Social media data is a valuable source of enterprise-wide feedback for businesses that are savvy enough to leverage it. Social insights enable customer service teams to better serve customers, helps corporate communications spot crises and measure “buzz,” gives marketers a brand health barometer and competitive benchmarking index and allows researchers access to previously untapped consumer insights. Social data makes it possible for advertisers to optimize campaign messaging and track results, and gives sales organizations the ability to find their competitors’ unhappy customers, while identifying prospects in the market for their products.

However, social media data by itself is not nearly as instructive for taking action and driving results as it is when integrated into your business strategy and execution.   The real power and ROI of social data comes from marrying it with existing business systems, processes and data (e.g. CRM platforms, market research, point of sale (POS) systems).  Add in traditional media sources such as news feeds, television, satellite and mobile technologies, and with this holistic view you can see responses to your entire media ecosystem in one place. Combining social data with metrics such as Web analytics allows you to see the impact of your messaging and the resulting actions and conversions.

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