Social listening has been around since long before AI entered the picture. But adding the AI element makes a great tool even better. Why, exactly? It’s because AI doesn’t just give you data — it also spells out for you what that data means, why it’s important, and helps you decide what to do next.
AI in social listening and media monitoring gives you next-level insights into your online presence. It lets you be everywhere your audience is and helps you understand how and where you’re succeeding.
Let’s put AI social listening into perspective and see how it can make you a standout on every channel.
Contents:
What Is AI Social Listening?
How AI Improves Social Listening and Media Monitoring
Identifying Brand Conversations with AI Social Listening Tools
Using Social Listening Tools AI for Competitor Analysis
Gaining Actionable Insights with AI
Measuring Social Performance with AI
Additional Use Cases for AI in Social Listening and Media Monitoring
Meltwater: The Best AI for Social Listening
What Is AI Social Listening?
We define AI social listening as using AI to surface conversations on social media related to topics you care about. It relies on large language models and data science to identify mentions and understand the context of what’s being said.
Unlike manual social listening methods, AI social listening can sift through millions of comments, posts, and mentions in real time. This helps brands uncover trends and sentiments that might otherwise go unnoticed. AI tools also excel at filtering out irrelevant conversations so you can focus on what matters most.
How AI Improves Social Listening and Media Monitoring
AI social listening tools offer a bounty of benefits to brands, including:
- Streamlining social media research
- Detecting and preventing potential crises
- Finding new influencer partners
- Tracking and monitoring brand sentiment
- Automating repetitive tasks like social media posting
Something that makes AI social media monitoring particularly exciting is its ability to predict behaviors and trends. It looks for emerging topics and patterns before they become mainstream. For example, AI can detect a spike in interest around a specific topic or keyword.
This gives brands an edge over competitors who aren’t using AI social media monitoring. They can pivot their strategies and become part of the conversation early, allowing them to be a leader and not a follower.
It’s not just about taking part in conversations, though. Ultimately, AI’s capabilities allow brands to build stronger connections with their audiences and show they’re in tune with what their followers think, feel, and need.
Identifying Brand Conversations with AI Social Listening Tools
Small businesses can use social listening tools just as larger brands and enterprises do. No matter the popularity of your brand, topics, or keywords, social listening AI tools work the same way.
That’s because whatever your business size or industry, people are talking about things related to your business. They might have had bad experiences with your company but aren’t talking directly to you about their experiences. Or they might be sharing your products or services without tagging you.
With AI for social listening, you can become part of these conversations even when you haven’t been invited.
Finding conversations
We suggest starting by identifying brand-related conversations. Social media monitoring tools like Meltwater let you monitor unlimited keywords so you never miss a conversation. As you monitor keywords, you’ll also see spikes and shifts in popularity for these terms.
AI works to understand the reasons behind these shifts. For example, if you’re monitoring keywords related to “sustainability” and suddenly everyone is talking about it on social media, AI will reveal what’s driving the new interest. Maybe it’s because of a new law being passed, a popular campaign for another brand, or viral content from an influencer, for example.
Whatever the cause, you now have a “what” and a “why” to help you figure out how to enter the conversation.
Analyzing conversations
Once you’ve identified relevant conversations, you can use AI to analyze sentiments about those conversations. AI can detect nuances in language, such as tone of voice, and know how people feel about topics and whether conversations are largely positive, negative, or neutral.
AI can also understand what the conversation is actually about. For example, if a conversation is about Titanic, it can detect whether people are talking about the movie, the failed Titan submersible, or the ship itself.
Most importantly, you gain these insights in real time. Meltwater’s social listening suite sends you instant alerts when it picks up on topics that matter to you, allowing you to take quick action.
TIP: Check out our social listening guide for more insights into how social listening works and what you can do with your findings.
Using Social Listening Tools AI for Competitor Analysis
Social listening tools with AI can keep tabs on competitors in a similar way as you monitor your own brand. You can track competitors’ brand names, products, or relevant services to get real-time alerts when someone is talking about those terms.
