Social Listening Research
A UK social listening agency: hear what consumers are saying about your market, your brand and your competitors
What is social listening research?
Social listening research analyses what people say about a brand, category or competitor across social media, reviews and forums, and turns it into measured insight on sentiment, themes and share of voice. Vision One combines social listening with survey-based brand tracking research, so online conversation is read against what the wider market actually thinks.
Social listening is the ability to track keywords, phrases and conversations across multiple platforms and to analyse the results into insight that informs action. Counting mentions is social monitoring. Listening includes the mood of the message: how people feel about you, your competitors and the topics you follow.
What is social listening in marketing?
For marketing teams it is the fastest read on how customers talk about the category, what they praise or complain about, how a campaign landed and where the unmet needs sit. Once a listening programme is in place it produces data the whole business can use, from customer service to product and positioning.
Why Vision One
Award-Winning Agency
Best Market Research Agency 2021
How to use social listening: reputation, competitors, marketing and B2B
Reputation
Social listening shows the gap between the experience your brand provides and the reputation it holds. Tracking the conversation means you see when reputation starts to turn, where it is coming from and what to fix, before it reaches the survey numbers.
Competitor Analysis
Track and benchmark against direct competitors and the up-and-comers in your market. Listening shows where they fall short, from customer service to the product itself: late deliveries, pricing complaints, praise for a feature you lack, and the share of category conversation each brand holds.
Social listening marketing
Hear the response to a campaign as it happens, not weeks later. Listening shows which messages are repeated, which fall flat, and the tone and language customers use, so content and creative can be shaped around what resonates.
B2B social listening
B2B conversations are smaller and more specialist, so analysis matters more than volume. As a B2B social listening agency we track the forums, professional networks, review platforms and trade media where buyers and influencers talk, and pair it with decision-maker brand tracking.
What does a social listening agency deliver?
Social listening services from Vision One cover the set-up, the analysis and the reporting, scoped to the brands, competitors and markets you need to hear.
Every programme is run by researchers rather than left to a tool, so you get a read on the conversation, not a count of mentions.
Listen, measure, act.
Scope and keyword set
Brand, competitor and category terms, hashtags, phrases and even emojis, agreed before listening starts and reviewed as the conversation changes.
Platform and market coverage
Social networks, video platforms, review sites, forums, blogs and news comment threads, UK-wide or by country and region.
Sentiment and theme analysis
The mood of the message and the topics behind it, coded by researchers so that sarcasm, slang and context are read correctly.
Share of voice and competitor benchmarks
How much of the category conversation each brand holds, how it is changing and what is driving the shift.
Alerts and dashboards
Spikes in volume or negative sentiment flagged as they happen, with a live dashboard for the team between reports.
Reports read against the tracker
Findings reported alongside survey-based brand awareness tracking and brand health measures, so you know whether online noise changed what the market thinks.
What can social media listening research tell you that surveys cannot?
Social listening lets a business hear what consumers are talking about, how they feel and think, and what they need, in their own words and at the moment it happens. Nobody is prompted, so it picks up topics a questionnaire would never ask about, and it runs every day rather than wave by wave.
Context is everything. Our knowledge lets us add the specific conversations, phrases and even emojis that matter in your category, so the listening reflects how people actually talk. Done well, the team can craft messages and tones that resonate, and make decisions that improve engagement and sales with confidence.
What it cannot do is tell you what the whole market thinks. People who post are a vocal minority, so Vision One reads social listening against a representative brand tracker. For the ideas behind word of mouth and why conversation spreads, check out the book Contagious by Jonah Berger.
Meet our brand experts
How does social listening fit brand tracking and brand monitoring?
Social listening is the monitoring half and brand tracking is the measurement half. Vision One runs both, so you get one view instead of two arguments.
Brand tracking research
A survey-based tracker, run through our BrandVision framework, measures awareness, consideration, usage and the Brand Equity Score among a representative sample, wave by wave.
Brand monitoring and reputation
Social listening is how we run brand monitoring: a continuous read of mentions, sentiment and reputation risk between survey waves, with alerts when something spikes.
Brand awareness and brand health
Listening explains the moves in awareness and the eight brand health image attributes; the tracker confirms whether the market actually changed.
Social listening vs social monitoring: monitoring counts the mentions; listening reads the mood behind them and turns it into insight.
Social listening and insights for UK brands: London, Leeds, Liverpool and nationwide
Social listening is not tied to an office. Our teams in London, Liverpool and Leeds run programmes for brands across the UK and Ireland, from Glasgow and Belfast to Manchester, Birmingham, Cambridge and Oxford, and in other markets where your customers talk.
