You point out an interesting trend, Dion, that will be crucial for companies that want to maintain a competitive edge. Users are generating an enormous amount of data on social media sites, posting information through status updates, links, videos and comments. While many companies have taken the first step to monitoring social media sites, as you say, the complexity of the task means that there needs to be multiple iterations of the technologies before we reach the utopia of social monitoring. It's not an either/or thing. The data that's being pulled in from social networks now is making us smarter about how a brand is perceived, or customer service issues, than we were even 3-5 years ago. Now, marry that information with the data we already have from other touch points like email, direct mail, POS, etc. to gain a complete 360-degree view of customers, and we're smarter still.
By opening up access to the entire corporate ecosystem and incorporating information from social media sites, emails and call centers, businesses can achieve a supercharged view of the customer, creating a baseline, or framework, for expanding the frontiers of social media marketing as a channel for engagement. Those who are able to cleanse, organize and socialize the data at hand will be able to make smarter business decisions and gain a significant advantage over others. The technology will mature, sure, but there's real value to be had now. There are some real-world examples (http://www.asterdata.com/solutions/social.php) of how a number of social networking and ?social intelligence? companies are harnessing data to provide more value to members which may provide some ideas for other companies on what?s possible.
Steve Wooledge
Senior Director, Aster Data Product Marketing
Teradata Corporation
Discussion on:
Message 11 of 1
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