Social media monitoring

Listening in on other people’s conversations is rude…unless you plan to join the conversation.

I was reminded of this basic social etiquette from the real world when reading this exciting release about Nielsen and Bazaarvoice creating an even more byzantine set of tools for listening in on other people’s business online.

Don’t get me wrong. Good intelligence about online sentiment and reputation is the bedrock of any social strategy (although I’m not sure most companies need to do more than subscribe to some relatively cheap monitoring services and put a bit of time aside for making sense of it). What worries me is that most organisations get paralysed with fear when thinking about taking the next step into active and meaningful participation in the social space.

Social media presents an amazing opportunity for mass collaboration with consumers to co-create services, products, and marketing ideas. If you can’t see opportunities beyond eavesdropping you simply aren’t giving this area enough thought.

This Direct Line case study shows the enormous potential for social media as a channel for the co-creation of products and services.

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