Beyond listening – integrating and acting
upon social media data

With the onset of social media, the way we communicate and network with each other has been forever transformed. Information now flows instantaneously between friends, family, and colleagues through a variety of devices. We are no longer only consumers, suppliers, or competitors –but rather active contributors to the global conversation. Our behavior is influenced by our “local” mood, interests, needs, and passions. Lifestyle choices, buying preferences, and brand perceptions impact trends in the market and provide important insight for companies seeking to gain our business. Blogs, forums, and chat rooms provide businesses with the opportunity to engage with us on their terms, at any time and through the channels that best meet our needs. Social media is becoming personal, and the moments that matter to us are becoming important to the businesses who serve us. They must, however, listen, integrate, and act upon what we are saying.

We hear the term “big data” a lot these days. And unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that social media is a big part of that. We are each “walking sensors” leaving a trail of data with every tweet, text, post, and comment. Statistics show that data is growing at a rate of 50 percent per year. Consider that Facebook has more than 900 million active users; 97,000 tweets are sent each day; and people spend more than 2.9 billion hours on YouTube in a month. These and other social networking channels contain vast amounts of information that can help organizations interact more effectively with their customers. It’s important to remember that if you’re not out there engaging with your customers, your competitors most likely are.

When combined with traditional customer data sources, social media data can yield deep insights that drive better marketing and business decisions company-wide. This is generally referred to as Social Intelligence and it is far from just another technology fad, but rather a way of amplifying the importance of moments, and harnessing the power of our interactions through live social channels.

At HP, we have developed an industrial-strength social media methodology and deployment mechanism that can help your business better maximize its customer data assets. It includes identifying detailed use cases of the moments that matter most, the primary opportunities for using social media (and the resulting social intelligence) to engage with and sell to customers. Each use case directly impacts one or more business scenarios. This list will grow as new ideas and technologies emerge and as client engagements raise new possibilities.

We can also help you capture and analyze social, mobile, and unstructured data, integrate it with existing structured data, and translate this insight into meaningful actions for those moments when it matters most. We merge the disciplines of traditional analytical CRM, social insight, and contextual insight together to help you generate an enhanced 360-degree view of your customers using all relevant data points. In this way, you are able to go beyond simply listening to your customers. You can now anticipate and respond to their needs quickly, cultivate brand loyalty, and design a better future for your business as a result. At HP, we’re taking social media personally.