Discover how implementing social listening tools and building a digital community can help shape your health and wellness brand and drive more sales.

Why Social Listening Helps Shape Health & Wellness Brands

Why Social Listening & Digital Communities are Critical to Shaping Health & Wellness Brands

In just the last two years, the global wellness market has grown by 12.8% to become an over $4.2 trillion dollar industry. <a href="https://www.linkfluence.com/blog/health-and-wellness-social-media">Researchers</a> point to more people working longer (nights, weekends) and playing harder (drinking, dining out), with 3 out of 4 adults expressing feelings of being “overwhelmed” or “unable to cope” – and this study was all done before the start of the global pandemic. So it’s no wonder that hashtags like #selfcare and #wellness now inundate Instagram and online searches around improving our mental and physical wellbeing are only increasing. For <a href="https://cms.union.co/industries/health-wellness">health and wellness brands</a> looking to capitalize on these trends, it’s essential to not simply base marketing strategies or product development on assumptions – data is crucial at every stage. 
By leveraging social listening tools, you can pull data across social channels that will not only help you better understand your consumers but also empower your brand to create its own digital communities to build credibility and drive sales.

Unlike social monitoring, where a brand simply keeps track of brand mentions and direct conversations, social listening tools delve deeper, analyzing the conversations and trends around your industry as a whole. Social listening, and the data collected from it, can help brands address those crucial 3 Ws – who is talking about your business, what is the context of those conversations and where are they taking place?
But how do health and wellness brands begin to find these answers? By looking to the power of the latest social listening tools. 
Infegy, a prominent SaaS data analytics company, <a href="https://blog.infegy.com/healthy-lifestyles-report-social-insights-reveal-health-and-wellness-audience-segments">outlined the process</a> they used to create a social listening report for the health and wellness sector, beginning with custom-built consumer segments. “We arrived at four key audience segments based upon our research of the market,” says Derek Franks, Content Manager &amp; Strategist at Infegy. “Casual Dieters, Fitness Fanatics, Whole Wellness Body Gurus and Organic Consumers… Then we analyzed who they are, what they want, how they feel, and what their buying and consumption habits are.” 
These audiences were the result of data pulled from the sprawling universe of consumer-created conversations online, looking at specific topics within that audience. “For example, the Whole Body Guru consumer segment was built by analyzing the millions upon millions of people talking about meditation and self-care,” explains Franks. “The Casual Dieter persona was made by using people who talked about counting calories or talking about specific diet plans.”
Through identifying factors found on users’ online profiles, their report was able to generate a breakdown of various health &amp; wellness consumer segments by important variables such as age and gender, leading to remarkable insights. 
Franks says, “You might be surprised to see that paleo (often marketed as a ‘caveman’ kind of diet) is most discussed by females. Equally surprising is that the largest share of male voice centers around the vegan diet.” These relevant, real-time insights can be invaluable to brands looking to build out highly-targeted campaigns that will actually resonate with real audiences having real conversations online –– as opposed to simply broadcasting out to a perceived, if not incorrect, audience. But not all social listening tools are created equal, and translating data into effective campaigns requires more than just a report. That’s why it’s important to partner with a performance marketing agency that has the experience and existing relationships with proven tools to turn that decisive data into decisive campaigns.

What social listening can reveal about health &amp; wellness consumer segments

Recent <a href="https://www.linkfluence.com/blog/health-and-wellness-social-media">social data estimates</a> that over 5.26 billion social media accounts have been exposed at one time to wellness-focused conversations and that growth is only expected to continue beyond 2020. However, the challenge faced by so many users in this expanding space is the lonely and frustrating experience of struggling to find the advice they need from credible sources. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have grown so massive that moderating discussions and rewarding valuable information has become practically impossible. This is where the power of digital communities can be a win for both consumers and the brands that create them. As a brand with the latest <a href="https://cms.union.co/services/data-brand-strategy/research-insights">data and insights</a> from social listening to inform your <a href="https://cms.union.co/services/data-brand-strategy/brand-identity-messaging">persona creation and messaging</a>, you can then unite users under a common purpose and create a goal-driven community on your branded channels that foster conversation and encourage support – earning brand credibility and expanding your reach with intent-driven consumers. This approach can prove a lot more rewarding than just relying on mainstream social media to reach users, where false information and disparate dialogue can hamper your marketing efforts. Additionally, the insights you yield from the conversations within your own digital communities will help you to continuously improve your offerings and lead to a more engaging customer-centric experience. Which translates to increased customer satisfaction and greater brand loyalty.

How digital communities increase customer satisfaction

Growing your brand, first and foremost, starts with having something of genuine value to offer. Then it’s a matter of identifying your audience, engaging with them, then building credibility and authority by making that value as accessible as possible. This will increase your reach and, in turn, increase your profitability. As the data suggests, health and wellness will continue to be a mega-trend as more people aspire to live a more balanced life. Through social listening and digital communities, there are now more and more opportunities to provide the right information, services and products to those looking for it. As a performance marketing agency, Union utilizes powerful social listening tools to inform strategy and creative, ensuring that the campaigns we work on maximize their marketing spend, bringing long-term growth and wins for our partners. <a href="https://union.co/contact">Contact us</a> if you’re interested in leveraging the latest in data for your brand’s next project.

Optimize your next health &amp; wellness campaign with social listening

Union is a creative &amp; performance marketing agency that creates omni-channel campaigns, unleashing creativity on a data-driven world, helping brands produce memorable, measurable and repeatable results. Obsessed with data-driven performance, we believe every marketing dollar should be viewed as an investment. Our clients expect a meaningful return and we prove the ROI of our work with quantifiable data.