A leading value of introducing listening into organizations and communities is found through matching internal identity with external contribution. What is given within often mirrors what AND where the same gift is given externally. Our customers AND our co-workers are one and the same. We learn within how to give outside.
Market Intelligence that is informed with social data from networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn yields rich insight into BOTH internal AND external communities. The conversations within the marketing or sales department are potentially at the very cutting edge of customer thought as well. The customer has called in with a complaint or a wish list item. Customer service takes this in and, ideally, submits this request to leadership in product development. The net result is a more powerful offering by the company.
Social listening software (like Radian 6 or Sysomos) AND social-network management software (like HootSuite or RightNow) allows organizations to match what customers are saying with what employees are saying. And the nexus point of these conversations is where product/service innovation occurs.
Ideally, the Director of Market Intelligence is passing findings on to department leaders: a vendor suggestion from LinkedIn to Marketing, an employee suggestion from BranchOut to HR, a customer wish list request to Product Development, a customer complaint to Customer Service, a competitor’s press release to the C-Suite. This is the value of an on-going and well organized Market Intelligence effort within an organization. And social listening software has reached a stage of sophistication and specificity that allows accurate signals to be captured by able-bodied research analysts.
An organization without a Market Intelligence function is like a butterfly without antennae. A primary function of antennae is timing. “In the case of the Monarch butterfly, it has been shown that antennae are necessary for proper time-compensated solar compass orientation during migration, that antennal clocks exist in monarchs, and that they are likely to provide the primary timing mechanism for Sun compass orientation.” (Source)
Using the butterfly analogy, an organization with even a rudimentary set of social business intelligence “listening” capabilities has a far stronger chance of finding the sweet spot in social networks and discovering what employees and customers want.
