25+ Social Listening Statistics
Check out the latest social media listening statistics here.
Lucy Kariuki
Contributing Writer @ Quorage
Social listening helps brands monitor what customers say about them, their products (or services), their competitors, and the industry. It uncovers consumers’ unmet needs, market gaps, and new opportunities businesses can seize to stay competitive.
This post rounds up the latest social listening statistics that every data analyst or social listening professional should know.
The State of Social Listening
1. The estimated size of the social listening market in 2024 is USD 8.44 billion and is expected to grow to USD 16.9 billion, growing at a CAGR of 13.90% between 2024 and 2029. The increased growth will be fueled by factors like companies spending more on social listening tools, government bodies adopting social media listening, brands incorporating social listening into their marketing strategies to stay competitive, and the increased use of social media.
2. As of Q1 2022, about 61% of businesses had a social listening system as part of their social media marketing strategy. Additionally, 82% considered social listening an important element in their companies’ strategic planning.
Social listening strategy
3. As of Q1 2023, 31.9% of companies stated that understanding consumers’ attitudes and opinions was their primary social listening objective. Below are the top objectives for analyzing social data cited by other organizations:
- Brand health tracking: 30.1%
- Competitive intelligence: 30.1%
- Brand strategy and positioning: 25.8%
- Campaign performance measurement: 22.1%
- Consumer trends detection: 20.9%
- Advertising or Media research: 20.3%
- Brand reporting: 19%
- Crisis management: 17.2%
- Consumer interests and affinities: 16%
- Market strategy and positioning: 16%
The above outcomes show a shift in the reasons why brands invested in social listening in 2022:
- For brand sentiment and reputation management: 35%
- For brand awareness: 24%
- To track industry trends: 20%
- For competitive analysis: 8%
- For campaign analysis: 7%
- For crisis management: 6%
4. As of Q1 2022, 78% of companies tracked mentions of their brand names. Other discussion elements that brands tracked included:
- Industry keywords: 60%
- Hashtags: 60%
- Relevant thought leaders: 48%
- Product mentions: 40%
- Employee mentions: 25%
Social listening data sources
5. In 2023, most professionals said they prefer collecting data from multiple sources. The most important data sources for social listening were:
- Instagram: 68.5%
- X (formerly Twitter): 53.5%
- Facebook: 51.2%
- TikTok: 50%
- LinkedIn: 39.5%
Other data sources included forums, review sites, mass media, and blogs, among others.
- Reddit: 39.5%
- Forums: 37.2%
- Media (newspapers): 32.6%
- Review sites: 26.7%
- Blogs/Articles: 22.1%
- YouTube: 18%
- Search data: 15.1%
- Podcasts: 12.8%
- Quora: 6.4%
- SnapChat: 6.4%
- Weibo: 5.8%
- Pinterest: 5.2%
- WeChat: 2.9%
- Others: 2.9%
6. In 2022, 70% of social listening professionals regarded review sites and forums as important data sources, with 70% saying that Reddit was a key source of social data.
The three best data sources, according to the respondents, were:
- X (formerly Twitter): 90%
- Instagram: 80%
- Facebook: 74%
7. In Q1 2023, here’s how social listening professionals selected the data sources to monitor:
- Depending on the current problem or question: 51%
- Conducting prior research and recommendations from their current social listening tool: 26.7%
- Guided by insights from the social listening tool used: 22.1%
Social listening tools
8. In Q1 2023, 51% of firms had spent between USD 50 – 199k on social listening technologies, while 23% spent USD 2.5 – 5 million.
9. In Q1 2022, 33.5% had invested more than USD 100k in their social listening tools stack, an increase of 10% since 2019.
10. In 2023, here’s the breakdown of the number of social listening tools companies had licenses for:
- 1 tool: 16.1%
- 2 tools: 27.6%
- 3 tools: 27.6%
- 4 tools: 12.6%
- 5 – 10 tools: 14.4%
- More than 10 tools: 1.7%
11. There was a slight shift in the usage of media listening tools from 2022, when 55% of organizations used three or two tools. Only 20% used one social listening tool (shows that few tools can meet all their needs)
12. 71.2% of social listening practitioners working in enterprise organizations cited data sources covered as the top feature they look for when choosing social listening tools. Other important features included:
- Data quality and relevance: 60.2%
- Data segmentation and categorization: 56.1%
- Machine learning and AI capabilities: 39.4%
- Geographic regions and languages covered: 36.4%
13. 63% of practitioners in all organizations cited data quality and relevance as the top feature considered when choosing social listening tools. Other features included:
- Data sources covered: 59.2%
- Audience analysis: 39.1%
- Data segmentation and categorization: 36.8%
- Data filtering and sorting: 32.6%
- API integrations: 29.3%
- Machine learning and AI capabilities: 28.2%
- Geographic regions and languages covered: 25.9%
- Sentiment analysis: 24.7%
- Data export: 24.1%
- Account management and support: 22.4%
- Automated reporting: 22.4%
- Alerts and notifications: 21.3%
- Emotional analysis: 18.4%
- Pricing: 17.8%
- Aftercare service: 11.5%
- Metrics tracked: 10.3%
- Data import: 9.2%
- Others: 2.3%
14. The most mentioned and used social listening tools in 2023 were:
- Brandwatch: 23%
- Sprinklr: 18%
- Talkwalker: 16%
- Meltwater: 11%
Other mentioned tools included:
- Netbase (Quid): 9%
- Audiense: 8%
- Radarly: 6%
- YouScan: 3%
- Pulsar: 2%
- Emplifi: 2%
- CrowdTangle: 2%
15. The most used social listening tools (for brands that only used one tool) in 2023 were:
- Sprinklr: 25%
- Talkwalker: 21.4%
- Brandwatch: 17.9%
- Meltwater: 17.9%
16. The most mentioned and used social listening tools in 2022 were:
- Sprinklr: 47.4%
- Brandwatch: 39.9%
- Talkwalker: 15.9%
Other mentioned social listening tools included:
