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Use Social Listening to Understand Young People
Use Social Listening to Understand Young People
Content
This activity helps youth workers and organisations tune into the digital world of young people
Explore free social listening tools that will help ethically observing what youth are searching for, sharing, or tagging online, to make youth programs more relevant, engaging, and culturally connected.
Instead of guessing what matters to youth, this activity teaches you to listen — through trends, hashtags, search queries, and online content signals — without intruding on personal data or privacy.
By completing this activity, you will
- Understand the concept of social listening in the context of youth work.
- Use free tools to explore what young people are talking about or engaging with online.
- Reflect on how digital insights can shape your activities, content, and communication.
Get inspired
Then watch this video that introduces the basics of social listening:
While the video uses brand examples, think of how actively listening to what young people are talking about and how knowing what young people care about could help you:
- Connect better with youth
- Develop activities that are in line with the needs of young people in your community
- Be more effective in your work
Take action: activities for different roles
Youth workers:
- Use free social listening tools to explore what’s trending among young people in your area.
- Choose one trending topic and design a small-scale idea, discussion prompt, or event around it.
- Reflect on how these tools help you identify youth interests, needs, or gaps.
Youth organisations:
- Involve youth workers and youth by having them co-explore what’s trending and reflect together on the meaning behind the trends.
- Build a digital insight wall or shared doc to track important hashtags, YouTube videos, or cultural moments.
Suggested follow-up activities
- Co-design a workshop based on an emerging trend you’ve found (e.g. AI, mental health, climate, music).
- Create a “Youth Pulse Report” — a fun, informal summary of what young people in your group are engaging with online.
- Develop a content idea (short video, post, story) that reflects something relevant from your listening findings.
Claim open badge recognition
- Skills and experiences gained
- Ethical digital observation
- Trend analysis and digital empathy
- Strategic thinking in program design
- Youth culture awareness
- Data-informed creativity
Who created this resource?
This activity was developed by CITI (Curaçao Innovation and Technology Institute), a partner in the Digital Systemic project, as part of the Erasmus+ project Systemic Development of Digital Youth Work, in collaboration with the Cities of Learning Network.
Get activity badge
Digital Listener Get this badge
Awarded for exploring and applying social listening tools to better understand and respond to young people’s online culture and interests.
Tasks
Task no.1
Evidence verified by: one activity organiser
Step 1:
Watch the video: How To Use Google Trends | Beginner's Guide by EasyTechGeek:
Step 2:
Use google trends to identify the most popular YouTube searches in your community over the last three months
Step 3:
Reflect on three insights that you have gained about youth interests, needs, or gaps.
Step 4:
Share your isnsights
Organisers
Digital Youth Work Resource Hub
Awero not-for-profit organisation manages this platform and develops it together with leading educational organisations. The European Union's programme Erasmus+ granted co-funding for building the first version of this platform. Contact support@awero.org.
Platform
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