by Angela Guess
A new article asks the question, can social media and enterprise applications team up? The article begins, “Everywhere I go in Silicon Valley, people are talking about social media and big data, but rarely do I hear real-world success stories about social media data in a business-to-business context. We all know about the innovations of the consumer Web over the past ten years, including the amazing experiences that companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Yahoo and others have created by crunching massive amounts of consumer data for personalization. But how are companies in other industries leveraging the big data that’s erupting from social media services?”
It continues, “Social media presents an opportunity to make customer service organizations more responsive and proactive. It gives product development organizations an immediate feedback loop regarding product issues or key features that customers want. With 74 percent of consumers relying on social networks to guide purchase decisions (according to Gartner), marketers drool over the chance to target influencers in social media channels, and to gain a more holistic 360-degree view of each customer. Finally, analyzing social media conversations can be a powerful tool for corporate strategists to uncover market opportunities and other new types of competitive and business intelligence.”
The article adds, “While much has been said about these opportunities, few have acknowledged that for this data to be most valuable, it must be integrated with relevant enterprise data from companies’ sales, financial, marketing, customer support, or e-commerce systems (just to name a few).” Read more here.
