---
name: social-listening-monitoring
description: Monitor brand mentions, competitor activity, industry trends, and sentiment across social platforms in real-time. Use when setting up social listening campaigns, tracking brand mentions, monitoring competitors on social media, analyzing sentiment, detecting social media crises, tracking share of voice, or measuring social media ROI. Triggers on phrases like "social listening", "brand monitoring", "mention tracking", "sentiment analysis", "social monitoring", "brand awareness tracking", "share of voice", "crisis detection", "social intelligence".
---

# Social Listening & Monitoring

Track brand perception, competitor moves, and industry conversations at scale across all social platforms.

## Workflow

1. Define listening scope: brand names, competitor names, industry keywords, product names, executive names, and campaign hashtags.
2. Configure monitoring platforms: set up social listening tools, define keyword queries, and configure alert thresholds.
3. Establish sentiment analysis framework: define positive/negative/neutral classification rules and scoring model.
4. Set up real-time monitoring: configure dashboards, alerts, and escalation protocols for urgent mentions.
5. Aggregate and categorize mentions: daily/weekly review of volume, sentiment, themes, and influential voices.
6. Identify trends and spikes: detect conversation shifts, emerging topics, and crisis indicators.
7. Generate actionable insights: connect social data to business decisions, product improvements, and marketing strategy.
8. Route responses: assign mentions to appropriate teams (social media, PR, customer support, product).
9. Track share of voice: monitor brand vs. competitor conversation share over time.
10. Report and optimize: weekly reports, monthly trend analysis, quarterly strategy reviews.

## Listening Configuration

### Keyword Matrix and Query Building

```
SOCIAL LISTENING KEYWORD MATRIX
==================================

CATEGORY 1: BRAND MENTIONS (Track All)
  → Exact brand name: "[BrandName]", "@BrandName"
  → Brand variations: "[Brand] company", "[Brand] product", "[Brand] app"
  → Common misspellings: "[MisspelledBrand]" (research from search data)
  → Abbreviations/nicknames: "[BrandABBR]" (if commonly used)
  → Product names: "[ProductName]", "[ProductName] [BrandName]"
  → Executive names: "[CEO Name] [BrandName]", "[CMO Name]"
  → Campaign hashtags: "#[CampaignHashtag]", "#[BrandCampaign]"
  → Negative variations: "[Brand] scam", "[Brand] complaint", "[Brand] bad",
     "[Brand] review", "[Brand] vs", "[Brand] alternative"
  → Volume estimate (small brand): 50-200 mentions/week
  → Volume estimate (medium brand): 500-2,000 mentions/week
  → Volume estimate (large brand): 2,000-20,000+ mentions/week

CATEGORY 2: COMPETITOR TRACKING
  → Competitor brand names (5-10 direct competitors)
  → Competitor product names and features
  → "Alternative to [Competitor]": captures comparison-intent mentions
  → "[Competitor] vs [YourBrand]": captures direct comparisons
  → "[Competitor] problems/complaints/switch": captures competitor pain points
  → Competitor campaign hashtags
  → Competitor executive names (for strategic moves)

CATEGORY 3: INDUSTRY TOPICS
  → Industry terminology and buzzwords (20-50 terms)
  → Customer pain points relevant to your solution
  → Emerging technologies and disruptions
  → Regulatory changes and compliance discussions
  → Key industry events, conferences, and publications
  → Job titles of your target audience (for persona targeting)

CATEGORY 4: CAMPAIGN TRACKING
  → Campaign-specific hashtags and keywords
  → Influencer mentions and partnership tracking
  → User-generated content hashtags
  → Event-specific keywords (for trade shows, conferences)

QUERY BUILDING BEST PRACTICES:
  → Use Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT, NEAR()
  → Use exact match: "[phrase]" for precise tracking
  → Exclude noise: use NOT operator to filter irrelevant mentions
     Example: "email marketing" NOT "job" NOT "jobs" NOT "hiring"
  → Use proximity operators: NEAR(5,"keyword1","keyword2")
  → Group related terms: ("brand" OR "company" OR "app") AND "keyword"
  → Test queries: validate against sample mentions before full deployment
  → Maintain query library: document all queries and their purpose
```

