I recently talked about "B2B marketing in the Real Time Web" at the #140conf in San Francisco, organized by Jeff Pulver. One point that resonated the most with the audience is that "listening" has become the most overused and abused word in social media.
Some people actually think that "listening" is a brand-new concept invited by social media gurus. The reality is that if you need an expert to tell you that you should "listen" to the customers, your business may already be in more trouble than you realize.
While listening is a great first step in getting started in social media and helps set up a good foundation for your activities, that by itself is not enough any more. As consumers get more savvy in their use of social media, it's become a business imperative that companies move beyond just listening and start responding to what they're hearing.
Setting up social channels by itself or "being on Facebook" is not good enough any more, companies need to have solid processes in place to quickly relay feedback from social media channels to create better products and help solve customer issues before they reach a crisis point. Social media monitoring/listening tool vendors should be focused on translating the streams of data into meaningful insights for their clients as quicky as possible.
In this fast evolving conversational age, the true measure of success and a key differentiator will be how quickly companies respond to feedback from their customers. It's time to assess - Is your company ready for this challenge?