Just like AI breaks down what’s important about your brand, it can reveal sentiments, shifts, and even engagements related to your competitors. You can see how your audience feels and responds to other companies’ campaigns and content, allowing you to pivot your strategies when needed.
You’ll also get an inside look at what competitors are posting, which can inspire new ideas. By tracking competitors, you might discover new audience segments, revenue streams, or products or services that can give you an edge.
TIP: Our in-depth guide on competitor analysis has more details to help you benchmark your organization against the competition.
Gaining Actionable Insights with AI
Social media reporting is a key element of AI listening tools. Without reporting, you have data but no easy way to act on it.
AI makes it easy to compile findings into easy-to-read reports. Social listening AI tools are usually customizable so you can focus on the insights you care about.
Using your social media reports, you can decide which conversations to drill deeper into. Platforms like Meltwater offer multiple layers of insights so you can get macro and micro views of your performance.
AI-powered summaries can help you quickly understand brand alerts. Use these summaries to choose how and where to focus your efforts without having to comb through large amounts of data.
TIP: Learn more about about the AI-powered summary capabilities in the Meltwater suite right here!
Measuring Social Performance with AI
The third criterion of the best social listening tools for 2024 is the ability to track and measure your social performance. This is the area where AI shines brightest, as it shows you how all of the actions you take make an impact on your goals.
Social media analytics measure a variety of things, including:
- Audience demographics
- Performance metrics, such as views, clicks, and reach
- Paid ad results
- Influencer metrics (if applicable)
- Audience growth or decline
Each social media channel you use has its own built-in analytics. These can give you basic insights that are specific to each channel. But using a social listening platform like Meltwater can centralize your metrics and provide AI-powered insights about your performance.
AI not only collects metrics; it also analyzes them to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy. It crunches the data and shares it with you in plain language so you can easily understand what it all means.
You can go beyond what people are saying and avoid getting bogged down in engagement metrics. You can also connect past actions to current results, such as how your response to a shift in mentions or sentiments paid off. AI connects the dots for you, leaving you to skip some of the guesswork and take all the credit for your results.
Additional Use Cases for AI in Social Listening and Media Monitoring
We’ve covered the tip of the iceberg about AI’s role in social listening and monitoring. But it doesn’t end there — let’s look at some other use cases where AI can help you gain an edge on social media.
Identify potential influencers
AI can sift through vast numbers of online conversations to spot who’s talking about your brand or industry the most. More importantly, it can find who’s getting the most attention.
AI social listening tools help you discover influencers who may not be on your radar but are already engaging with your target audience. Instead of manually searching for influencers, AI shines a light on the voices that resonate. This saves you time and helps you connect with the right people to boost your brand's visibility.
TIP: Download our Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing for more tips and tricks to supercharge your influencer program!
Manage crises before they erupt
AI social listening tools can detect shifts in sentiment early on. If people start expressing negative feedback about your brand or product, AI picks up on that trend before it spirals out of control.
For brands, this ability is like a superpower. You can address issues before they become full-blown crises, allowing your team to step in with the right messaging or solutions to preserve your reputation.
Improve customer service
Social listening tools can track customer feedback in real time, so you can respond quickly to any complaints or questions. AI will pinpoint recurring issues or patterns, helping you improve your services or products based on what customers are saying.
Plus, your team has all the information they need to prioritize responses to the most pressing concerns. This helps ensure no customer feels ignored, leading to faster, more effective customer support — and happier customers.
Meltwater: The Best AI for Social Listening
When choosing AI for social listening, make sure it can help you connect as many dots as possible. AI isn’t a substitute for the human touch, but it can empower the way you work, speed up the way you analyze data, and take action at timely moments.
Meltwater is one of the best social listening tools for 2024, giving you the full package of social media monitoring and analysis. With the ability to monitor unlimited keywords, you never have to miss a conversation that matters to your business. Meltwater surfaces relevant mentions while filtering out the noise, leaving you with only the most essential data to drive your decisions.
With comprehensive insights across all your social channels, you can keep an eye on what’s being said, how people are talking about topics, why it matters to your brand, and what you can do next to make an impact.
Learn more when you request a demo by filling out the form below!