## Sentiment Analysis Framework

### Multi-Level Sentiment Scoring

```
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS MODEL
==========================

SENTIMENT CLASSIFICATION (5-Tier Model):
  POSITIVE (+1.0): Enthusiastic praise, recommendations, appreciation
    Indicators: love, amazing, fantastic, recommend, excellent, best,
      life-changing, "worth every penny", "game-changer", five stars
    Example: "Just switched to @Brand and I love it! Customer support is
    incredible and the product does exactly what they promised."

  LEANING POSITIVE (+0.5): Mild praise, satisfaction, neutral-positive
    Indicators: good, nice, works well, satisfied, helpful, decent,
      "pretty good", "doing the job", "like it"
    Example: "Been using @Brand for a few months. It's pretty solid and
    helps with our workflow."

  NEUTRAL (0.0): Informational, factual, no emotional valence
    Indicators: "does anyone know", "looking for", "how does", "what is"
    Example: "Has anyone compared @Brand with @Competitor? Looking for
    feedback on features."

  LEANING NEGATIVE (-0.5): Mild complaints, concerns, disappointment
    Indicators: could be better, slow, disappointing, issues, problems,
      "not great", "wish it had", "lacks", "hopes they fix"
    Example: "@Brand's new update could be better. The interface feels
    cluttered and some features are harder to find."

  NEGATIVE (-1.0): Strong complaints, anger, warnings, reports of harm
    Indicators: terrible, worst, scam, broken, fraud, lost money, hacked,
      phishing, "avoid this", "waste of money", "do not buy"
    Example: "@Brand charged me without permission and their support
    won't respond. Do not trust this company."

URGENT/Negative Severity Scoring:
  Level 1 (Standard complaint): General dissatisfaction, feature request
    Response time: 24 hours | Owner: Social media team
  Level 2 (Serious complaint): Service failure, billing issue, poor support experience
    Response time: 4 hours | Owner: Customer support + social media
  Level 3 (Crisis indicator): Data breach allegation, fraud claim, public complaint
    Response time: 1 hour | Owner: PR + legal + executive team
  Level 4 (Active crisis): Viral negative content, media pickup, regulatory mention
    Response time: 15 minutes | Owner: Crisis team (CEO + legal + PR + comms)

AUTOMATED SENTIMENT DETECTION RULES:
  → Use NLP-based sentiment analysis (tool-level: Brandwatch, Sprout Social, Talkwalker)
  → Manual review for: mentions with 100+ engagements (high-visibility)
  → Escalation triggers:
     - Negative sentiment score < -0.5 with 50+ engagements: auto-escalate
     - Keywords "fraud", "scam", "lawsuit", "data breach": immediate alert
     - Influencer/post with >100K followers: priority handling
     - Same complaint from 3+ users within 24 hours: pattern detection alert

DAILY SENTIMENT DASHBOARD:
  Total mentions today: ___
    Positive: ___% (___ mentions)
    Neutral: ___% (___ mentions)
    Negative: ___% (___ mentions)
  Overall sentiment score: +0.__ / -0.__
  Sentiment trend (vs. yesterday): ▲ improving / ▼ declining / → stable
  Top positive themes: [theme 1], [theme 2], [theme 3]
  Top negative themes: [theme 1], [theme 2], [theme 3]
  Unresolved negative mentions: ___ (age: ___ hours)
```

