Nowadays, social media is expanding wider and quicker than ever before, not only as a communication tool between people, but also between companies and customers. With social listening, companies are getting better, stronger and more efficient in connecting with people and planning for their marketing campaigns. Regardless of all the success stories, some companies are not listening to social media, and they are missing a lot. The following top five companies have accomplished greater success after monitoring social media, which proves that social listening always wins.

Social Listening Success Story #1: Dell

Dell is an American multinational computer technology company that was founded in 1984 and headquartered in Texas, USA. It is privately owned and is considered one of the largest technological corporations in the world. In 2013, the company introduced its own Social Media Command Center. The center allowed employees to listen and respond to customers in 11 different languages. Beside the tool they used for social listening, they hired Subject Matter Experts, who built brand advocates and engaged with influencers, and facilitated Support Outreach Service with teams that engaged with more than 1000 customers per week. Here is how it helped the company improve its service and brand:

• After social listening, Dell got higher customer satisfaction, 35% of non-promoters became promoters.
• US: Twitter chatter influenced better brand reputation, and gave the company positive coverage in Mashable (digital media website) and Fast Company (American business magazine).
• Germany: Employees chatting through social media helped monitoring the success of internal conferences.
• China: blog posts directly affected the company’s coverage on prominent Chinese online platforms.

Social Listening Success Story #2: L’Oreal

L’Oreal is a French cosmetic and beauty company that was founded in 1909. In 2011, the company was deciding on three different colors to make a hair color product, but didn’t know which would be more popular. As a partner of Google, the company identified the market trends, and then went digging in different social networks including YouTube, for deeper customer insights. So, through social listening, the company was able to identify what people were looking for and to detect the issues and complaints that the potential-customers would struggle with. Based on the collected data, L’Oreal launched its product choosing one of the popular colors. Here is how they succeeded:

• The company had a successful product launch, and, accordingly, it gained new customers.
• It learned how to gather customer insights and find new trends to launch new products or to improve existing ones.

Social Listening Success Story #3: Barclays

Barclays is a British multinational banking and financial services company that was founded in 1690 and headquartered in London. In 2015, the company launched a mobile application called PingIt, which allowed users to transfer money using only their mobile phones. Few days later, and due to the social media buzz, they successfully drew insights that helped them eliminate negative feedbacks. Here is what they got from social listening:

• Teenagers (18 years old and younger) and their parents were angry for not being able to use the app. Within the week, nevertheless, 16 and 17 years old had access and could use the app.

Can’t wait to turn 16 just so I can get barclays pingit

— Caitlin Neill (@caitneillx) June 1, 2015

• People loved being able to check their account balance through the app, which made Barclays develop other apps for this specific feature.

Barclays Pingit is fantastic. I’m able to send payments within 5 seconds. Brilliant service.

— Sahar (@BitterxSweet_6) October 11, 2015

• Social listening helped them turn all negative sentiment into positive, and draw ideas from positive feedback for future products.

I’ve just made my debut using #Pingit. Quality experience. #Barclays pic.twitter.com/BGe6M8OVpH

— Ben Jones (@Benjamin_JJones) October 19, 2015

Social Listening Success Story #4: Toyota

Toyota is a Japanese automotive manufacturer that was founded in 1937, and headquartered in Toyota, Japan. In 2012, major car recalls upset people especially that the company announced them late. The company then used social media outreach to start a large “transparency,” and “apology” campaign. The feedback from the campaign and using the tools for social listening, helped them getting the following benefits:

• They got 10% fans growth between January and early March, through their four official Facebook pages.
• The company’s president and chief operating officer in the USA participated in a Twitter chat. As a result, people felt that the company cares.

Social Listening Success Story #5: Arby’s 

Arby’s was founded in 1964, and is considered to be the third-largest fast food sandwich chain in the US. Through social listening, however, Arby’s discovered how much people love their sauces and talk about them in social media, which encouraged them to start the “Saucepocalypse” campaign. By making several posters, the chain created stories about the terrible effect on people and how the world would end when their sauces disappear.

Nothing’s scarier than needing Arby’s Sauce & not having it. How far have you gone to get your fix? #Saucepocalypse pic.twitter.com/W3VpVqOjab

— Arby’s (@Arbys) October 19, 2013

The #Saucepocalypse is over. Arby’s Sauces are now available for purchase at your local Arby’s. Time to #SauceALot! pic.twitter.com/JQo6bs7WP6

— Arby’s (@Arbys) October 31, 2013

In another campaign, Arby’s created a poster of “Meat Mountain,” responding to people’s comments about types of meat other than the roast beef. People then thought that Arby’s was announcing a new sandwich of “Meat Mountain,” and expressed their fears about trying it. As a result, social listening encouraged Arby’s to launch the sandwich, as a new product added to their menu.

@jeffgerstmann @bradshoemaker @DanRyckert @Arbys I can’t believe it’s real. #MeatMountain pic.twitter.com/evF23VfSPX

— Steven Vliem (@xstevenvx) July 30, 2016

People are no longer believing in every ad or commercial a company airs about its brands, products or services. They trust other people’s experience and opinions about the company, and this encourages them to become customers, or to look away for another company. On the other hand, social listening is the leading trend in the marketing world today. People are deciding and choosing what they want, and accordingly, companies are obeying, and this is how successful companies work.

Featured image by: Freepik