In my previous post, I had discussed the repercussions of the global economic crisis on the social media industry. One of the segments that I touched upon was vendors selling social media monitoring tools.
It is clearly evident that in order to maintain a respectable bottom line, most companies will try to restrict their spending on public relations, branding, and marketing going forward.
In such a scenario, social media monitoring tool companies will have a tough time selling their products and services in developed markets unless they offer strong value-proposition to clients. At this point in time, if one looks at the value-add these companies offer, the scenario does not look very impressive.
Agreed that these firms monitor the buzz around you, gets you the unedited version of discussions and chats from communities, networking websites, at the most tonality of a comment which definitely require human intervention, is dished out….you get nothing more.
Ok, you may impress you boss by showing him a jazzy report which can serve as a visual treat (with colorful bars and charts), showcase the data in different permutations and combinations by slicing and dicing. However, if you have to make a business decision based on reports which these social media tools generate….you need to think again. These tools just monitor the buzz for you. For analysis, interpretation, and connecting with the audience, you will have to depend on social media specialists. Period!!
Although most of these companies cater to the buzz monitoring needs of public relation agencies and advertising firms, in order to survive during a downturn, the tool markers will have to expand their target segment which in turn would mean expanding their service offerings by providing human intervention capabilities. Otherwise these social media tool companies will not stand the test of time.
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