How to get social audience insights: listening prompts for every industry

Millions of social posts flood the internet every day. So how do you cut through the noise and find the social audience insights that‌ matter to your brand?

With the right social listening tool, that’s how.

A simple Google Alert won’t cut it anymore. To stay ahead, you need a strategic, industry-specific approach. Social listening uncovers the sentiments, preferences and pain points shaping your audience’s point of view—helping you make smarter decisions, not just in marketing, but across your entire business.

This guide will show you how to craft social listening queries that surface real, actionable insights tailored to your industry.

Bonus Resource: Get the social listening report template that turns raw data into business impact. Use it to surface key insights, influence strategy and prove the value of social beyond marketing.

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How to gather social audience insights effectively using listening

The difference between drowning in social data and extracting valuable audience insights lies in your approach to social listening. While millions of conversations happen across platforms daily, successful marketers know how to zero in on what truly matters to their business.

Begin by aligning your listening strategy with specific business objectives. Rather than monitoring everything, identify the critical questions that impact your decision-making. For example:

• What customer sentiments could inform your next product update?
• Which competitor actions are resonating with your shared audience?
• What emerging trends might present new opportunities or threats?

Your answers to these questions will reveal potential keywords that you can use to inform a social listening query. Most tools rely on Boolean search, which can be time-consuming and complex—but Sprout makes it easier.

Sprout’s Listening Query Builder simplifies the process, so your team can build precise, multi-layered queries without wrestling with Boolean logic. Unlike other tools, Sprout doesn’t require advanced search expertise, meaning you can surface the insights that matter—fast.

Take it a step further with Queries by AI Assist, which suggests relevant keywords for your queries in real time, helping you uncover industry jargon, trending hashtags and regional nuances you might otherwise miss. With Sprout, you get powerful, intuitive listening that delivers a complete picture of the conversations that matter.

Social listening prompts for every industry

Every industry has its own language, trends and audience behaviors. These prompts are thought starters to help you speak your audience’s language. Answer them thoughtfully—and naturally—mirroring how your audience might discuss the topic.

Write out your answers and note recurring key terms worth exploring. These are the keywords that you can use in your listening topics. Remember: Audience insights can come from anywhere, so keep refining your listening topics—you never know what you’ll uncover.

Social audience insights for B2B brands

B2B buyers aren’t just looking for products—they’re looking for partners to help them solve day-to-day pain points and complex business problems. By tuning into social conversations, you can identify what matters most to them and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Take Canva, for example. They use audience insights to create a marketing strategy rooted in the all-too-relatable hurdles their audience faces every day.

If you want to infuse your B2B marketing strategy with a more human touch, here are some prompts to consider:

• What challenges do our target customers discuss? What industry headwinds are shaping those challenges?
• What trending topics are gaining traction within your industry? Are their buzzwords or phrases attached to them?
• How do prospects talk about your competitors? Where do they feel underserved?

Social audience insights for financial services brands

Social media has become a sounding board for financial concerns, from banking frustrations to investment questions. However, financial services brands face unique risk mitigation challenges when engaging with these conversations.

To create compliant yet valuable content, focus on uncovering financial literacy gaps through social listening. This positions your brand as a trusted information source while navigating regulatory constraints. Consider these key questions:

• What market conversations are trending, and how do consumers feel about them?
• What recurring customer questions emerge, and can you identify topic patterns?
• Which financial goals align with your offerings, and how does your audience discuss them?

Beyond informing content strategy, social listening can also support portfolio optimization, risk assessment and due diligence. In 2025, Reddit partnered with the Intercontinental Exchange to develop new data and analytics products, informed by billions of posts and comments that provide deeper insights into market sentiment and emerging trends.

For financial brands, incorporating alternative data sources like this can unlock a more nuanced understanding of public perception, helping refine investment strategies and decision-making.

