There's a great deal more value in understanding social content rather than just measuring it.
Social Media Monitoring measures. Social Media Research understands.
People don't need to be measured as much as understood.
This is the fundamental difference between social data and social insight in our view. Most people who use the social web to do any kind of research do so to measure; to use volume metrics to get a macro view of brand engagement. It's understandable. The sheer volume of content out there about anything you care to think of is daunting. The knee-jerk reaction to this wall of social data is to measure it and go no deeper. Use a monitoring tool and create some online dashboard showing various datasets from your social channels:
Share of voice *tick*
Facebook likes *tick*
Cheeky word cloud *tick*
Most active fans *tick*
All quite useful; but wouldn't this be more useful if you could augment it with some more insightful datasets and some actionable consumer insight? We're talking about:
Thematic tracking
Human sentiment analysis
Strategic implications
Opportunity mapping
By using a blend of the leading monitoring tools to apply qualitative and quantitative analyses; by using a team of experience social media researchers and strategists; by collaborating with the client to design the framework of the study - it is possible to build a far richer understanding of people.
An understanding that better reflects the potential the social web has to help organisations make better decisions.