# What is social listening?

> Social listening is the ongoing collection and analysis of public online discussion about a person, brand or event, to catch negative stories early, see how they spread and give the response something to stand on.

- URL: https://www.mvpdata.net/en/glossary/social-listening
- Updated: 2026-09-30
- Also known as: Media monitoring, Reputation monitoring, 舆情监测
- 简体中文: https://www.mvpdata.net/glossary/social-listening

Social listening follows public discussion: who is talking about a person, a brand or an event, where, in what tone, and how the talk spreads. In Chinese it is 舆情监测 (yúqíng jiāncè).

## What does social listening involve?

- **A keyword list**: the person's name, the names they are known by, company names, common misspellings and homophones, and related people and events.
- **Alerts**: a warning when negative content passes a threshold set in advance.
- **Tracing the spread**: finding where a story started and who carried it, to decide whether to respond, complain to the platform or take legal steps.
- **Review**: a record afterwards of the timeline, what was done and what happened.

## Which monitoring systems are there in China?

Each in the vendor's own words:

- Zhiwei Shijian keeps an event library and an event ranking that shows each event's heat and its share of public discussion;[^1]
- Baidu AI Cloud's public-opinion service offers a data-subscription API for creating and querying real-time monitoring tasks and for opinion analysis;[^2]
- Newrank's social listening product monitors a brand's volume on social media and its positive and negative mentions.[^3]

## Further reading

- Monitoring and crisis response in a long-term engagement: [Reputation & risk](https://www.mvpdata.net/en/services/protection)

## Related terms

- [What is a head influencer?](https://www.mvpdata.net/en/glossary/top-ip): A head influencer is a creator or public figure whose influence and commercial value rank at the head of their field or platform, in the Chinese industry's head, waist and tail tiers. Unlike "mega influencer", usually meaning one million-plus followers, the head tier is relative, not a follower count.
- [What is a KOL (key opinion leader) in marketing?](https://www.mvpdata.net/en/glossary/kol): A KOL (key opinion leader) is a person whose expertise or reach in a field shapes the opinions and purchase decisions of others. A KOC (key opinion consumer) reaches fewer people but feels closer to ordinary users.

[^1]: 知微事见 (Zhiwei Shijian (event tracking)), Zhiwei Data. https://ef.zhiweidata.com/ (Checked 2026-09-30, Vendor’s own claim, Unofficial translation)
[^2]: 舆情服务 (Baidu AI Cloud: public-opinion service (documentation)), Baidu AI Cloud. https://cloud.baidu.com/doc/TRENDS/index.html (Checked 2026-09-30, Vendor’s own claim, Unofficial translation)
[^3]: 新榜——新媒体，找新榜 (Newrank), Newrank. https://www.newrank.cn/ (Checked 2026-09-30, Vendor’s own claim, Unofficial translation)