With the ease of use of Web 2.0 social media sites consumers are now publishers and broadcasters.  They have the ability to share their opinions, needs, complaints, and ideas in a way that is not only immediate but permanently recorded and easily spread.  Consumers are no longer whispering amongst themselves.  They are shouting from the tops of mountains.  They are shouting out to brands.

But are their favorite brands listening to them?  And if they are listening are they then engaging in such a way that:

-    maintains or grows that brand’s reputation,
-    improves a customer’s experience,
-    helps someone learn more about a product,
-    solves a problem,
-    positions properly against a competitor
-    delivers valued content
-    enables and/or thanks a fan
-    encourages participation in that brands future success

But is the act of listening and engaging, in general, good enough?  It’s certainly a great start.  But the act of embracing the social web in this way begins to create a whole new set of challenges.

For a moment, imagine way back in history when businesses got their first phone.  Customers could call them to place orders but they could also call to complain, get help, give feedback etc…  So, naturally, departments within companies got phones as well to answer these different types of calls and used a new feature to transfer calls between them.  This worked so well that these companies began to grow and with growth came the need to add more phones and more staff.  And with more staff meant the need to assign calls to the right people within departments based on skill, availability, language, territory etc…  It also meant an increased load at times and a challenge to ensure calls were answered quick enough to maintain or increase client satisfaction.  And so it goes. It’s the sophisticated contact centers of today that show us where it can all end up.

Brands listening to and engaging with the social web, or what we like to call, answering the “social phone”, quickly face the same challenges.  They are expected to:

-    answer or engage quickly because commenting activity usually happens in the first 24-48 hours
-    operate in multiple languages and filter content by region so issues and opportunities can be addressed locally
-    cover all types of social media be it blogs, forums and opinion sites, picture and video sharing sites, online mainstream news and emerging media like Twitter and Friendfeed
-    prioritize by what’s going viral or who’s the most influential in order to be the most effective and efficient
-    analyze trends in order to help calculate ROI

So keeping all this in mind, we find it particularly exciting when we get to work with a company that believes in listening and engaging with their community, that shares our vision as to where this is all headed, and that wants to see this become a natural part of any company’s mix of valuable customer channels.

One such company we are excited to be working with is Dell.  And it’s through their use of our social media monitoring and engagement platform today that’s helping to generate wonderful feedback as to where to go next (See Dell’s blog post: “Dell and Radian6 – It all starts with listening.” )   Assignment of tasks amongst a workgroup and the ability to track and audit engagements are just a few of these key features.

Conversations about thousands of brands are happening every minute of every day.  People are expressing needs, sharing opinions, sharing ideas – hoping to be heard and in many cases, hoping to connect.  Dell has decided to be part of the conversation, to assist and to share – and we are proud to be partners in helping make it happen.

What about your company?  Can you hear the shouts?  And remember – “everyone loves a good listener.”