Brain Waves Blog

I had the most wonderful campus visit in November. Two members of a university leadership team invited me to speak with a group of stakeholders about social intelligence and Campus Sonar. The visit stood out to me because they followed some best practices to vetting and building a relationship with an expert partner. Here’s how to adopt their approach.

Perception is shaped by human feelings and opinions, and is dynamic in nature. Traditional research methods such as focus groups, interviews, surveys, and audience panels, often carry inherent biases and assumptions that impact the data collection process.

Monitoring and listening seem like the same thing, right? It can be hard to understand the difference between these two activities. You’ve probably even used the words interchangeably. We’re here to tell you there are critical differences between them; differences that prove monitoring alone is not enough. Once you start listening, you’ll realize the moments and opportunities you missed when you thought you were listening. 

Have you ever heard the saying “How do you eat an elephant?” 

One of the most challenging parts of being a social media manager is dealing with the negativity—the complaints, the problems, the criticisms.  

With social listening you collect the conversation as it happens, offering opportunities to understand what’s happening now so you can make changes for the future. But the real power comes with the ongoing analysis and context that allows you to better understand your baseline conversation and create personal benchmarks, track seasonal changes, evaluate the effects of crises, and measure the impact of new campaigns.