## Share of Voice Tracking

### Competitive SOV Analysis

```
SHARE OF VOICE (SOV) ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK
=========================================

DEFINITION: Your brand's share of total conversations in your industry/market category.

SOV CALCULATION:
  Your brand mentions ÷ Total category mentions × 100 = SOV %

  Where "total category mentions" = all mentions containing category-relevant keywords
  (not just your brand and direct competitors — the entire conversation)

TRACKING CONFIGURATION:
  → Category keyword list: 20-50 broad industry/category keywords
     Example for SaaS CRM: "CRM software", "customer relationship management",
     "sales pipeline tool", "contact management", "lead tracking software"
  → Competitor list: 5-10 direct competitors by name
  → Measurement period: Weekly snapshots, monthly/quarterly reporting
  → Platform coverage: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, industry forums, review sites

SOV DASHBOARD:
  ┌──────────────────────┬───────────┬─────────┬──────────┬───────────┐
  │ Brand                │ Mentions  │ SOV %   │ Trend    │ Sentiment │
  ├──────────────────────┼───────────┼─────────┼──────────┼───────────┤
  │ Your Brand           │ ___       │ ___%    │ ▲/▼/→   │ +0.__     │
  │ Competitor A         │ ___       │ ___%    │ ▲/▼/→   │ +0.__     │
  │ Competitor B         │ ___       │ ___%    │ ▲/▼/→   │ +0.__     │
  │ Competitor C         │ ___       │ ___%    │ ▲/▼/→   │ +0.__     │
  │ Competitor D         │ ___       │ ___%    │ ▲/▼/→   │ +0.__     │
  │ Others/Unattributed  │ ___       │ ___%    │ ▲/▼/→   │ ___       │
  │ ── TOTAL ──          │ ___       │ 100%    │          │           │
  └──────────────────────┴───────────┴─────────┴──────────┴───────────┘

SOV TARGETS BY BRAND POSITION:
  Market leader: 25-40% of conversations
  Top 3 competitor: 15-25% of conversations
  Growing challenger: 5-15% of conversations
  New entrant: 1-5% (growth target: 5%+ within 12 months)

SOV IMPROVEMENT TACTICS:
  1. Content amplification: increase content output on high-SOV platforms
  2. Engagement strategy: actively participate in industry conversations
  3. Influencer partnerships: collaborate with industry influencers for reach
  4. Campaign-specific hashtags: launch unique, memorable campaign tags
  5. Rapid response: respond to mentions quickly (increases conversation depth)
  6. Competitive comparison content: create "vs" content targeting competitor keywords
  7. Review management: encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews (review sites count in SOV)
  8. PR and media mentions: press releases, expert commentary, thought leadership

SOV INSIGHTS REPORTING:
  Monthly SOV report includes:
  → SOV trend (12-month rolling chart)
  → SOV by platform (Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc.)
  → SOV by topic/theme (product, brand, industry, competitive)
  → Correlation analysis: SOV vs. website traffic, leads, revenue
  → Competitive wins: instances where you gained SOV from competitors
  → Strategic recommendations for SOV improvement
```

