMedran0) November 8, 2017
A1: Social media is a two-way street. We’ve all had friends we had to “unsubscribe” from because there was no real dialogue. #bufferchat
— ❏ Hire Noah! (@hirenoah) November 8, 2017
A1: VERY. It’s important to listen to your brand and keywords, but also try to keep up on the things your influencers are discussing – they may be talking ABOUT you but not TO you #bufferchat
— Jill Liles (@JillLiles1) November 8, 2017
See all the great answers to question 1 here!
Q2: What tools do you use for social media monitoring?
From the community:
A2: Twitter lists are old school but my favorite. We use them to collect different professions, locations, and more to analyze what’s being shared and talked about. #BufferChat https://t.co/7dZmHFkFDz
— Mad Fish Digital (@MadFishDigital) November 8, 2017
A2: Reddit is such an underrated tool, get a look into niche markets and what people are asking from their social media experience #bufferchat
— sienatdk (@sienatdk) November 8, 2017
A2: We use many #tools; to name a few: @klout , @tweetreach , @BuzzSumo , @Likealyzer , @followerwonk #bufferchat
— MIQLAU (@miqlau) November 8, 2017
A2: I use @buffer and also the analytics within #socialmedia, Twitter, Fb, Pinterest mainly. I am on a course to learn more about @googleanalytics. If I’m honest, I’m a bit obsessed with the data… #bufferchat
— Suze Cooper (@minicoopersmum) November 8, 2017
See all the great answers to question 2 here!
Q3: How do you determine what sorts of keywords or hashtags to monitor?
From the community:
A3) We start with keywords based on our assumptions. Then we build in words that come from inside the industry and competitors. We spend time monitoring those and tracking the relationship between those words and the audience. Then we edit. #bufferchat https://t.co/dP3BnYwSgG
— What Box Strategies (@WhatBoxStrategy) November 8, 2017
A3 Depends, use your brand as a keyword and hashtag as a list. Even use the industry you’re in. While listening to those lists you may find more keywords to try out. #bufferchat pic.twitter.com/myG9OmvEbP
— Tony Stephan ?????☕️?????⚾️??? (@SirKingofGifs) November 8, 2017
A3: we have a set of branded hashtags we always monitor + hashtags for different events/contests or projects. For keywords, we always have the name of our company + mispellings and other keywords we want to rank for in SEO #bufferchat
— Loewe Chan (@sincerelyloewe) November 8, 2017
#A3 #Bufferchat: We use a mix of Hashtagify. me and RiteTag to identify relevant keywords. Then we have a social media document where we store it all and use when needed ?
— Mogul Tech (@MogulTechINT) November 8, 2017
See all the great answers to question 3 here!
Q4: What are some of your best strategies for joining conversations?
From the community:
A4: Be authentic. If what you need to say isn’t at least 95% relevant to the conversation, stay out of it. You don’t wanna push your brand into a conversation where you’ll look disingenuous and ignorant #BufferChat https://t.co/dHyDDpH9eq
— Jamie Green (@itsagreenthingg) November 8, 2017
A4: I love joining Twitter chats as a participant and as a spectator. I consider them to be like a backstage pass to conversations. #bufferchat
— Nicholas Norfolk (@absolut_zer0) November 8, 2017
A4. Also, building lists! I try to organize communities based on content areas and twitter chats so I can get smarter about certain topics and join in their conversations where appropriate #bufferchat
— allison ryder (@allisonryder) November 8, 2017
A4.
How
to join
a #Twitter convo:
?? Listen
?? Add value
?? RT/Share others
?? Join chats
?? Find common interests
?? Ask Qs
??Start a poll
?? Follow up
?? Add people to lists
….
Just
reach out. #bufferchat
— Gabriela Cardoza (@CardozaGab) November 8, 2017
See all the great answers to question 4 here!
Q5: Have you gained some actionable insights from monitoring your audience via social media?
From the community:
A5: Absolutely! I learned a lot by monitoring & listening. Posting schedule, content creation & curation, brand voice & tone were the areas most affected by the insights I gained from these activities. #bufferchat pic.twitter.com/kRG2uRO7xp
— Ferencz Csuszner (@Cs_Frncz) November 8, 2017
A5. Absolutely! It’s caused my social media team to go back to the DRAWING BOARD in regards to content and design. Seeing what your audience is drawn to helps you to rework your content to increase reach and improve engagement. #bufferchat
— Danielle (@AboutDanielle_) November 8, 2017
A5. We actually found the problems people faced while using our services. We are working to fix those issues.
Social media gave a platform to the users to raise their voices and ppl don’t hesitate while doing so. That’s why many brands provide CS over SM. #bufferchat
— Praveen Sharma (@i_praveensharma) November 8, 2017
A5. I’ve been able to focus our teams to create more relatable content that sees better engagement, and grow our audiences by listening to what our audiences are interested in. #bufferchat pic.twitter.com/sKggjVNOoU
— Nick D (@novemberdelta87) November 8, 2017
See all the great answers to question 5 here!
Q6: How often do you re-evaluate your monitoring strategy?
From the community:
A6: Every. Single. Day. Without constant flexibility, you can’t keep up in this industry! #bufferchat
— Megan Dunbar (@meganleedunbar) November 8, 2017
A6: Weekly! I actually have it blocked out in my calendar to go over analytics, brainstorm with my #dadboss, and keep moving forward. #bufferchat
— Haylee Cornett (@Haylee_Cornett) November 8, 2017
A6: Notifications on daily basis, analytics on monthly basis and strategy on quarterly basis #Bufferchat
— MIQLAU (@miqlau) November 8, 2017
A6 We had a dashboard to monitor our monitoring (Inception, anyone?) so we got to see our perfomance daily and made adjustments every week or every forthnight depending on our keywords performance. #bufferchat
— Diana Pereira (@DianaPereiraC) November 8, 2017
See all the great answers to question 6 here!
Q7: What are some unique uses for social media monitoring?
From the community:
A7: I think it lets people know that your brand is approachable. When you engage with people strategically, it lets them know you care. Lets them see the human side of you. You can build a great brand image on different Social Networks. #bufferchat
— Sanchit Raina (@sanchit_raina) November 8, 2017
A7: As others I’m sure have mentioned check out what other people are doing! There are plenty of brands winning in the social listening space that you might not have heard about if you don’t look for them. #bufferchat
— Ben Campbell ? (@Ben_Soup) November 8, 2017
A7: It lets us surprise people. You can make someone’s day with a RT or acknowledgement! #bufferchat
— Jessica Leeburg (@spacencashmere) November 8, 2017
A7: Not sure if this is unique, but turning someone’s pain point into a lead generation is a great outcome, generally turning someone’s negative experience into a positive one! #bufferchat
— Loewe Chan (@sincerelyloewe) November 8, 2017
See all the great answers to question 7 here!
Thank you so much to our awesome community for sharing such great insights in this chat!
Do you have any comments or answers to these questions? Leave your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!
Image sources: UnSplash