Why social listening is better than doing surveys?

Every time I see a report on how a company conducted comprehensive surveys, it always mirrors findings from social listening. The latest is Lycored in their recent press release about consumers being concerned about Vitamin D defeciencies.

Lycored surveyed 500 consumers across 3 countries to get the same result to learn that there is an increase in concern about Vitamin D deficiencies, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and prolonged period of quarantines.

The thing is, simply comparing social media chatter from Sep 2019 and Sep 2020 shows an increase of 181%. I assure you, the social listening costs were a fraction of the surveys conducted.

Let's look at the costs of conducting a survey then, shall we? The following numbers are based off the article:

• Phone. $40 per interview ($5-15k)
• Mail. $5k to $7k for 200 responses
• E-mail. $3,000-$5,000

I'm not suggesting that social listening so is always a better alternative to surveys. There are appropriate times to apply each market research tool, but I am saying that if the purpose of the survey is to get an indication of where trends are, or consumer sentiments.. social media listening is far superior a tool.

It's not that it's a cheaper option for the same result. That's not why social listening is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. It's because you can check in with your consumer at a much higher frequency at the fraction of the cost.