- UK-wide listening with regional reads where the data allows: Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and the English regions
- Consumer, retail, travel, financial services and B2B brands, local and national
- Multi-market and multi-language listening for international brands
- A fixed quote agreed before work begins
On its own, social listening is scoped and quoted fixed. As part of a brand tracking programme, studies start from £8,000. Download the brand tracking guide for the questions, sample sizes and reporting to expect.
Latest client testimonials
Salcombe Gin (Alcoholic Drinks)
Vision One were excellent to work with throughout the process. They understood our brand and its needs and took on feedback to make changes where necessary. We’re very happy with the level of insight gained.
Silentnight (Beds, Mattresses and Sleep)
Vision One’s BrandVision has given us new and powerful insights – helping us understand our brand health and shape our strategic decisions going forward.
Vision One were an absolute pleasure to work with and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a strategic thinking market research agency. They had great client relations, they bought creative ideas to the table, and delivered on the strategic insight we needed.
I just want to say thank you so much for the brilliant presentation yesterday. The work you’ve done has really hit home, which will make a massive difference to our work. We’re really grateful!
They are methodical in their approach, always looking for the best way to approach a particular area, and genuinely go the extra mile for their clients. I have recommended them to other businesses seeking their expertise
From enquiring about our research project they sought to really understand our questions and needs. Results were delivered really quickly, managers were friendly, professional & always on hand.
I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Vision One. They are very helpful, knowledgeable and approachable. I would definitely recommend their services.
Social listening research FAQs
Social listening research tracks keywords, phrases and conversations about a brand, category or competitor across social media, review sites and forums, then analyses them for sentiment, themes and share of voice. The difference from a mention count is the analysis: researchers read the mood of the message and what it means for the brand, and report it alongside survey data.
Social monitoring counts: mentions, engagement, posts and shares. Social listening adds the mood of the message, how people feel about you, your competitors and the topics you track, and why. Monitoring tells you how often you were mentioned; listening tells you what to do about it. Most brands need both, with listening feeding the brand tracker.
Coverage is agreed at scoping and typically includes the major social networks, video platforms, review sites, forums, blogs and news comment threads, in the UK or by market. We add the specific conversations, phrases, hashtags and even emojis that matter in your category, so the listening picks up how people actually talk rather than only the brand name.
Organisations parBrand tracking measures what the whole market thinks through a representative survey, wave by wave. Social listening reads what people say online between those waves. Vision One runs both, so a spike in conversation is checked against awareness, consideration and the Brand Equity Score, and you learn whether the noise moved the market or stayed within a vocal minority.
In marketing, social listening is used to understand what customers talk about, how they feel and what they need, then to shape messages, tone and content that resonate. It also tracks campaign response, spots service problems early and finds unmet needs and new opportunities in the category conversation. Done well, it gives the team the confidence to make decisions that improve engagement and sales.
Cost depends on scope: the number of brands and competitors tracked, the platforms and markets covered, the period, and how often you want reporting and alerts. Vision One quotes social listening as a fixed price before work begins, on its own or as part of a brand tracking programme, where studies start from £8,000. Send us your brief for a quotation.
Here are the addresses for some of the UK’s top market research companies in London, specialising in full-service research
- Vision One Research – 85-87 Bayham Street, Camden, London, NE1 0AG
- Brandspeak – 1st Floor, London, W8 6SN
- Ipsos – 3 Thomas More St, London, E1W 1YW
- Savanta – 60 Great Portland St, London, W1W 7RT
- System1 – 52 Bedford Row Holborn, London, WC1R 4LR
- Kantar – 30 Stamford St, London, SE1 9LQ
- B2B International – 10 Triton St, London, NW1 3BF
A social listening agency sets up the keyword and platform scope, runs the listening, codes sentiment and themes, benchmarks share of voice against competitors and reports what the conversation means for the brand. Vision One adds the research layer: findings are read against survey-based brand tracking, so recommendations rest on the market, not only on the people who post.
Yes. B2B social listening focuses on the channels where buyers and influencers talk: professional networks, trade forums, review platforms, industry press and events, as well as the open social networks. Volumes are lower than in consumer markets, so analysis matters more than counting. It is often paired with B2B brand tracking among decision-makers to measure awareness and consideration directly.
Start with the decisions the listening should inform, then define the brands, competitors and category terms to track, the platforms and markets, and who acts on alerts. Agree the metrics (volume, sentiment, themes, share of voice), the reporting rhythm and how findings feed the brand tracker. Review the keyword set every quarter, because the way people talk about a category changes.
Look for research credentials rather than software alone. Vision One is an MRS Company Partner, works to ISO 20252:2012, was named Best Market Research Agency by The Drum, and is a Clutch Champion 2025 and Greenbook Recommended agency, rated 9.4 out of 10 by UK research buyers. Our social listening is run by brand researchers and reported alongside brand tracking.
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