Build brilliant reports using social listening (+ free template)

Note: This is a new article updated to reflect 2023 data. Click here to see our highly popular 2020 article on the topic.

Picture this: your company decided to go after a new client and you need insights into their clients, consumers, and competition (perhaps, literally) overnight. Or, your client or manager is getting antsy about a recently-launched campaign and wants to know how consumers are responding! Whatever the use case, you need to deliver some consumer intelligence, brand insights, crisis response metrics, or competitive intelligence pronto.

Now, if you have a well-equipped social listening solution, you already know there’s no need to panic and scramble for insights. In fact, a social listening solution like Infegy Atlas can get you deep brand insights, competitor intelligence, and audience interests at speed!

But, since time is tight and social media is an infinite rabbit hole, we’re here with a quick run-down of how to build a decision-driving report using social listening metrics. We’ve even created a free social listening report template for you!

Step 1: Reveal your audience: social listening for audience insights and demographics

Kick-start your report with social media analytics on relevant audiences or consumers. Most marketing and advertising content has to start at the audience level - you should understand who you’re targeting before you decide how to target them.

Since social media users discuss their opinions and thoughts openly online, social listening for audience insights will give you unbiased, quantitative data on how people feel about brands, topics, events, public figures, and places!

But, let’s begin with the basics - demographic data on the audience. Watch how we use Infegy social listening to learn about audiences discussing the brand Warby Parker.

Audience demographic data: Age

Warby Parker is an eyewear brand that offers stylish, affordable glasses and sunglasses with a socially conscious approach.

To start the report, run a general query for the brand. With Infegy Atlas’ historic dataset, you can look at social media conversations over the past fifteen years. Here, we’ve limited our dataset to three months.

^{Figure 1: Age histogram of accounts that mention Warby Parker (March 8, 2023 through June 8, 2023); Infegy Atlas data.}

Based on Figure 1, we can see that the brand is predominantly discussed by people aged 25-44 (Figure 1). These posts make up 47% of all posts on the brand. We can also see that the conversation from 35-44-year-olds is a little more positive than 25-34-year-olds. It is notable that while 19-24-year-olds form a smaller portion of the overall conversation, they are the most positive about the brand.

Audience demographic data: Gender

Next, we’ll look at the conversation’s gender distribution.

^{Figure 2: Gender trend of accounts that mention Warby Parker (March 8, 2023 through June 8, 2023); Infegy Atlas data.}

Looking at Figure 2, we found that the gender distribution of Warby Parker’s consumers appears to be very balanced, with male engagement being just a little lower than female engagement! If the marketers for Warby Parker were looking to appeal to both men and women equally, the metrics suggest that they were successful!

If you were creating a gender-targeted campaign or new advertising plan, be sure to examine the top topics for males vs. females. Our biggest takeaway here once again showcases how men and women were both equally engaged by the brand: “Jimmy Fallon” shows up as a shared topic, as do “Flippies,” the reversible sunglasses dreamed up and publicized by Fallon. If you were reporting to campaign planners for Flippies, be sure to mention the high positive sentiment – from both men and women – associated with both these topics!

Audience demographic data: Income

If you’re in the USA, you can add demographic income data to your social media report! Infegy Atlas pair geotagged social media users with US Census data to draw income-based insights. Participants in the Warby Parker conversation have a median income of $59,000, and 54% of all the conversants are likely to have a college education. Infegy Atlas social listening data suggests that, on average, the people discussing Warby Parker own their own homes and have disposable income.

Other audience insights: Source Bio and Audience Interests

Now comes the really fun stuff! What does your audience say about themselves? In what context do they mention your brand/search topic? And what else do they talk about online (in other words, what are their interests other than your search topic and brand)?

A social listening platform like Infegy Atlas gathers data at the author level. This means you can go way beyond demographic data to learn what audiences actually say about themselves in their profiles and bios. The platform quickly conducts contextual analysis of relevant conversations, giving you reportable data on interests.

Pull up Linguistics and Interests to jump in!

^{Figure 4: Source Bios analysis of accounts that mention Warby Parker (March 8, 2023 through June 8, 2023); Infegy Atlas data.}

For example, a linguistic analysis of author biographies (Source Bios) reveal a related cluster of Warby Parker aficionados who are authors, writers, speakers, and readers. This makes a lot of sense: the company even sells blue light glasses built for professionals like writers who look at screens all day. Warby Parker seems to also attract the interest of an entrepreneurial crowd: we see “Entrepreneur”, “Product,” and “Founder” in the analysis. There’s a sizeable mom audience segment amongst the people interested in the brand as well.

If you analyze the conversation by Source Interests, you’ll start getting reportable insights on what your audience talks about online when they’re not discussing your brand/search topic. This is where things can get really surprising!

Our Interests analysis shows that people talking about Warby Parker are 16 times more likely to be interested in scuba diving than the average population, 14 times more likely to be interested in non-profit organizations, and 11 times more likely to be interested in buying and selling cars.

