Making the case for a social listening budget

Public sector budgets are tight across the board, and investing in a social listening tool can seem like a ‘nice to have’ rather than essential.

However, there are vast opportunities within social listening that are too good to pass up; to build trust, shape strategies that prioritise prevention, and deliver on many of public sector organisations’ strategic objectives.

And it’s not only a question of embracing the opportunities afforded by social media listening, but also what your organisation is exposed to without one. With misinformation and public crises on the rise, many organisations are left open to reputational damage and other harmful outcomes. 

While most comms and marketing teams are aware of its many benefits (52% of teams plan to focus on listening this year), we know that in the current climate it can be difficult to make the case for a social listening budget.

We’ve pulled together six of the most common questions posed by budget holders, and some pointers the help sell the value of having a social listening tool for your organisation with the people who have the final decision.

What is social listening? Is it the same as social media monitoring?

Social listening is the process of tapping into the public conversation around a particular topic or organisation across a variety of social media channels, blogs, forums and other online platforms. It therefore covers much more than just social media.

Social listening and monitoring are similar concepts, but there are key differences between them.

• Social media monitoring is more reactive, tracking brand keywords and mentions that may require a response.
• Listening is more proactive, taking a broader approach and focusing on opinions, deep insights, and trends.

Public trust and satisfaction is at an all-time low across nearly all UK public sector organisations. Trust in the UK government sits at about 30%, and satisfaction rates have fallen to 21% of people for local government, 23% for the police and 24% for the NHS. It has never been more important to engage deeply with communities in order to rebuild this lost trust. 

Of course, active listening lies at the heart of meaningful engagement. By tuning into communities’ concerns, interests and priorities, the leaders of public sector organisations can deepen their understanding of the people they serve and address their concerns more effectively. And by responding to communities’ feedback, public organisations are sending a clear message that they’re listening to them. Ultimately, this is the foundation for building trust. 

Social listening can be used by people working in public sector organisations to identify opportunities for authentic connection that would have otherwise been missed, and bridge the ‘disconnect’ between local communities and the public sector. 

There are countless opportunities for misinformation and disinformation to spiral out of control, facilitated by digital channels as well as more traditional word of mouth. So, naturally, this is an important focus area for many public sector organisations this year.

Results from a recent LinkedIn poll showed that 72% of people believe it’s now harder than ever to fight the spread of misinformation.

Social listening helps communications teams to easily spot misconceptions, false statements, and information gaps, and address them before they escalate.

During the 2024 riots in the North East, Northumbria Police’s comms team used social media listening to monitor the sentiment on each channel, identify false narratives, and to improve their crisis comms strategy for each platform.

Their approach bagged them a Golden Ele Award in 2024 for best use of social in crisis comms.

Social media listening can play a crucial role before and during a public crisis. Comms teams can get early visibility on an emerging situation and ‘catch’ it before it gains momentum. In this way, teams can sometimes resolve an issue before it has the chance to develop into a full-blown crisis. 

Unfortunately, some social media crises are inevitable and in this case social listening gives teams advance warning of the situation and allows them to prepare their response and allocate resources. Once the crisis is in full swing, organisations can track its development in real-time, monitor public sentiment, and assess the effectiveness of its crisis comms, and change tactics if necessary. 

Bear in mind that handling a crisis in a timely and effective manner not only limits the damage caused to individuals and to an organisation’s reputation, but it can further consolidate trust between the public sector and the communities it serves.

Absolutely. There’s a good reason why many public sector organisations prioritise prevention over intervention, as it leads to better outcomes for people and unlocks considerable savings.

In the healthcare industry alone, the average cost per year to achieve good health is £3,800 versus £13,500 once a health issue has been identified. 

Social listening offers a unique opportunity to understand how people feel about specific policies, campaigns and key issues. This allows communications teams to shape campaigns and messaging in a way that lands better with the right people.

To take an example from the healthcare sector, data about preventing smoking can be used to build a campaign that’s tailor-made for a specific demographic group – likely increasing its effectiveness. In the housing sector, listening data can be used to identify issues that need to be addressed before they escalate and become more expensive to fix.

Carrying out social media listening manually is possible, but it would involve a team member (or several) spending significant hours of daily tracking and searching for keywords, which is a costly use of precious resources in time-poor teams.

Most public sector organisations find it incredibly valuable to use a tool to automate and streamline the process of gathering information and analysing these large data sets.

Listening tools distill the relevant information into easy-to-digest reports, saving teams time sifting through irrelevant data and also providing a helpful resource for the entire organisation. 

Even when using a social media listening tool, it takes expertise to create and refine the keywords that will deliver enough relevant results, which is why Orlo’s Customer Success Managers are on hand to help organisations find that sweet spot.

So there you have it: six reasons why best-in-class public sector organisations view social listening as an essential tool for thriving in 2025.

It’s clear that social listening is critical for the entire organisation, beyond comms and marketing. It crosses into customer services, service delivery, community engagement, public affairs, and much more.

It enables organisations to keep their finger on the pulse of what people are saying in real time, identify trends and developing crises, and gain an insight into public opinions and behaviours.

By tapping into data from relevant communities, public sector organisations  have an opportunity to more effectively shape their campaigns in a way that will actually have impact and ultimately change behaviour, thus boosting effectiveness of prevention-focused strategies and reducing costs.

Put simply, social listening helps organisations to understand the people they serve better, which in turn improves relationships and builds trust. It has become a must-have tool that senior leaders cannot afford to ignore.