## Crisis Detection & Response Protocol

```
SOCIAL MEDIA CRISIS DETECTION AND RESPONSE
============================================

CRISIS SEVERITY CLASSIFICATION:

  LEVEL 1 — LOW (Monitor):
    Indicators:
    → Negative mentions on single platform
    → Limited reach (< 100 engagements per negative post)
    → Isolated incident (1-2 similar mentions)
    Response:
    → Response time: 2-4 hours
    → Team: Social media manager
    → Actions:
      - Acknowledge and respond publicly
      - Move conversation to private (DM, email, phone)
      - Document incident and resolution
      - Update social listening filters if new pattern emerges
    Resolution target: 24 hours

  LEVEL 2 — MEDIUM (Alert):
    Indicators:
    → Negative mentions across 2+ platforms
    → Growing engagement (100-1,000 engagements per post)
    → Multiple similar complaints (3-10 within 24 hours)
    → Blog/media mention (not mainstream)
    Response:
    → Response time: 1 hour
    → Team: Social media + PR + customer support + management
    → Actions:
      - Draft public response statement
      - Internal assessment: scope, impact, root cause
      - Escalate to appropriate internal teams
      - Increase monitoring frequency (hourly checks)
      - Prepare holding statement if escalation likely
    Resolution target: 4-8 hours

  LEVEL 3 — HIGH (Escalate):
    Indicators:
    → Viral negative content (> 1,000 engagements)
    → Mainstream media pickup (major news outlets)
    → Customer outrage or organized complaints (Twitter storm, Reddit thread)
    → Regulatory body mention or inquiry
    Response:
    → Response time: 30 minutes
    → Team: Crisis team (CEO, legal, PR, marketing, customer support)
    → Actions:
      - Publish holding statement on primary platforms
      - Prepare press release (coordinate with PR team)
      - Prepare executive statement (CEO video or written)
      - Brief customer support team with FAQ
      - Pause all scheduled marketing content
      - Set up dedicated monitoring war room
      - Legal review of all public statements
    Resolution target: 24-48 hours

  LEVEL 4 — CRITICAL (Full Crisis):
    Indicators:
    → Active boycott or organized movement
    → Regulatory investigation or legal action
    → Major data breach or security incident
    → CEO/executive scandal
    Response:
    → Response time: 15 minutes
    → Team: Executive crisis team + legal counsel + external PR firm
    → Actions:
      - Immediate public statement (transparent, accountable)
      - Consider pausing all marketing and promotional activity
      - Engage external crisis PR firm if needed
      - Prepare for media interviews and press conferences
      - Legal counsel reviews all communications
      - Customer notification plan (if data breach)
      - Continuous monitoring (real-time alerts)
    Resolution target: 1-7 days (depending on severity)

CRISIS RESPONSE CHECKLIST:
  [ ] Internal assessment complete (scope, impact, root cause identified)
  [ ] All stakeholders notified (executives, legal, PR, customer support)
  [ ] Public response drafted, reviewed, and approved
  [ ] Response published on all affected platforms
  [ ] Social listening increased to hourly/real-time monitoring
  [ ] Customer support team briefed with FAQ and talking points
  [ ] Media monitoring active (newspapers, TV, radio, online news)
  [ ] Internal communications sent (employees briefed)
  [ ] Recovery plan drafted (how to rebuild trust and reputation)
  [ ] Post-crisis analysis scheduled (within 7-14 days of resolution)

CRISIS RECOVERY METRICS (tracked post-crisis):
  → Sentiment recovery timeline: days/weeks to return to baseline
  → Mention volume normalization: return to pre-crisis levels
  → Share of voice recovery: SOV return to pre-crisis level
  → Customer retention: churn rate during and after crisis
  → Revenue impact: sales/revenue decline during crisis period
  → Brand health tracking: brand awareness and perception post-crisis
```

## Reporting & Insights

### Regular Reporting Framework

```
WEEKLY SOCIAL LISTENING REPORT
================================

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (3-5 bullet points):
   → Key sentiment shifts vs. prior week
   → Major conversation themes and trends
   → Competitive insights and notable competitor activity
   → Actionable recommendations

2. VOLUME OVERVIEW:
   → Total mentions: ___ (vs. prior week: ▲/▼ ___%)
   → By platform: Twitter ___%, LinkedIn ___%, Reddit ___%, Other ___%
   → Peak mention day: [day] at [time]
   → Top 5 mentioned topics: [list with mention counts]
   → New keywords discovered: ___

3. SENTIMENT BREAKDOWN:
   → Overall sentiment score: __ (prior week: __)
   → Positive: ___% | Neutral: ___% | Negative: ___%
   → Sentiment trend: ▲ improving / ▼ declining / → stable
   → Top positive themes: [theme 1 with count], [theme 2], [theme 3]
   → Top negative themes: [theme 1 with count], [theme 2], [theme 3]
   → Notable sentiment shifts: [describe any significant changes]

4. SHARE OF VOICE:
   → Your brand SOV: ___% (prior week: ___%)
   → Top competitor SOV: [Competitor] ___%
   → SOV trend: ▲ gaining / ▼ losing / → stable
   → Competitive wins: [specific instances where brand gained ground]

5. INFLUENCER & ADVOCATE TRACKING:
   → Top brand advocates by engagement: [name, platform, engagements]
   → New influencer relationships identified: [name, audience size, topic]
   → Influencer campaign performance: [campaign name, reach, engagement]
   → Negative influencer mentions: [name, issue, status]

6. UNRESOLVED MENTIONS:
   → Total pending responses: ___
   → High-priority (100+ engagements): ___
   → Age of oldest unresolved mention: ___ hours
   → Trending complaints requiring escalation: [list]

7. ACTION ITEMS:
   → Immediate (this week): [list specific actions with owners]
   → Short-term (next 2 weeks): [list actions]
   → Strategic (next quarter): [list actions]

MONTHLY TREND REPORT (additional sections):
  → 30-day sentiment trend analysis (chart)
  → SOV trend analysis (chart, 12-month rolling)
  → Top performing content by social engagement
  → Competitive landscape changes (new competitors, market shifts)
  → Industry trend analysis (emerging topics, technology shifts)
  → ROI analysis: social listening impact on business metrics

QUARTERLY STRATEGIC REPORT:
  → Full conversation landscape analysis
  → Brand perception trends (12-month)
  → Competitive positioning analysis
  → Content strategy recommendations based on conversation data
  → Crisis risk assessment
  → Budget and tool recommendations
```