If you want to know how they approach conversations in which they mention your brand/search topic, then look for Content Subjects within an Interests analysis.

Step 2: Show how consumers talk (and feel) about your topic

Getting reportable data on consumer sentiment and behavior is all about listening to how consumers are talking about your product or search topic. This can be especially helpful for product launches, as companies are anxious to see how well their new products are received upon their unveiling. Social listening gets you quick sentiment analysis data, and reportable metrics on whether people want, need, or are interested in your topic/brand/product.

Again, your social listening solution will do most of the work for you!

Let’s imagine you’re tasked with reporting how people feel about a product launch, like the Apple Vision Pro.

Apple’s spatial computer integrates digital content with the physical world – in other words, it's Apple’s move into virtual and augmented reality. The product will feature an ultra-high-resolution display system and a spatial operating system in the form of a personal, wearable device (headset goggles).

Social listening for consumer sentiment

Top topics in the conversation (Figure 5) show that the conversation is generally positive and that a large portion of the conversation revolves around the headset device, iPhone, and Mac. The most positive topics were about the promised experience, features, and the new technology that will facilitate hand-eye tracking.

^{Figure 5: Top Topics that mention Apple’s Vision Pro (March 8, 2023 through June 8, 2023); Infegy Atlas data.}

^{Figure 6: Negative topics that mention Apple’s Vision Pro (March 8, 2023 through June 8, 2023); Infegy Atlas data.}

Negative topics (Figure 6) revolve around the high cost of acquiring this new technology. Interestingly, looking at conversation samples, we found that people aren’t talking about missing out because of the high cost, but rather that buying it will empty their bank accounts.

Jump into Infegy Narratives to see the conversation clustered by topics. You’ll be able to report on related conversations, and also see the positivity and negativity of topic clusters in relation to each other. We see, again, “empty bank accounts” as a highly negative topic, but many topics about how this will bring VR to the mainstream and the different kinds of content available because of the new device.

^{Figure 7: Narratives colored by sentiment for Apple’s Vision Pro (March 8, 2023 through June 8, 2023); Infegy Atlas data.}

Step 3: Use social listening trends to track campaign performance

Step 3 of demonstrating the effectiveness of a marketing campaign involves assessing how well it performs. To illustrate this, let's consider two examples: one negative and one positive.

Peloton, a well-known fitness brand, offers interactive exercise equipment and online classes, providing users with a comprehensive workout experience at home. Unfortunately, their 2019 campaign titled "The Gift That Gives Back" didn't yield favorable results. The advertisement depicted a husband buying a Peloton for his wife, which some viewers perceived as an attempt to pressure her to exercise. In Figure 9, we analyzed the sentiment distribution of posts mentioning Peloton and found an enormous surge of negativity around the brand, just after their campaign launched. In Figure 10,, we analyzed emotions pertaining to the brand around the campaign’s launch and found sharp declines in Joy, Trust, and Love, with a slight increase in Anger.

^{Figure 9: Sentiment distribution for Peloton (January 2019 through December 2020); Infegy Atlas data.}

^{Figure 10: Emotions distributions for Peloton (January 2019 through December 2020); Infegy Atlas data.}

Aviation Gin’s public relations coup

In contrast, Aviation Gin, an acclaimed spirit known for its smoothness and versatility, quickly seized an opportunity to create a successful campaign in response to Peloton's misstep. This campaign, spearheaded by its owner Ryan Reynolds, hired Peloton’s actress and staged a commercial showing her enjoying the brand’s offering after escaping from her previous relationship.

We analyzed the effectiveness of Aviation Gin's campaign and found numerous positive indicators. Figure 11 shows a large spike in post volume in December 2019, meaning Aviation Gin got a lot of attention with their campaign. Figure 12 shows that the majority of those posts were positive. Finally, through a theme analysis, we found that a large percentage of the posts dealt with advertising themes (e.g. Promotion) along with Quality and Taste. This suggests that their campaign broke through and projected the idea that Aviation Gin was a quality brand.

^{Figure 11: Aviation Gin post volume (January 2019 through December 2020); Infegy Atlas data}

^{Figure 12: Aviation Gin sentimental documents (January 2019 through December 2020); Infegy Atlas data.}

^{Figure 13: Aviation Gin themes (January 2019 through December 2020); Infegy Atlas data.}

By analyzing sentiment, emotions, post volume, and themes, we can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of marketing efforts. This data-driven approach allows companies to refine their strategies, capitalize on successful campaigns, and avoid pitfalls that may negatively impact their brand image.

Actionable insights to guide and boost your brand and business decisions!

Whether you’ve been asked to report on your brand, current or prospective consumers, your competitors, or a campaign, social listening data will elevate your reports with quick, actionable consumer insights.

If you’re looking to provide real, quantifiable data on how people talk, feel, and share their opinions online, we’d love to talk to you! Reach out for a custom demo today.

