Social media for CI?

[Varsha Chitale]

The social media revolution has changed the way we interact with each other. Platforms such as Facebook, Orkut, Linkedin, blogs, forums, online communities, message boards, etc. have become mediums for everyone across the globe to exchange thoughts, ideas and opinions. The power of such a large number of people communicating and collaborating with virtually no barriers is unimaginable.

Among other things, customers are extremely vocal about their likes, dislikes, needs, wants and desires on social platforms. And often, competitors are also equally loud in discussing upcoming products / services, customer support for known issues, apart from company promotion. It then makes business sense to track the opinions of all these stakeholders. These online communications could contribute greatly towards meeting the myriad strategic objectives of collecting competitive intelligence.

Is the competitive intelligence community leveraging this seemingly infinite resource pool? How many CI professionals are actually harnessing the power of social media, as a part of their CI framework? How are they doing so, and what benefits are they experiencing? For the benefit of the competitive intelligence community at large, we intend to find out…

We would really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to fill out this online survey on the use of social media for competitive intelligence here.

All respondents will receive a summary of the key survey findings. Look forward to your valuable inputs!

[Andrew Beurschgens]

Varsha, would you be kind enough to send me a copy of the summary again.  I was an original respondent and have mislaid my copy.  Welcome your response.  I have also reached out to you via LinkedIn as well given the invitation that I received to participate.  Thanks again Varsha.