Social Panels is a new feature in Brandwatch Consumer Research that helps brands listen to the conversation from specific groups of people.

With Social Panels, you can:

• Track what consumers are saying in real time
• Benchmark groups of panelists against other panels, or even the rest of the world
• Monitor historical consumer conversation to see how it has developed or changed over time.

To get started in Social Panels, there are three simple steps:

Step 1: You can find panelists using Brandwatch’s flexible search based on demographics, interests, or profession, or by uploading a list of individuals from outside the platform.

Step 2: Next, you attach Social Panels to a new or existing query to start collecting relevant conversation.

Step 3: Finally, you can begin to explore what your panels think about specific brands, industries, or topics – there are no restraints! Using Brandwatch’s intuitive analyzing capabilities like sentiment analysis, our AI assistant Iris, and more, it’s never been easier to spot trends and insights in your panel data.

3 ways Social Panels can help your business

1. Product development

Say you’re a plant based food company looking to expand your offering with new products, flavors, or recipes. With Social Panels, you can explore the preferences of your brand advocates in order to understand what foods are trending and popular with them right now.

In this topic cloud, which shows top conversation topics from vegan advocates, we see the types of ingredients, cuisines, and nutritional benefits that vegans are looking for in their plant-based diets right now.

When tofu dishes, gluten-free recipes, healthy breakfasts, and ice cream are all important topics for your audience, maybe it’s worth considering whether your latest product should be a healthy, gluten-free, tofu-based breakfast option!

2. Competitor analysis

Do you know what can be even more interesting than listening to your own target consumers? Listening to those of your competitors.

If you’re a cosmetics company, understanding your competitor’s most popular lipstick color or which foundation brush people are least keen on could present an opportunity to you.

By understanding what your competitor’s biggest fans like and dislike about their brand, you’ll be better equipped to beat the competition.

3. Brand health

Brand health can mean different things to different people – you might be concerned with the reputation of your brand, or how satisfied your employees are.