Social listening terms, explained.

Social Listening

Social listening is the practice of monitoring social media platforms, forums, and online communities for mentions of a brand, topic, or keyword in real time.

Brand Monitoring

Brand monitoring is the process of tracking all online mentions of a brand name, product, founders, or related keywords across social media, news sites, blogs, and forums.

Social Media Monitoring

Social media monitoring is the automated tracking of mentions, keywords, hashtags, and conversations across social platforms.

Mention Monitoring

Mention monitoring is the practice of tracking every instance that a specific term — a brand name, product, person, or topic — is referenced online.

Keyword Monitoring

Keyword monitoring is the automated tracking of specific words or phrases across online platforms to capture every mention of a topic.

Boolean Search

Boolean search is a type of search query that uses logical operators — AND, OR, NOT — to combine keywords and refine results.

Social Intelligence

Social intelligence is the practice of collecting, analyzing, and acting on data from social media and online communities to make better business decisions.

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a detailed description of the type of company or person most likely to buy your product, get value from it, and become a long-term customer.

Intent Monitoring

Intent monitoring is the practice of tracking online signals that indicate a potential buyer is actively researching, evaluating, or ready to purchase a product or service.

Buyer Intent

Buyer intent refers to the behavioral signals that indicate a prospect is actively considering making a purchase.

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a methodology for ranking prospects by their likelihood to convert.

Intent Data

Intent data is information that indicates a prospect's likelihood to purchase, based on their recent research and behavioral signals.

Demand Generation

Demand generation is the set of marketing activities aimed at creating awareness and interest in a product or service — building the pipeline of future buyers.

Social Selling

Social selling is the practice of using social media platforms to find, connect with, understand, and nurture sales prospects.

Reddit Prospecting

Reddit prospecting is the practice of finding potential customers within Reddit communities by monitoring posts for buying signals, product questions, and competitor mentions.

Community Selling

Community selling is a sales approach that focuses on participating genuinely in online communities (forums, subreddits, Slack groups, Discord servers) where your ideal customers spend time — building credibility, answering questions, and earning the right to pitch over time.

Outbound Sales

Outbound sales is the practice of proactively reaching out to potential customers who haven't yet expressed interest in your product.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is the use of natural language processing (NLP) to classify the emotional tone of text as positive, negative, or neutral.

Share of Voice

Share of voice (SOV) is a metric that measures your brand's presence in a market relative to competitors.

Dark Social

Dark social refers to social sharing that happens through private channels — direct messages, email, SMS, private Slack or Discord groups — which is untrackable by standard analytics tools.

Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence (CI) is the systematic process of gathering and analyzing information about competitors to inform business strategy.