Today Suresh Vittal published Forrester Research’s latest Wave report on Social Media “Listening Platforms“. We began our journey with Forrester over two years ago and have had the pleasure of working with many of the leading voices at Forrester and in the overall social media marketing space. Josh Bernoff, Charlene Li, Peter Kim, Brian Haven, Jeremiah Owyang, and a many other former and existing analysts have been the pioneering voices that had digested and disseminated the wide ranging opportunities and channels of this new channel.

As a software based vendor/entrant into this category that was initially developed by other leading market research based firms via a services based approach, so much has changed. Technology and wider consumer adoption of the social technologies by consumers has propelled the need for brands to develop specific strategies, understanding and direct expertise.

This latest Wave report re-names the category from the Brand Monitoring moniker that Peter Kim created to Listening Platforms. A subtle but important shift from passive monitoring to active listening. The inclusion of the word “platform” implies and distinguishes a lot in that platforms are needed by marketers as well as entire organizations to be actively involved in the listening processes. Organizations have a number of use-cases for social media consumption and many groups both inside organizations and externally that support them are all vying to be the “owners” of social conversations. Our belief and philosophy is that the entire enterprise should or ultimately will be involved in customer interactions via the online channel. In order to do that technology and or the consumption of social data through existing platforms is necessary.

Listening is the first step in digesting the volume, breath, sentiment, and influence of conversations but interaction is necessary to drive change with consumers. We are very pleased with our evaluation from the Forrester team and look forward to continuing to innovate and support our customers.

Blake Cahill
Visible Technologies