In the world of B2B marketing, social listening often sits in the shadow of its more glamorous cousin, social media monitoring. While monitoring keeps an eye on likes, shares and mentions, social listening digs deeper, tracking sentiment, trends and conversations that reveal what your audience really cares about. For B2B companies, this isn’t just a “nice-to-have” – it’s a critical tool for driving effective marketing strategies and improving results across the board.
But what makes social listening so powerful for B2B businesses and how can it be integrated into your content marketing strategy? Let’s look at what it is, how it works and why it should be an integral part of your approach.
What is B2B social listening?
Social listening is the practice of tracking online conversations and analysing them to gain insights into customer behaviours, preferences and challenges. In a B2B context, this means going beyond customer feedback to uncover opportunities in industry chatter, competitor activities and even broader market trends.
Now, before we start digging deeper into today’s topic, let’s tackle one of the biggest misconceptions about B2B conversations. Many marketers seem to think that, unlike B2C, where customer sentiment is often voiced loudly, B2B conversations are less visible, often occurring in niche spaces such as LinkedIn groups, industry forums or the comment sections of webinars.
While there is a certain element of truth in this, especially for very niche industries, the reality is that B2B audiences are most definitely talking: you just have to know where and how to listen.
The business case for B2B social listening
I’m a firm believer that social listening and content marketing go hand in hand. The insights gathered from listening can transform your content from generic to razor-sharp, ensuring it tackles real problems and resonates with your audience. This is how:
- Creating audience-focused content: By understanding the topics and challenges dominating industry conversations, you can tailor your content to address them. For example, if a particular regulatory change is causing a stir, writing a guide or analysis can position your brand as a helpful resource.
- Identifying content gaps: Social listening tools can highlight questions or topics that your competitors haven’t addressed. By filling these gaps, you can position your business as a thought leader and win valuable traffic.
- Real-time relevance: Social listening enables you to respond quickly to trending topics or events. For instance, if an industry conference sparks debate, publishing a timely blog or LinkedIn post can boost visibility and engagement.
- Refining existing content: Feedback gathered from social listening can also help you improve underperforming content. If a particular piece hasn’t resonated, analysing audience sentiment can reveal why and what needs to change.
- Benchmarking competitors: Social listening is also a valuable way to keep tabs on competitors. What’s resonating with their audience? What’s falling flat? These insights can help fine-tune your own strategies.
Despite all the clear benefits above, it’s been reported that social listening is a tactic that’s still struggling to demonstrate its value and, as a result, is often overlooked. Having worked in content for over 15 years, I have to admit this is very surprising to see. Any marketer worth their salt will tell you that the more audience insights you can get your hands on the better. So I’m not quite sure why so many are still reluctant to turn to social platforms to better understand their customers, alongside other data points such as search data, analytics and market research. Perhaps it’s because of lack of time? Social platforms still not being taken seriously in B2B? Or a poor understanding of how to research or use the data?
Let me show you a few examples of how to go from conversations to content marketing intelligence.
Three examples of how to feed social listening insights into your B2B content strategy
Hotel booking frustrations on Reddit
Business: Company offering software for booking and customer experience management in hotels
Target audience: Hoteliers
Reddit is one of my favourite platforms to use for content ideation and it hosts a huge amount of travel related subreddits. After some research to find the best subreddit and recent popular posts related to “hotel booking frustrations”, I landed on this discussion.
It quickly became clear that travellers have diverse booking habits, ranging from spontaneous reservations to meticulous planning, often influenced by destination, season and personal preferences. As a result, hoteliers need flexible, user-friendly software that supports dynamic pricing, personalised experiences and seamless communication to meet these varied needs and enhance the guest experience.
If I was putting together a content strategy for the software company, I would make sure I focused on the following themes:
- How the software supports flexible booking windows and manages inventory dynamically
- Showcase features like surge pricing, automated reminders or dynamic inventory updates to handle peak seasons effectively
- How the software enables personalisation, such as customising room options or offering tailored promotions
- How the platform reduces booking errors and provides real-time availability to reassure guests
Environmental concerns on YouTube
Business: Wholesale distribution company for eco-friendly packaging
Target audience: Beauty retail buyers
Here’s another example showing how monitoring comments on a popular YouTube video on sustainable packaging can help an eco-friendly packaging company with their content strategy.
All I’ve done here is find a good quality post on the subject (let recency, views and number of comments guide you on this) and exported the comments using this free tool.
A quick analysis of the data shows that consumers feel frustrated by current refill models, showing skepticism towards greenwashing and calling for better design and recyclability. So how would this feed into our content strategy targeting retail buyers? Potential content angles include:
- Educating on how our packaging avoids the pitfalls of “bottle in a bottle” designs
- Highlighting recyclability, compostability or innovative materials used in our products
- Sharing the cost-efficiency of your refill models, emphasising value for eco-conscious consumers
- Addressing myths about refill pouches and their environmental impact, providing transparency on your materials and processes
These insights could guide blog posts, social content and broader campaigns to address audience concerns and position our brand as a leader in sustainable packaging.
