How do brands listen to their community on Twitter?

 

Source: Pexels

We all know and understand the importance of social listening on social media. There are numerous blog posts, videos, articles, listicles written on this topic and they include stats from various reports on why this area is crucial for brand marketing success. In this blog I am not going to repeat those figures, stats or any definitions on social listening. But what this blog will cover is to provide you real life examples from brands who excel at social listening on Twitter and how they make most of this channel to interact, listen and ask questions to their community.

While we all agree and know the importance of responding to social mentions, keeping a track of brand mentions to track share of voice and brand sentiment, but in this digital data rich age it is important to drill a bit deeper and apply strategies and tactics which take you one step further and elevate your social listening program. So let's dive into tactics & strategies you can use on your brand or personal Twitter accounts to listen to your community and create a two-way channel of communication to enhance your brand.

It includes a list of 8 unique social listening strategies on Twitter by 8 global brands. The tactics included below help brands interact, ask question, A/B test, gather user behaviour data, promote their brand, gain insights for product development and much more. So let's dive into each of these tactics.

1. Polls

Polls are the most used feature on Twitter by brands. It is simple, free and easy to use this feature by both brands and individuals. Your brand can ask your community about any topic using this feature. It can be their goals, feedback on existing feature of your product, their favourite feature and much more. This is a great feature brands can use for A/B testing or if they want insights on what option majority of their community prefer before a change or launch.

In the example below, you can see HubSpot have used this poll to capture the goal on social media from their community. The results from this poll will provide insights to the team at HubSpot on what their community will be focussing on in 2023. The reason it's important because let's say the below poll has a majority vote for the option of "Go viral", then the HubSpot content team can create content which is specifically focussed on "going viral". Thus helping the team to invest resources in creating content tailored to the requirement of their community.

Source: HubSpot, Twitter

2. Fill in the blanks

This tactic might remind many of us of our school days with "Fill in the blanks" styled question. But this is fun, interactive and leaves room for a lot of creativity for the community when responding to such questions. In the example below you can see Trello using this tactic to understand what is the one thing which makes their job easier for their community. Again this is an interesting question which will help the team at Trello analyse the responses and launch certain features on Trello which helps the community. Hence helping Trello gain useful insight for product development and enhancement.

Source: Trello by Atlassian, Twitter

3. Ask a question

This is another obvious answer to listen to your community on Twitter. The simple answer is as a question! In the below screenshots you can see how brands like semrush & Canva ask direct questions to their followers on the challenges they are facing or a hack they use most often on the tool. Such open ended questions are a great resource for brands to see what topics are being most talked about, what are the top challenges your target audience face, what is the most used feature on your tool. And all these insights will not only help the brand improve their products but also provide better user experiences and journeys.

Source: Semrush, Twitter

Source: Canva, Twitter

4. Giveway

This technique is more for brands trying to build brand awareness and are trying to get more eyeballs on the brand account, interactions, clicks and retweets. Giveways can include your branded merchandise items and you can ask your community to answer a question, like/retweet or the most liked response wins the prize. While this tactic is used by many brands in both B2B and B2C space, it has far reaching effect, gets a lot of interaction but it might not necessarily get response only from your target audience or people who want to buy from you but a wider range of users who just want to win the giveaway. In the example below you can see Figma using this technique and are giving away free branded tote bags. Make sure you check the inventory of the items, define the rule, terms & conditions before promoting giveways and also make sure to mention which locations it is applicable because such posts gets traction from users across the globe. This technique could also help you promote your event, webinar or a new product launch.

Source: Figma, Twitter

5. Host or participate in Twitter Chats

There a host of brilliant Twitter chats on Twitter every week. They include a wide range of topics right from marketing, freelancing, entrepreneurship, social media, charities and many more. Most of these Twitter Chats also use a dedicated hashtag so you can find them easily using the search bar of if you wish to access the content in case you miss any of the chats. The crucial thing to remember here is that you or your brand participate in the Twitter chat because you are either interested in the topic, or are a leader within that space or have something to share or learn from the community. Do not use Twitter Chats as a medium to go and push the chat participants to buy your product or service.  In the example provided below you can see how Marketing Cloud host a Twitter chat and use a dedicated # for it and in this case it's #MarketingChats.

These Twitter chats are a great opportunity for brands to listen to audiences who might not be the usual buying target audience, but it still provides insights on key topics related to your industry which is always beneficial.

Source: Marketing Cloud, Twitter

6. Respond if your brand is mentioned on a Twitter Chat

If your brand name gets mentioned on any Twitter Chat, make sure to respond and engage. This means your brand is being talked about, mentioned which is always a good thing. Go through the chat responses to see if the mention was relating to a positive or negative experience. Check if your competitors are mentioned too. In the example below you can see the brand Pexels responding to a mention on the #PopChat Twitter chat. This is a great way for brands to see which individuals or brands mention them, are they your existing product/service users, is there an opportunity to collaborate in the future. This will help you make use of this data from taking a follower/mention to a collaborator/partner relationship with your community.

Source: Pexels, Twitter

7. Ask your community to "Caption" an image

It does not all have to be serious, business related, jargon filled content. Listening to your community on Twitter can be fun, light-hearted and unique which makes your audience think, laugh, stop, ponder and imagine. In the example shown below the brand Ecosia is asking their community to caption a picture. This is a great example because the image aligns with their overall brand value of planet restoration, climate change & sustainability. Comments on posts like this helps a brand understand it's followers better, gives an idea as to what resonates with them, gives an understanding of what their community care about and what they prioritise.

Source: Ecosia, Twitter

8. Pick one option from a selection of images

Listening to your community on Twitter not only helps you get insights, data and feedback, but you could also use this platform to perform A/B testing and see which option your community prefers. Now this can be a new feature you are going to roll out, or your Twitter profile/header image, or it can be your next website banner or it can be anything where you want your community to have a say in before you make the decision to invest or change. In the example Starling Bank are trying to analyse their audience and trying to find the user behaviour pattern in terms of where their community would spend from the four options provided.

This post is smart, on-brand and gets a conversation going between the community which provides further feedback to the brand.

Source: Starling Bank, Twitter

Hope you have got some inspiration for your next Twitter post from this blog. If you use any of the tactic mentioned above think about how you would personalise it for your brand and audience. Like all things with social media consider this too as a social listening experiment and try to see what  will resonate with your audience based on the time of the year, social events, political events. With many of these tactics mentioned above "timing" can be everything and make sure you get that right.

If you have seen any other exciting Twitter listening strategies or tactics then do let me know in the comments below.