A Powerful Tool in My Marketing Toolkit: Social Listening

Published by Ashton Elder

Ashton has an M.S. in Marketing from Florida International University and has been working as a marketer for over five years. She is currently serving on the University of North Florida’s Department of Communications Professional Committee Board. Ashton has been a guest on several media and marketing panels throughout her career. She also holds a degree from the University of North Florida where she studied political science, journalism, and mass communications. Prior to working in marketing, she worked as a journalist for several news outlets and publications, including an internship at NPR where she produced several radio features. This site features a collection of her articles and radio features from her career in journalism. This site also features some of her insights and projects from her career in marketing. Ashton’s background in journalism has provided her with a solid foundation on which to build enhanced media and social media strategies to provide creative, innovative marketing solutions. Ashton also has first-hand experience with brand design and brand building. Ashton also works on an array of marketing projects from social media to email marketing and everything in between. View all posts by Ashton Elder

branding, content marketing, customer journey, digital marketing, Marketing, omni channel marketing, social media marketing

In 2011, the VP of Global Communications at L’oréal Paris, Marie Gulin, discovered the power of social listening as a research and development tool to develop and launch new products. Social listening helped her team launch the Preferrence Wild Ombre product at L’oréal. Social listening not only helped the team at L’oréal discover industry trends, it also helped them research what their target consumers thought about those trends and measure relevant attitudes about emerging social media platforms in their industry.

I have been a marketer in the real estate industry for four years and I have used social listening as a research and development tool practically since day one. I have found that my marketing role requires me to keep a close eye on what industry influencers and target audiences are saying about the industry online. Social listening has especially helped me to discern which digital platforms, if any, are emerging as a trending area for my industry.

I began marketing in the real estate industry in 2017, and Instagram was just starting to be a hot platform. I was able to use this knowledge to establish a strong presence on that platform for my company brand, EXIT 1 Stop Realty. To this day, social listening is something that I do frequently, as each year attitudes about industry products, and popular digital platforms for communication change. Take 2020 for example, when Tik Tok had emerged as a hot platform. I immediately examined the pros and cons of jumping onto this platform with company executives. Ultimately we decided to hold off on jumping on Tik Tok, as it wasn’t the right platform for our professional brokerage brand, but I did help several individual agents in our office develop a presence on the platform as it was more fitting for their individual brand and styles. In 2021 and looking ahead to 2022, I continue to focus on Google as the platform to focus on for the real estate industry. I have seen more quality leads and power for marketing dollars generated by my brand’s activity on Google in the past year. I used social listening as part of my research process to decide to invest more of the company’s marketing dollars on Google Ads. I also follow what industry influencers and experts say on the subject to back up my recommendations. To sum it up, social listening is a vital aspect of any digital marketer’s strategy building process and as I look ahead I only see it becoming a more important tool for marketers.