Social Media Listening #1 - An Introduction

The growth of the market for social listening and buzz monitoring software reflects the increasingly sophisticated approach to social media exhibited by organisations. More companies are beyond the experimental stage with social media and are increasingly focused on optimising their social activity and understanding how insights from social data can feed into improvements for the business.

There is greater understanding of the benefits of social media, which means that getting senior management buy-in is less of an issue. As companies become more comfortable with the suite of tools available to them, they are far more willing to invest in reputation monitoring platforms to garner actionable insights.

There has also been a shift in consumer behaviour, as there is greater expectation that companies will respond publicly on social media websites and in real-time. Therefore, companies can no longer afford to ignore the importance of social listening, which can often mitigate many of the perceived risks of engaging on social networks.

Trends within this market include:
 Increased investment in online reputation monitoring tools 
 Social analytics come into focus as industry matures
 Customer service becomes public through social media
 Quest to integrate different types of data
 Lack of social media governance holds back companies