Social listening helps brands adapt in real-time, stay relevant, and build genuine connections with their audience – beyond just metrics.
In an era where social media trends shift in the blink of an eye, brands can no longer afford to rely on guesswork. The Hootsuite Social Trends 2025 report highlights a powerful strategy that top-performing companies are leveraging. It’s called “social listening”. But what exactly is social listening, and why should PR, social media, and communications teams make it a core part of their strategy?
What is social listening?
Social listening goes beyond merely tracking mentions and engagement. It involves analysing online conversations, trends, and sentiment to gain insights into audience behaviour, competitor activity, and industry shifts. Unlike social monitoring, which focuses on real-time mentions, social listening helps organisations understand the “why” behind audience interactions and helps them react quickly.
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The benefits of social listening
The Hootsuite Social Trends 2025 report highlights the transformative impact of social listening, showing that 62 per cent of social marketers use it to track real ROI. Here’s why it matters:
- Improved brand perception: By tracking sentiment, brands can respond to customer concerns proactively and build a positive reputation.
- Stronger audience engagement: Understanding trending topics allows brands to create more relevant and timely content.
- Competitive intelligence: Brands can identify gaps in the market by analysing competitor performance and customer complaints.
- Crisis management: Early detection of potential PR crises enables rapid responses before issues escalate.
- Sales and lead generation: Insights from social listening help sales teams personalise outreach and improve conversion rates.
- Real-time brand adaptation: Many companies become too rigid in their brand messaging, failing to notice when audience sentiment shifts. This can lead to a disconnect, where the brand’s voice and values no longer align with what consumers expect. Social listening enables brands to make real-time changes to their messaging, values, and approach –even going “off script” when necessary to engage with their audience in an authentic way.
Case studies: How brands are using social listening
The report highlights how brands are using social listening.
- Mastercard: As part of their outbound engagement strategy, Mastercard uses Talkwalker-powered social listening to identify “priceless moments” on social media. By engaging with viral content, they drive brand affinity and increase visibility, leading to higher engagement and follower growth.
- Grand Canyon University: Their social team monitors student sentiment about campus dining. When students expressed a strong desire for a Taco Bell on campus, the university negotiated a contract with the brand turning social listening insights into real-world impact.
- Georgia State University: Instead of blindly following viral trends, their team uses social listening to uncover what resonates specifically with their audience. By tapping into hyper-relevant cultural moments, they encourage students to organically share and amplify their content.
Social listening is a way to engage with your audience on their terms
How to integrate social listening
1. Choose the Right Tools
Comsumer intelligence platforms like Hootsuite, Talkwalker, Brandwatch, and Sprout Social provide AI-driven social listening insights. These tools help brands track sentiment, keyword trends, and competitive analysis across platforms.
2. Align social listening with business goals
- Marketing teams can use it to refine content strategies.
- PR teams can leverage it for crisis management and media monitoring.
- Sales teams can personalise outreach based on customer sentiment.
3. Use insights to shape content
Social listening reveals what topics and formats resonate most. The Hootsuite Social Trends 2025 report found that brands using social listening for trend analysis achieve higher engagement and ROI than those relying solely on traditional metrics.
4. Monitor competitors and industry trends
Track customer feedback on competitors to identify opportunities where your brand can provide a better experience.
5. Adapt brand messaging in real-time
A key pitfall for many organisations is pushing rigid brand messaging without considering audience sentiment. If users feel that a company is forcing its identity onto them rather than engaging in an authentic conversation, the brand may come across as inauthentic and too “corporate”. Social listening helps businesses adapt quickly, ensuring that messaging remains relevant and aligned with audience expectations.
6. Measure success with data-driven insights
Go beyond vanity metrics (likes and shares) and track conversions, customer sentiment shifts, and brand perception changes.
Download the Hootsuite Social Trends 2025 report.