Social Listening on Instagram: A Full Review

Social listening Instagram is a powerful tool that can turn a mass of scattered data into useful insights for your company. With the right tools, such as Social Media Instagram API, hidden patterns can be found in this data that shed light on trends and public sentiment. Let's have a look at social media listening in more detail and learn what helpful insights Instagram API can provide.

What is Instagram social listening and why do you have to pay attention to it?

Everybody knows that social media is an invaluable source of information. Moreover, it is a nice place to find customer experience data. So, if you want to get to know what people think about you, this tool should definitely be included in your arsenal. 

At first glance, everything is simple: you follow discussions and comments on social networks related to your brand and services. Then you have to analyze the obtained data to see if you do everything the best way possible.

The very concept of social listening originated around the same time that social networks appeared. With the advancement of technology, it has become possible to obtain more and more data. But keep in mind that not all discussions directly mention the brand or its products. For an accurate understanding, you need to know two important things: who is speaking (audience) and when (context).

What does this mean for marketers? First, social listening is not a one-time or recurring event. It is an ongoing process that allows you to constantly receive an influx of new information and new ideas to improve the customer experience. If customer needs or market trends change, you will not be caught off guard. So, market intelligence is what you get.

When is social listening especially effective?

Let's have a look at the most important points. 

Reputation management. Even the most experienced company may face problems. If something is wrong, especially something associated with the negative customer experience, it's essential to find such problems quickly and control the situation. Social listening Instagram will help you keep in touch with customers and understand their needs. So, it is easier to solve any problems that may arise if you use social listening. 

Analysis of competitors. To be aware of what is going on in the market, it is essential to monitor competitors. One can find out what customers like and dislike about competitors not to make the same mistakes. Moreover, with the help of competitors' analysis, it is possible to make a product more original and unique. 

Work on bugs. What can be better than getting information about various bugs in real-time? Be it problems with a delivery, poor quality, or some global failures, with the help of social listening Instagram it is possible to monitor the situation. 

Communication with customers. As we have mentioned, keeping in touch with customers is essential for building an effective strategy. You can not only watch what people say about you but also launch campaigns. For example, Apple's “Shot on iPhone” campaign, where people were rewarded for great photos, helped to increase loyalty and get people interested.

The importance of social listening

Social listening Instagram's usefulness is pretty obvious: with its help, you get to know what customers are thinking. There is no need to ask questions, use surveys, or any other methods. Moreover, it provides a more realistic picture if compared to surveys or other classical methods. 

With the help of valuable data you get via social listening Instagram, you can understand what strategy is better to choose (or keep following the one you have). It is also possible to understand what people expect from you and give them what they want. Another plus of this approach is reduced risks: you know what customers want, so no mistakes will be made. Therefore, you will not lose your time and money on an inappropriate strategy. 

As a rule, the majority of companies use the official API Instagram. Nevertheless, this is not the only option to get the users' data.Data365 API makes it also possible to get information from social media networks.

How does social listening differ from online monitoring?

Sometimes, people confuse social listening with social monitoring. So, let's have a look at who is who.

Social listening is a tool for obtaining and analyzing information from users' discussions on social networks. It is especially often used by brands in their strategies: using social listening, they can get data on the perception of their company by customers, their preferences and experience in using products/services, as well as identify the most engaging content and build analytics on social demographic and geography.

In general, social listening is similar to surveys or focus groups, but it is generally faster, better, and cheaper. Now, let's proceed to the second concept. 

Monitoring is the tracking of incoming mentions of a topic or brand, usually through automated services or media analytics agencies. It can be used both in social networks and on other third-party sites (reviews, blogs, forums, etc.).

Its main task is to provide real-time notification of brand mentions in user posts. The biggest attention is usually paid to negative discussions - complaints about a product/service/goods, although monitoring (and subsequent response) is also useful for messages containing questions, requests, and words of gratitude. Thanks to monitoring, brands have the opportunity to promptly enter into a dialogue with consumers, react to negative messages and thereby prevent its spread.

As a result, we have two different technologies:

• Social listening - for presenting a general picture of the audience's perception of the brand, researching this very audience, its preferences, behavior, views.
• Social media monitoring - for tracking a specific set of posts that require brand attention.

Companies collect data through Social Media Instagram API and provide this data to other companies that are already engaged in social listening and monitoring, helping them to improve their services. 

Data365 provides the social media API that can be used by social media listening and monitoring companies.

Changes in Instagram’s API

In 2018, the Instagram API all of us got used to was removed and a completely new Graph API was launched. So, some features were eliminated, and new ones appeared. The ability of tracking likes, followers, and posts that were previously liked has changed.

At the first glance, it seems to be pretty restrictive, but it's not actually so. A new approach is designed for improving the experience of users. Moreover, it is focused on protecting data privacy. As a result, the number of bots is expected to decrease, which is good news for those who analyze data. For users, spending time on this social network becomes more qualitative, so they give more content, which is also good for those engaged in social listening Instagram.

Helpful insights that Instagram data can provide

A simple photo can provide plenty of valuable information. Let's have a look at what insights it is possible to get with the help of analyzing photos.

Social image analysis

Such an analysis helps in the following:

1. Getting new product ideas. Having analyzed photos of users, brands can come up with new ideas.
2. User-generated campaigns. Launching a photo contest, for instance, is a great idea to increase brand recognisability and loyalty. People get interested and more people can learn about you.
3. Collaboration possibilities. When conducting competitor analysis, it is possible to find companies to work together.

Finding influencers in a specific topic

With the help of data analysis, it is also possible to find influencers. For example, Jin company finds influencers with the help of the Instagram API and other tools. Influencers can do miracles and increase your customer base greatly.

Finding a new target audience

Instagram API collects data about subscribers or about those who were interested in a certain topic. Using some special social media listening tools, it is possible to determine age and location by photo.

Determining how people react to a specific topic

The API helps to collect reactions and comments to posts. After this, social listening companies analyze them and find out the attitude towards the brand, certain news, etc.

Top tools

Many social listening Instagram tools combine different functions like tracking, analytics, and so on. Have a look at the list of popular tools:

• BuzzSumo;
• Sprout Social;
• Buffer;
• Onlypult;
• Hootsuite;
• Falcon.io.

Such tools are paid, but the functionality they provide is worth it. 

Conclusion

As you can see, social listening Instagram can help you to solve lots of tasks at once. We are deeply convinced it's a great option that can help you grow your brand. Just remember that social listening should be in line with your business goals and conducted using reliable tools, such as Social Media API by Data365.co. It is important not only to get the data but also to utilize it well and follow personal data protection laws.