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This is a guest post by Chuck Hemann, manager of research & online reputation for Dix & Eaton.

If you are active in social networks, you will have heard someone pontificating about how important social media monitoring is for companies. It can be used strictly as a crisis/brand reputation management tool or, ideally, as a tool to inform either an internal or external engagement strategy.

However, just because we’re espousing the benefits of monitoring within the “fishbowl” doesn’t mean companies are lining up to pay for it. Why? Social media monitoring suffers from being linked in name to traditional media monitoring. Ask your boss or client their opinion of traditional media monitoring. What do you think the answer will be? Every situation is different, but I presume the first thing that will come to their minds are those clip books we receive every month. If they have an opinion beyond that it will likely to be that monitoring is very tactical, and not something they want to devote many resources toward.

So if this is how they feel about monitoring, how do we overcome it to obtain budget? Here are four ways that you can “sell” monitoring to your boss or clients.

1. Call It “Strategic Listening.” Ken Burbary, Director of Social Media, Advisory Services at Ernst & Young, and I have been discussing the term “strategic listening” for a few months and we feel it more accurately depicts the true power of social media monitoring. Where the term “monitoring” falls flat is in it’s lack of an end-goal. What are we hoping to achieve? How long will it take? The concept of strategic listening utilizes monitoring tools (among other data gathering tools and techniques) to help us solve a business problem. Whether that issue is related to new product development, engaging stakeholders through social media, improving customer care, growing sales or even altering the strategic plan, we are starting the process of monitoring with some sort of strategic imperative already in hand. If you are offering a solution to a business problem, where listening is one component of that solution, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where you would not be heard. 
2. Demonstrate Due Diligence. There are an abundance of listening solutions available to professionals these days. Soliciting feedback from colleagues will help you narrow down the list of providers, but it’s imperative that you test as many of them as you can. Some providers have a more robust tracking of blogs, while others are not tracking Twitter (yet), and still others are not capturing that many forums. Seeing the tools first-hand will allow you to make a decision as to whether or not it fits your company’s needs. Consider creating a grid with strengths, weaknesses, information on what data they are pulling, how the information is presented and some general thoughts on how you plan to share information.
3. Create a Listening Team. So after you’ve accepted the term strategic listening and done your due diligence on the tools, it’s now time to start considering who will be on your listening team. If you have been a part of a listening program before you’ll know that it takes more than one person to manage those responsibilities. Quite often, the person conducting the listening for an organization is “housed” in market research, consumer insights or marketing. Ideally, your social media listening team will be comprised of people from market research, consumer insights, marketing, PR, product development and customer service.
4. Develop a Workflow To Respond. Paying attention to consumer insights is only one half of the listening battle. You need to determine if, and how you plan to respond when people talk about your brand. To date, the best example of this type of response workflow was created by the Air Force. While it’s very specific to blogs, it’s easy to see how you could adapt it for your business.

So to recap…if you’re trying to get budget in the coming year for monitoring start by calling strategic listening, demonstrate you’ve done your homework on the tools, deputize people to assist with listening and develop a mechanism to respond when people talk about your brand.

What successes and obstacles have you had when trying to obtain budget for listening?

Chuck Hemann, a 2010 Society for New Communications Research Fellow, is currently the manager of research & online reputation for Dix & Eaton, a communications consultancy with specialized expertise in social media strategies and tools. On February 15th, Chuck will begin a new role as social media associate for WCG, a global media services company focused on the corporate and product marketing and communications needs of leading healthcare companies. You can follow Chuck on Twitter. 

Tags: Marketing, monitoring, Social Media, Social Media Monitoring