Enough of flying babies lets get back to Harvard

We've been a bit busy getting caught up in the super bowl commercials and their flying babies and all that.  So now it's back to the higher brain power stuff and we finally caught up on our Harvard Business Review reading.  In December 2010 they published an interesting paper called The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to Action which can be seen directly here.  In case you are still caught up with the flying babies here is an excerpt.  We found the executive summary to be the most interesting.  It's possible that is all we read.

Except from Executive Summary:
"Despite the vast potential social media brings, many companies seem focused on social media activity primarily as a one-way promotional channel, and have yet to capitalize on the ability to not only listen to, but analyze, consumer conversations and turn the information into insights that impact the bottom line.

For instance:
- Three-quarters (75%) of the companies in the survey said they did not know where their most valuable customers were talking about them.
- Nearly one-third (31%) do not measure effectiveness of social media.
- Less than one-quarter (23%) are using social media analytic tools.
- A fraction (7%) of participating companies are able to integrate social media into their marketing activities.
 
“Too many companies have not evolved from what I call ‘shout marketing’ — think TV, newspapers, magazine ads — to influence by initiating and participating in conversations with consumers,” he said. “There needs to be a generational shift.”
(end quote)
 
Essentially, if you can do better than these statistics you will be a leader and your company will reap the benefits.  We see 2011 as the year this generational shift will become material, when companies move from just listening to actually participating and measuring their social efforts, and we anticipate that ROI will be a material driver for this to happen in an integrated manner.  We would love to hear how that is going send us your stories at gofish - at - rumbafish.com