Social audience insights for travel and hospitality brands

Social media has revolutionized the travel journey—serving as both a feedback channel and an inspiration source for travelers worldwide. Case in point: Sprout’s Social Listening tool found that the White Lotus season three premiere sparked over 775 million conversations linking the show and Thailand. It’s more than just a series to watch—it’s inspiring travel.

Through strategic social listening, hospitality brands can pinpoint what truly matters to guests, from frictionless booking experiences to memorable service moments. To align your offerings with audience expectations, focus your listening strategy on:

• What specific aspects do travelers praise or criticize about their experiences with accommodations, transportation or destinations?
• Which emerging trends are influencing today’s travel decisions?
• What types of experiences or destinations are gaining traction with your target audience?
• How do customers compare your loyalty programs and amenities to competitors?

Industry leaders like Minor Hotels use these insights to inform their business strategy and benchmark their performance against competitors, creating experiences that resonate with evolving traveler preferences.

Because social media changes every day, we find the competitors we can pull directly from Sprout Social helps a lot. We can monitor timely social media trends, see what our competitors are doing and adjust our strategy accordingly.

Acharee Punyashthiti
Assistant Director, Social Media and Advertising, Minor Hotels

Social audience insights for healthcare brands

Consumers rely on social media for health information, but not all of it is accurate. According to the 2025 Sprout Social Index™, 93% of consumers think brands need to combat misinformation more than they are today—and that expectation is especially high for healthcare brands.

 

Misinformation spreads quickly, making it essential for healthcare brands to be proactive in identifying and addressing it. If you’re developing a social listening strategy for a healthcare organization, here are the questions you need to ask:

• What healthcare topics are driving conversations at the national or local level?
• What are people most worried about regarding treatments, procedures or policies?
• How do consumers discuss healthcare brands, and what factors influence their trust?

Zeroing in on the social audience insights driving these conversations can support the creation of fact-based, accessible marketing collateral that debunks myths and answers common health questions.

Social audience insights for higher education institutions

Social media serves as a vital communication hub for the entire academic journey—from prospective students exploring options to alumni sharing career milestones.

Through targeted social listening, educational institutions can capture authentic conversations about campus experience, academic offerings‌ and institutional reputation. To develop insights that strengthen your higher education marketing strategy, focus on:

• How do current students authentically describe campus life? What aspects do they celebrate or critique?
• What specific factors are influencing prospective students’ decisions? What concerns dominate college-bound juniors and seniors’ conversations?
• Which elements of your ongoing campaigns generate the most meaningful engagement?

Forward-thinking institutions like Gettysburg College use these social audience insights to maintain an audience-centric marketing approach, ensuring their messaging addresses real student priorities rather than assumed needs.

Social audience insights for nonprofit organizations

Nonprofits thrive on meaningful connections with donors, volunteers and advocates. Social listening provides these organizations with critical insights into supporter motivations and cause-related conversations that can transform outreach effectiveness.

By analyzing social discussions, nonprofits can uncover the emotional drivers behind supporter engagement and align their messaging accordingly. Focus your listening strategy on:

• What topics are gaining traction within your sector, and how can your organization contribute?
• Which timely conversations present natural opportunities for your organization to amplify its mission?
• How do both beneficiaries and supporters describe the impact of your programs in their own words?

These insights enable nonprofits to identify real-time advocacy opportunities while crafting more authentic narratives that inspire action—turning passive social followers into engaged supporters who advance your cause.

Turning social audience insights into action

The social media landscape is filled with valuable conversations that can transform your marketing strategy—if you know how to find them. By using industry-specific listening prompts, you can cut through the noise and focus on the insights that drive meaningful results for your business.

But insights alone aren’t enough. The real value emerges when you integrate these findings into your marketing strategy and share them across your organization. With Sprout Social’s Listening solution, you not only gather these powerful audience insights but also visualize trends, track sentiment over time and generate comprehensive reports that inform decision-making across departments.

Ready to discover what your audience is really saying? Schedule a demo today to see how Sprout Social’s listening tools can uncover the insights that’ll drive your next phase of growth.

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