It’s never been easier to hear what your consumers are saying about you behind your back.

The concept of listening to what consumers are saying about your brands, products, services and the industry you serve is nothing new. For almost a decade, many digital marketing professionals (myself included) have been banging the drum of monitoring online spaces to better understand how your products are positioned. In the past couple of years, things have changed as digital channels have evolved. The ability to track every tweet, blog post and customer review has not only become easier, but an entire industry of software-based services has emerged to help brands better understand the conversations that are taking place – and what they should be doing about it. It’s big business and these services are pulling in the big bucks.

As the interest surrounding social media monitoring tools continues to grow, it begs the question: Why are brands spending so much money on social media monitoring platforms when plenty of free and easy-to-access tools already exist?

In short, many of the more advanced social media monitoring platforms offer a more in-depth perspective into not only what is being said, but by whom and how "connected" (or "influential") that individual’s reach may be. Beyond that, the ability to customize the content behind a dashboard that offers more optics into how your organization responds and tracks these pieces of content can be critical. Many of these social media monitoring tools also act as a workflow, so an organization can better understand the speed with which something was acknowledged, who – within the organization – acted on it, and what the outcome was. The sheer volume of regular people reviewing and critiquing brands is the other reason why a cohesive software package may be needed. As more and more people leverage platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs to publicly share their love or hate for a brand, the more complicated responding becomes for organizations of every size that are not accustomed to handling customer service issues out in the open.

Social 2011.

One of the leaders in social media monitoring solutions is a company called Radian6. On April 7th and 8th, the company will be hosting an event in Boston titled Social 2011 – their first-ever user conference that features marketing professionals from companies like Dell, PepsiCo, the American Red Cross and hundreds more. (I’ll be delivering a keynote presentation on social media and the new consumer). What could easily turn into a conference about how to quell the angry masses by understanding and responding to every individual that tweets about a brand, the set-up around this event and the maturation of brands and their need to be active in the social media spaces points to a new dawn…

Innovation through data and conversation.

When someone complains on Twitter that their mobile carrier gouged them on roaming fees, that complaint becomes public record. Everything that is being said (the good, the bad, the ugly and the neutral) is not only being retweeted and posted on people’s Facebook walls, but that content is also being indexed by the major search engines and easily findable. It’s now a world where every brand’s reputation is truly public and very much at stake. The counter to that crippling fear is that those who love and care about you are also saying magnificent things about you in the same channels. The content that is now available (the stuff about your brand, your competitor’s brands and the industry you serve) may well be the best information you could ever have access to. Where else can you get that kind of candor from a consumer?

The opportunity to listen and leverage that information to your benefit has never been more available and more abundant.

The good news is that you can get a fairly good sentiment about what’s happening around your brand by using two free tools: One is Google Alerts, which gives you a quick (albeit imperfect) snapshot of what’s being said online based on the keywords you feed into it. You can also choose if you would like to see everything being said about your keywords or only the content Google deems worthy. You can also decide how frequently you would like to be notified (including "as-it-happens") and how (via email or RSS feed). Twitter Search also acts as a way to see what people are saying about your chosen keywords now (and in real-time). Twitter Search is fascinating because it’s public – meaning you do not have to have a Twitter profile or be active on Twitter to see what everybody is saying (you do have to join – which is free – if you would like to respond). Couple those two free online services together and you’re suddenly able to wrap your head around both the sentiment and volume of chatter.

There is opportunity in listening.

To make matters even more complex (or interesting – depending on the way you look at it), if your brand doesn’t ever get mentioned, what does that say about your ability to make a difference in the industry that you serve? What kind of opportunity may exist for you to take a first-mover advantage? What are consumers saying about how you, your competitors or your industry can innovate?

How powerful can a business become when it realizes that in 2011, real friends stab you in the front?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business – Six Pixels of Separation. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

• Montreal Gazette – New tools make listening to, learning from consumers easier.
• Vancouver Sun – Social media monitoring a slick tool.