Tax chat on Instagram
Business: Accountancy firm
Target audience: Small business owners
As a final example, let’s take a look at an easy way to use social listening in the professional services sector. Tax chat is huge on social media and it isn’t hard to find several accountancy content creators with a large following on Instagram. Seeing what topics are generating the most engagement is of course highly beneficial for your content ideation. But if you want to go the extra mile, it’s often the details that the audience wants to know more about that will help you create content that will stand out.
With over 1,500 likes and over 120 shares, this reel about income tax has generated a good amount of engagement. Exporting the comments allows me to clearly see that there are some recurring themes such as questions on the impact of corporation tax on dividends and interest in the tax advantages of contributing to pensions versus dividends. The overall feedback indicates a strong demand for more comprehensive, clear and accurate financial guidance tailored to small business owners, international operators and those seeking to optimise tax strategies.
This is pure gold. As the accountancy firm’s content strategist, this would provide me with plenty of ideas on how to address misconceptions around taxation, provide actionable advice and break down complex topics with visuals or real-life examples.
While these are some basic yet effective examples to get you started, I’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of what’s possible. As you get more comfortable with social listening and the wide variety of tools and tactics available (including GenAI for time-saving), the real fun starts when you start feeding different pieces of analysis coming from a range of sources into your strategy, which is what I tend to do when working for my clients here at Hallam. It’s without a doubt one of my favourite parts of my job.
Overcoming common challenges in B2B social listening
While the benefits are clear, I have to admit that implementing social listening in a B2B context can sometimes come with its challenges, including:
- Limited conversations: Unlike B2C, where social media is often buzzing with customer feedback, B2B conversations can be harder to find, especially in niche industries. This is where industry-specific websites become invaluable. Think, for example, of review sites such as G2 or Capterra for the SaaS market.
- Data overload: The sheer volume of data generated can be overwhelming. Social listening software can help filter the noise and gen-AI tools such as ChatGPT can be extremely helpful at summarising insights, focusing on the conversations that matter most to your business.
- Linking insights to outcomes: Connecting social listening insights to measurable business outcomes can often be one of the biggest hurdles for brands. But whether it’s improving lead quality or boosting brand awareness, there are plenty of metrics that you can keep your eyes on, as we’ll see shortly.
How to implement a B2B social listening strategy
For brands ready to get started, here’s a step-by-step guide to implementing social listening:
- Set clear objectives: Define what you want to achieve, whether it’s identifying content opportunities, improving customer service or tracking competitor activity.
- Choose the right tools: Platforms like Brandwatch and Sprout Social offer robust capabilities for tracking and analysing conversations. If budget doesn’t allow, there is still a lot of digging that you can do for free as I demonstrated in my previous examples.
- Analyse the data: Once you’ve gathered insights, look for patterns and actionable takeaways. For instance, are there recurring complaints about a competitor’s service? Questions that are being asked over and over? Is there a trending topic your audience is particularly engaged with?
- Take action: Use the insights to inform your strategies, whether that’s refining your messaging and FAQs, creating a content series or optimising existing landing pages.
I’m aware that some marketers see social listening as a drain on resources, particularly for mid-sized businesses with limited budgets. However, I genuinely believe that starting small and focusing on key objectives can bring significant returns without overloading your team.
Measuring the impact of social listening
Measuring the impact of B2B social listening on content involves both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Here’s how to get started:
Track content performance metrics
- Engagement rates: Monitor likes, shares, comments, and click-through rates on content inspired by social listening insights
- Traffic sources: Use GA4 and Google Search Console to assess where traffic is coming from and organic performance
- Conversion metrics: Track how content leads to conversions, whether that’s newsletter sign-ups, inquiries or sales
Content relevance
- Share of voice: Analyse how often your brand or content is mentioned in conversations compared to competitors
- Share of model: Track your brand’s overall ‘visibility’ on GenAI platforms such as ChatGPT
- Keyword trends: Assess if the keywords or topics derived from social listening align with emerging trends and if those trends are reflected in increased engagement
Feedback analysis
- Community sentiment: Use social listening tools to detect shifts in how your brand or content is perceived by your audience.
- Direct feedback: Track qualitative feedback through comments, messages, or surveys that reference how useful or relevant your content is
- Sentiment analysis: Look at sentiment changes in conversations before and after posting content informed by social listening
Lead quality and volume
- Lead tracking: Measure the quality and quantity of leads generated from campaigns or pieces of content informed by social listening
- Sales metrics: Track how insights have influenced customer interest and contributed to the sales pipeline
Why B2B social listening is essential for future-proofing your content strategy
From the effects of GenAI to evolving customer expectations, the ability to stay ahead of the curve as content marketers is more important than ever.
Social listening is a practical, results-driven approach to improving B2B marketing performance. By tuning into the right conversations, brands can uncover valuable insights, refine their strategies and build stronger connections with their audience.
Utilise social listening in your own strategy
If you’d like to find out more about how to use social listening for business and make your content work harder, please get in touch.
