Social media business intelligence is on the rise, according to a new Unisphere Research study sponsored by IBM and Marist College. The study found that while social media monitoring and analysis is in its early stages, many organizations plan to monitor, collect, stage and analyze this data over the next 1 to 5 years and. In particular, LOB respondents, who are closer to customers, show appreciation for the benefits of monitoring SMNs.
The study, a joint effort of SHARE and GUIDE SHARE EUROPE, is based on a global sample of 711 total respondents comprised primarily of North American respondents (62%) with another 30% coming from Europe-Middle East-African countries. The majority of the respondents (65%) are IT professionals with the balance representing line-of-business, management and other business functions.
Planned investments in the area of SMN monitoring continue to trend upward year over year, according to the survey. The trend signals that the social media BI market is still in an "early adopter" phase, but is rapidly growing in relevance. Organizations are planning to collect and analyze data from both proprietary and open SMNs such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Because the monitoring and analyzing this data not yet widespread, the study points out, social media monitoring represents a strong area of opportunity for entrenched enterprise BI vendors and new cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors to provide products and services, thought leadership, and best practices. Similarly, it presents a competitive advantage for organizations with the ability to employ these techniques rapidly.
According to the study, 30% of the sample base is currently monitoring proprietary SMNs and 52% of the respondents in the sample base are currently monitoring open SMNs. In addition, 72% of LOB respondents indicated that their organizations were monitoring SMNs. This shows that many companies and organizations understand the importance of SMNs and information flow in open SMNs in terms of its impact on brand perception and demand generation. SMNs are rapidly becoming the new word-of-mouth marketing platform of this millennium. LOB respondents are closer to the customers and comprehend their growing relevance.
Unisphere Research president Thomas J. Wilson presented the findings at the SHARE ExecuForum hosted in conjunction with SHARE in Atlanta. As the world's first and largest independent association of computing professionals, these meetings are among the industry's pre-eminent gatherings of technology professionals, hosting over 500 technical sessions addressing the latest topics in enterprise technology computing. The SHARE ExecuForum is a two-day leadership forum designed for IT leaders to discuss the industry's most top-of-mind business issues.
The Executive Summary of this research report is available for public viewing, and members only may log in on the SHARE website to download the complete findings report. For the Executive Summary or to access the full report, go to www.share.org/p/cm/ld/fid=144.