Peter was recently on Jennifer’s podcasts around Social Media Measurement: Providing Brands with Radar: Measuring the Power of Consumer Generated Media. He’s come back, this time with even more knowledge. How important is listening for companies and marketers? It’s THE most important thing. I challenge every marketer to listen to the marketplace before crafting a message or creating a campaign. Just like in real life, one should listen before jumping into a conversation.

You can listen to his podcast:
Marketing Voices: Nielsen Buzzmetrics’ Pete Blackshaw
I took some notes, mainly for my own personal exploration, it includes my insight, as if I was in the conversation myself:

• I love this nugget from Peter: “It’s easier to talk to a network than a company”. One could change out network to community.
• What were people talking about? What was the source? where did it come from? Polarity, emotion, opinions. This is important as this leads brand strategy
• The great thing about CGM (unlike real world conversations) is that it’s easy to measure
• Metrics: Volume, Share, Influence, Dispersion (how fast does information spread). Engagement, which is more than involvement
• Scores: Frameworks, what are success and failure. Indexes. At what percent does your company actual impact CGM
• They blend several things into their listening mix
• Jennifer asks about Podcasts measurement, great setup for another discussion later
• Listener centered Marketing. This is radar, intelligence to customers in real time (this is a big sell for marketers)
• How do marketers become two way into this conversation…
• Challenges: People that buy the listening tools, are not connected with the customer touch points, it’s in operations. Its a cost center

Thanks Peter for the great insight and sharing your experience with the community.  I’m speaking to your CEO in a few days via phone, there’s some great things to discuss in this exciting time.