People are saying what?!
Before spending big bucks on social media listening tools, tourism brands can use free methods to discover what people are saying online.
Social media listening is essential for all brands, especially tourism brands. If you don’t know what your customers say about you online, how can you expect to understand them and provide a service, product, or experience they want? You simply should know when people are talking about you online.
More importantly, however, you must know when people say negative things about you online.
Negative reviews and comments can devastate tourism brands, especially when not addressed. Recommendations play a critical role in people’s decision-making.
When was the last time you picked a holiday destination or booked accommodation without seeing what others had to say? Exactly.
So, can you listen to what is being said about your online tourism brand without blowing your budget on listening tools?
Here are five free ways for tourism brands to listen in.
1. Manage Your Push Notifications
There is no third-party app or program here. One of the easiest things you can do to ensure you’re not missing anything your community is doing or saying about your brand is to ensure your notification settings are set up correctly.
You may not want push notifications enabled for your personal account, but push notifications are crucial for business accounts.
What are push notifications? Simply put, a push notification is a message that pops up on a mobile device. If you’re active on social media, you’ve almost certainly been asked to allow push notifications at some stage.
Push notifications look and act like text messages, meaning you don’t need to open an app to receive them; they simply pop up, overlaid on your device’s screen.
If you haven’t already, go into your app’s settings and enable push notifications. These notifications are incredibly valuable as listening tools, especially if you’re out and about regularly. All social media apps have push notifications, but you’re most likely to get the most significant benefit from Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Bonus: Don’t ignore native analytics tools
Whether it’s Facebook, TikTok, or LinkedIn, all social media platforms have built-in analytics listening tools. For example, Meta Business Suite is a feature-rich platform that offers more data than we can list. Before you hand over your hard-earned marketing budget, look and see what these tools can tell you about your brand.
2. Google Alerts
If you haven’t set up Google Alerts for your brand or business yet, you absolutely should. Google Alerts is a free-to-use content change detection and notification service. All you have to do is choose a search term (i.e. your brand name), and Google alerts will send you emails whenever it finds new results from web pages, newspaper articles, blogs, scientific research, and more.
3. Boardreader
Boardreader lives up to its name by scanning through message boards and discussion panels to uncover conversations about you and your brand in the challenging realm of comment sections. These areas can be difficult to navigate, but commenters often express more candid opinions than social media posters. It’s essential to be resilient and prepared for potentially stronger language before delving into this aspect of online feedback.
4. Google Trends
Google Trends monitors global search activity, uncovering the subjects people are searching for and the motivations driving their inquiries. Through dynamic visualisations, you gain immediate insights into trending topics. At the same time, in-depth data analysis enables the discovery of subtle trends that could shape your content creation, product development, or broader marketing strategies.
5. Fedica
In addition to monitoring hashtags and keywords, Fedica ensures you stay informed with prompt email notifications for brand mentions and keyword alerts. It also presents opportunities for lead generation and gauging reach. Geo-targeted trending topics provide valuable insights for tailoring your content to specific locations. Moreover, you can gain a competitive advantage by analysing your competitors’ followers and identifying profitable niches by thoroughly examining lists, accounts, or discussions.
Paid Social Media Listening Tools
Before spending significant money on third-party social media listening tools, we recommend trying all of the free options first. This will help you get familiar with social listening, save money, and help you work out if your brand or business needs to pay for a social media listening tool.
However, if you are keen to try a few paid listening tools, here are some of the best on the market:
These options are feature-rich tools, but those features come at a premium. If you are considering handing over your hard-earned cash for a social media listening tool, research and find the right tool for your brand and what you’re trying to achieve.
Final thoughts
Social media listening is simply something your brand needs to do. That said, there’s definitely no one-size-fits-all approach to it. Whether you’re interested in a free tool or a paid option, it’s essential to research and decide which platform offers the features that suit your needs.
If you decide to go down the paid route, most platforms offer trials that let you test the fit before committing.
