Social listening, or also known as social media monitoring, is a way to locate specific conversations happening online without having to seek them out individually. Knowing how to master social listening just may be your ticket to career success!
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You can thank the internet for placing an incredible amount of data at your fingertips. The only problem is that most of the information being thrown your way on a daily basis is a bunch of muddled, disorganized data that, oftentimes, becomes too overwhelming for a person to manage. Lucky for you, locating and organizing tweets, posts, articles, and conversations has become extremely easy with the new social media monitoring platforms available today.
In order to understand all the information coming through your social media news feeds, it’s important to find a way to filter, organize, and save the data you need and make it readily accessible. Here are a couple tips to help you begin “listening” and engaging in the conversations you need to be a part of online.
1. Hootsuite – This social media dashboard is allows users to manage and measure various social networks in one place. The way Hootsuite works is by allowing users to create various “streams” that display different social networks, keywords/hashtags, and relevant data (i.e. mentions, messages). Here’s a great article that provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up Hootsuite to conduct social listening across various social media platforms.
2. Google Alerts – If you don’t know about Google Alerts, then obviously that rock you’ve been living under must have been really nice. (We’re only kidding … sort of.) Google Alerts provides emails (as-it-happens, once a day, or once a week) with relevant news based on the queries that you input. What is this good for? Establishing Alerts helps people stay current on industry news, monitor brands online, locate online conversations that relate to their expertise, and so much more.
3. Social Mention – A fast, free, and robust way to search the entire web to find content pertaining to your search criteria (i.e. job postings, brands, etc). You can even opt in to receive daily email alerts, much like how Google Alerts works, so that you don’t have to do anything but check your inbox to see the latest news for your precise topics. Social Mention may not be the most comprehensive social listening tool, but it is a great way to pull a bunch of specified information from across the web with the click of a button.
For job seekers, a great way to find current openings online is through keyword or hasthtag searches. With the advent of hashtags, data online has become more searchable and organized than every before, so definitely consider all the hashtags being used by hiring managers and search away. Need some help with popular hashtags to search on social media? Get some ideas here and here.
Professionals who are currently employed can use social listening in a slightly different way – to enhance their industry knowledge and networks. Keeping up with industry leaders and top-influencers is a great way to have relevant news find you, rather than you having to hunt it down – and it’s, literally, a “like” or “follow” click away.
LinkedIn is the number one social site that recruiters use to find candidates online, so you will want to guarantee to keyword-optimize your LinkedIn profile to ensure that hiring managers don’t unknowingly pass you up.
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How else are you using social listening to boost your career? Share your thoughts on Twitter or in the comments section below.
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