Social Listening - SWOT Analysis: Weaknesses

•   There is no regulatory body for the online reputation monitoring industry, which means that companies can spring up overnight, and are not always held accountable for the claims they make.
  
  
•   The weaknesses of social listening tools are that they can be limited in their scope. For example, the tools are typically unable to understand sarcasm, or understand nuances of language, or multiple meanings of similar words.
  
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    The market is flooded with a wealth of companies offering social listening software, which can make it difficult for customers to differentiate between all the different players in the market.
  
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    The large volume of data available means it is difficult for a single technology to cover all the bases, and achieve a comprehensive level of monitoring.
  
  
•   Many companies are not yet offering sentiment analysis in different languages, though they do offer monitoring, which can make it difficult for large, multinational companies to justify investment.
  
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    Proving ROI can still be problematic, as there is no one standard for measuring the impact of social media.
  – For companies that use more than one tool, it can be difficult to make like-for-like comparisons as each tool may use different metrics and research methodologies,
  
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    A significant proportion of companies are still not using these tools or may not have enough understanding of social media to understand the benefits.
  
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    Although some companies may be monitoring, they may not have the understanding to turn the insights into action and use the data in the right way.
  
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    Sentiment analysis and the accuracy of reporting is an on-going concern in the industry. Vendors need to invest more in tools to ensure that the results delivered are precise and reliable.
  
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    A research-led approach is needed to make the most of the insights from social listening tools in order to reap the most value for customers who have invested in this type of technology.