I caught an article the other day on Social Media Today (direct link here) on how companies are largely undecided on the value of social media when it comes to understanding their customers (which I’ll conveniently put under the umbrella of “market research” for the purposes of this post).  According to the article, almost two-thirds (63%) of the people who responded to the survey said they are “undecided” about the value of data collected from social media sites to help them understand more about their organization or customers.

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me, and here’s why:

• The term “social media” is broad – I couldn’t find a link to the actual survey or results in the article, but I’m guessing that participants in the survey likely had different definitions of “social media” (if that was the term used in the actual survey).  In fact, I’m not even really sure what it means given all the hype around it.  It’s bandied about so much that it’s starting to lose meaning.  To me, much of what people describe as “social media” has been around for years (e.g., forums, blogs, wikis, etc…).  Why are we just now getting around to defining it?  Which brings up the next point…
• Social media is overrated – 23% of the survey respondents called social media “overrated,” and I’d have to agree, especially when it comes to really understanding customers.  If you’re a huge organization with a well known brand name, you’re likely to find a wealth of customer conversation around your brand.  If you’re not, tough luck…  Now, astute readers of this blog might think that I’m shooting myself in the foot here since some would say that what PluggedIN offers is all about using social media for market research.  However, I like to think of the technology and tools of social media as separate from the destinations where conversations are happening…  I suppose one could say we use the tools of “social media,” but for a very specific context that has clear value for companies.  There is a big difference there.
• The data is lacking context and profiling information – I alluded to this in my earlier post on “Twitter as an online qualitative research methodology.” Without context and an understanding of who is talking about their brand on these social media sites, the data that is analyzed will be of marginal value.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a few well prepared social media reports on brands and products floating around.  However, they still lack much of the context that is necessary to transform the findings into actionable insights for an organization.  It isn’t until you apply these findings on the level of your target audience that you’ll find the full value of social media analysis (IMHO, at least – I’m willing to be proven wrong).
• Change takes time – It seems that many “social media gurus” have unreasonable expectations as to how large organizations will be able to adapt their internal processes around social media.  They seem to expect an organization of 50,000 to react like an organization of 50 (which, in turn, makes me wonder how much experience some of these “social media gurus” really have working with large organizations – a topic for another blog post entirely   While continuous listening through social media should be a priority at any large organization in order to stay competitive, it’s simply unreasonable to expect these companies to adapt that quickly.  PluggedIN is tiny compared to the organizations we work with, and we still have challenges building social media into our own organizational processes.  I think many large organizations are hearing the message loud and clear, they just need some time to adapt…

Of course, this all makes me think…  Is “social media” the holy grail of consumer insights that people are making it out to be?  Will organizations ever fully adapt to the steady stream of consumer insights available through social media?  And if so, what will that organization look like?  That’s just my two cents.  I’d love to hear what you have to say…

–Matt