- Quid (Netbase): 11.7%
- Audiense: 10.7%
- Meltwater: 8.9%
- Synthesio: 7.5%
- Own internal tools: 5.6%
- Linkfluence: 5.1%
- Social Studio: 4.7%
Future investments
17. As of Q1 2023, 46% of brands planned to prioritize investing in new data analysis technology.
18. 37% of brands were planning to invest in new social data analysis technologies in the next year, while less than 18.5% were planning to change their providers.
19. 26.5% considered developing in-house social listening technologies, an increase of over 20% since 2019.
20. 30% planned to invest in staff training and development, and 27% in hiring new professionals.
Social listening professionals (experience)
21. In Q1 2023, here are the years of experience for social listening professionals or data analysts:
- 10+ years: 24.9%
- 9-10 years: 6%
- 7-8 years: 11%
- 5-6 years: 19.6%
- 3-4 years: 27.9%
- 1-2 years: 5.5%
- Less than 1 year: 5.5%
22. In Q1 2022, the years of experience that social listening professionals or data analysts were as follows:
- 10+ years: 23.9%
- 9-10 years: 7.1%
- 7-8 years: 11.9%
- 5-6 years: 22%
- 3-4 years: 22.4%
- 1-3 years: 7.1%
- Less than 1 year: 5.6%
Social listening challenges
23. In 2023, 44.6% of in-house practitioners cited data accuracy and quality as their main social listening challenges. Budgetary issues (37.8%) and lack of integration with other data sources were the other top challenges.
24. As of Q1 2022, budgetary issues were the main social listening challenges for brands (at 38.7%) and agencies (at 37.6%). Data accuracy came in second for agencies, at 31.2%.Â
Impact of social media data and insights
25. 94% of business leaders acknowledged that social media data and insights helped build brand reputation and loyalty. Other benefits of social media data and insights included:
- Improving competitive positioning: 92%
- Gaining a better understanding of customers: 91%
- Predicting future trends: 89%
- Moving business forward with reduced budgets: 76%
26. 51% of companies constantly use social media data and insights in strategic planning, compared to 34% that often use this data and 14% that occasionally or never use these insights.
It is expected that more companies will use social media data and insights in strategic planning in the next three years.
27. 91% of company leaders agree that their company’s success will depend on how they effectively use social media data and insights to inform business strategies.
28. 93% of company executives agree that social media data and insights will be a key source of their company’s business intelligence.
29. Aspects of business strategies where companies use social media data and insights include:
- Customer service: 62%
- Brand awareness: 60%
- Market or industry insights: 53%
- Competitive analysis: 47%
- Campaign analysis: 44%
- Lead generation: 43%
- Product development: 42%
- Recruitment marketing: 42%
30. However, 70% of business leaders say that social media data and insights are underutilized and anticipate positive shifts in the next three years.
31. Additionaly, 95% of business leaders agree that companies should rely on social media data and insights to inform business decisions outside marketing.
32. 42% of business leaders say that limited access to social media data tools and lack of integration are the top challenges preventing them from effectively using social media data and insights to drive business decisions.
Other challenges included:
- Time limitations in analyzing social media data and insights: 39%
- Lack of qualified data analysts: 39%
- Limited access to social data: 35%
33. 53% of companies said they support social media data analysts by hiring additional staff to collect and analyze social media data and insights.
34. Here’s how other companies support in-house social media data analysts:
- Reorganizing existing staff to collect and analyze social media data: 47%
- Using a third-party platform in data collection and analysis: 47%
- Hiring external data consultants: 41%
- Nothing done: 3%
Conclusion
The social listening market has grown significantly since 2019 as more organizations incorporate social listening into their strategic plans. Most brands conduct social listening to understand consumers’ attitudes and opinions by tracking brand mentions. The social listening market is expected to grow further as more brands invest in social listening technologies and rely on social media data and insights to inform their business decisions.
Sources:
SproutSocial – State of Social Media 2023
The Social Intelligence Lab – State of Social Listening 2022
The Social Intelligence Lab – State of Social Listening 2023