## Edge Cases

- **Multi-brand portfolio companies**: Set up separate listening profiles for each brand; track cross-brand mentions ("[Brand A] vs [Brand B]"); maintain consolidated dashboard for enterprise view; allocate budget per brand based on revenue/conversation volume
- **Non-English markets**: Use translation-capable listening tools (Brandwatch, Meltwater, Talkwalker); set up native-language keyword lists with native-speaking team members; account for cultural context in sentiment analysis (some languages express negativity differently); monitor region-specific platforms (Weibo in China, LINE in Japan, VK in Russia)
- **High-volume brands** (2,000+ daily mentions): Filter aggressively with NLP and AI classification to avoid alert fatigue; use AI summarization for daily digest; focus on influential mentions (100+ engagements, media outlets, high-follower accounts); sample review for sentiment validation (5% manual review of AI-classified mentions)
- **Private communities** (Discord servers, Slack groups, niche forums, Facebook Groups): Use platform-specific APIs where available for monitoring; manual monitoring for closed groups; recruit community ambassadors for insights; use sentiment proxies from public discussions about private communities
- **Meme and viral content tracking**: Monitor image/video mentions, not just text; use reverse image search for brand logo misuse; track meme variants and remixes; set up alerts for high-engagement visual content
- **Review site monitoring** (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, Yelp, Glassdoor): These carry disproportionate weight in purchase decisions; monitor daily for new reviews; respond to all reviews within 48 hours; track review score trends and review volume; integrate review data into sentiment dashboard
- **Political/socially charged topics**: Set up monitoring for brand association with political events or social movements; prepare response protocols before crises emerge; monitor employee social media for brand alignment issues
- **M&A and competitive intelligence**: Monitor competitor M&A announcements, executive changes, product launches; track industry consolidation trends; set up alerts for competitor funding rounds and strategic partnerships

## Integration Points

- **Brandwatch Consumer Intelligence**: Enterprise social listening platform; AI-powered sentiment analysis; cross-platform monitoring (social, web, forums, reviews); custom reporting; $3,000-$15,000+/month
- **Sprout Social Listening**: Social listening + social media management; mention tracking; sentiment analysis; competitor comparison; custom reports; $249-$2,499/month
- **Hootsuite Insights (by Brandwatch)**: Social listening within Hootsuite ecosystem; keyword monitoring; sentiment tracking; competitor analysis; integrated with social media management
- **Talkwalker**: AI-powered social intelligence; image recognition; TV and broadcast monitoring; influencer identification; predictive analytics; $5,000-$25,000+/month
- **Meltwater**: Media and social monitoring; PR measurement; share of voice tracking; news monitoring; influencer database; $2,000-$10,000+/month
- **Brand24**: Real-time mention tracking; sentiment analysis; share of voice; influencer identification; crisis alerts; $79-$1,500+/month
- **Google Alerts**: Free basic mention tracking; email notifications; limited to web mentions (no social platforms); useful for low-budget monitoring
- **BuzzSumo**: Content and influencer discovery; keyword monitoring; content performance analysis; backlink tracking; $99-$499/month
- **Salesforce / HubSpot CRM**: Route social mentions to CRM records; trigger support tickets from negative mentions; track social-sourced leads and conversions
- **Slack / Microsoft Teams**: Real-time alert delivery to team channels; escalation notifications; integration with social listening tools for instant alerts