What exactly is the difference between social-media monitoring versus listening?

Social-media monitoring is just what it sounds like: You monitor or watch all of the activity about your brand on various social channels. Inspecting your activity can provide insights into relevant hashtags and industry trends, and it can help you determine how often and in what context people are mentioning your brand. Monitoring is critical for measurement, and it can help you improve return on investment through A/B testing and other tweaks to optimize your campaigns.

When you act on the data you've gathered via monitoring, however, you transition from "watching" to "listening." This involves assessing the mood of your customers and prospects and coming to some conclusions concerning what they feel about your brand. So it's more than just counting mentions, as you might when you're monitoring. Rather, it's about listening to what people are saying about your products, services, and decisions. It allows you to understand what people expect from your brand and to act accordingly.

For example, let's say you own a cafe, and someone tweets that he or she loved your coffee of the week. Then 100 other people "like" that post and comment that they wish you'd make it part of your regular lineup. If you're monitoring, you track the mentions. If you're listening, you change your menu as well.

Social listening is also employed to engage with your followers on social channels. When someone posts that he or she is having a problem with your e-commerce platform, for example, you direct message the person to offer assistance. Other examples of listening might include surprising and delighting your fans with discounts, coupons, and freebies through social media. Additionally, listening can help you head off public-relations disasters. If social sentiment about your brand is low, you could look for causes and address the roots before the issue becomes a PR nightmare.

Bottom line: Hope is not a strategy. You need a mix of both monitoring and listening to social signals in order to harness the power of the medium.