Social listening is the process of tracking the number of mentions and conversation content related to a topic, programme, or brand across social media platforms, blogs, news outlets, and other online sources. For social and behaviour change (SBC) projects, social listening can be an important tool to understand user beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours. Social listening and social media monitoring enable programmes to look at what is being said on social media, to analyse the content and sentiment behind the messages, including misinformation, and to use this information for programme design and adaptive management.

Social media monitoring is related to social listening and can be used to track a target audience's engagement with and reactions to shared messages related to a particular campaign, programme, or product. Monitoring online engagement allows programme managers to make decisions for adaptive management.

In this video, Danica Caiger-Smith, Insight Practice Manager at Catapult Energy Systems, explains what social listening is and shows some examples.