Your task: find insights on your brand, brand’s campaign, customers, competitors, sales projections, or other key measurements using social data, then use that data in reports.

You might already be familiar with how powerful social listening insights can be for your reporting, and that’s definitely a good place to be in. But the great news is, even if you’re experienced with using social listening tools, there are still new and surprising ways you can leverage the data for your team’s success.

In this article, we’ll explain a few ways social listening insights can be applied to your reporting process and how to approach your analysis. Read ahead to learn how to use social listening to improve your reporting.

Our brand new guide, The Ultimate Social Listening Reporting Guide, walks you through everything you need to know about how to use social listening for reports. You get free templates and a crash course on the metrics and learn first-hand how to effectively and authoritatively present these reports for your team’s success. 

Step 1: Provide Data on Who Your Customers and Audiences Are

Think about how impactful your next report could be if you dished on juicy surprises or shattered assumptions in a meaningful way.

Oftentimes, social insights can uncover brand new data about audiences and customers and reveal urgent information for your brand or business to consider

Take a look at this report using demographics data provided by social listening. This example shows how different hard seltzer brands appeal to different groups: 

You see how the brands compare to each other when looking at which groups lead in conversation for each. Perhaps surprisingly, White Claw, which is often marketed more towards women, is more engaged by male voices online.

Social listening puts you in a great position to showcase which brands own which audiences in this way inside your reports.

Let’s say you’re reporting on target customers or audience segments.

Social listening’s deep roster of metrics enables you to construct data-driven social personas, as we did with the beauty report here:

Analysts and strategists will find great use for the audience segmentation capabilities available with social listening tools. These insights will definitely provide a major upgrade to these types of reports.

Step 2: Show How Consumers are Talking About Your Product or Topic

Using social listening data, you can paint a perfect picture of how people and target audiences talk about important topics to your brand or business.

Analyzing how people express themselves and what they say about their experiences is an important step to learning how people think and feel about you, your industry, or your products.

For example, comparing how people express sentiment towards certain topics could be highly useful for competitive analysis.

This is how sentiment comparison could be used to show how consumers feel toward different food delivery apps:

You could use this insight to report on the state of the food delivery app space and explain how consumers express more positivity towards some brands (like Grubhub) and less towards others. Additionally, we looked at positive and negative topics. UberEats doesn’t have the worst sentiment, but it is a popular negative topic. 

Another great way to implement social listening for your reports is to show how consumers talk about topics on different social media channels.

We reported on how people discuss beauty and cosmetics products and routines differently on different channels:

Social listening provides a roadmap to understanding how consumers live their lives and lifestyles and their experiences. 

Leveraging this analysis in your reports will provide powerful insight into those consumer experiences and take your report to the next level. 

Now that we’ve looked at how you can use social listening to report on consumer behavior and experiences, let’s look at how to use the data to more effectively analyze your campaigns.

Step 3: Demonstrate How Well Your Campaign Performs 

One key benefit of implementing social listening into your reports is that you can easily showcase the successes and performance of your campaign with in-depth analysis.

If your role is to present to clients or higher-ups how your campaign performed, you can use the intuitive data and insightful metrics available to you within the social listening platform.

We use sentiment analysis as a great but simple way to demonstrate how well campaigns perform. This could be used for events, hashtag campaigns, or, as seen in this example, new product launches:

In this example featured in the guide, we showed how sentiment analysis was used to understand the performance of a new product launch and the surrounding campaign-- in this case Crayola’s new shade of blue crayon.

What kinds of insights could you clean just from this analysis? We see how consumers reacted at a 68% positive rate to the new product, and then we dug into the positive and negative keywords and topics associated with the product/campaign. Lastly, see how consumers expressed certain emotions related to the product, giving us a holistic view of how well the campaign performed.

There are many other ways to report on how well your next campaign or product launch performed with social listening, which we explored in the guide.

Step 4: Uncover Data to Predict Future Trends

Another key use case for anyone presenting data is to make predictions. If your team uses reliable and actionable insights like that of social listening, you can identify trends and effectively make data-backed predictions.

For example, we used social listening to pinpoint the emerging trend of plant-based food alternatives. We used the trust emotion to predict how gradually consumers will adopt plant-based meat:

Using this data, you gain an understanding of how people feel toward specific topics, brands, or products. From there, you can make future projections about consumer preferences and make inferences about how they will buy.

CONCLUSION

Whether you’re reporting on campaigns, consumer behavior, audiences, industry trends, or competitive analysis, social listening offers unique and highly actionable insights to take your reports to the next echelon.

Analysts, strategists, social media managers, marketing managers, and brand strategists of all stripes can make use of social listening to build other-worldly reports that provide need-to-know data in a beautiful, easy-to-understand format. Reports with social listening position you to deliver better insights, educate key team members and clients, and prove the ROI of your efforts.

Now that you’ve seen how social listening data could be wildly beneficial to your reporting, it’s time to pick up your social listening report guide.