Social networking continues to be a powerful consumer activity and yet an illusive medium for marketers. Recent statistics suggest that the number of users of social networking sites continues to grow – in fact Canada has the world’s largest percentage of internet users who are social networkers. Adults constitute the bulk of social networkers but use still skews toward the young. Social networking also cuts fairly evenly across gender, education, and income (see www.emarketer.com for more details). The bottom line is that consumers are increasingly sharing stories about life’s various experiences with one another.
Marketers, academics and industry observers all seem to be struggling to identify the real value in this consumer-generated media. Most seem to feel that social media has the potential to be a powerful tool in creating brand awareness, developing stronger brand relationships and aiding in new product launches. While many marketers are anxious to engage the online public in conversations about their brands, to gain greater insights into the way consumers view their products and services, others are reluctant to get involved in a dialogue that they cannot control. Marketers seem to be more interested in telling customers their stories than trying to listen to the stories that customers are sharing with each other. Furthermore, when marketers try to get involved in the conservations customers are suspicious of the intentions of marketers and the perceived risk of corporate manipulation. A prime example was the backlash that was created when Sony created a ‘flog’ (fake blog) in order to promote the new PSP. So we have the situation where marketers don’t trust the blogging consumers and bloggers question marketers’ motives.
 Does this mean that social media has no value to marketers? Or, is there a better use for the massive amounts of consumer-generated media? Perhaps the real value to marketers is the ability to listen in as consumers have deep, emotional discussions about their lives. However, we need to be careful to let them tell their own stories, and not prod them into talking about us and our products or services. Once we make the discussion about us instead of them, we destroy the ability to learn from the stories that these consumers are openly sharing with their social-media confidantes.

In the Social Media Research Centre at the Laurier School of Business & Economics, we are using language analysis developed by Listen Corporation to systematically window into consumers’ conversations and extract insights about their feelings and emotions associated with a variety of life’s experiences – from investing in home renovations to dealing with health related challenges of being overweight or dealing with diabetes. We have been pleasantly surprised at the rich, emotional, introspective discussions that were included in the blogs and with the Listen software we are able to efficiently extract emotional and cognitive themes from these conversations. For example from the blogs on weight management, we have been struck by the feelings towards family members, who might think they are being helpful and supportive but, in many cases, seem to be creating lasting, unhappy memories for the overweight individual. The medical community is also not viewed as helping. While doctors are seen as the logical place to turn when something must be done, in many cases they are seen as the messengers delivering bad, unwanted news; part of the problem and not part of the solution. We also saw considerable evidence of people feeling that they don’t fit in and being trapped in a body that does not reflect who they really are. Interestingly, no brands were mentioned in these conversations suggesting that the solutions offered by companies are not resonating with customers. For marketers wanting to craft and deliver an authentic meaningful experience for customers struggling to manage their weight these emotional and cognitive insights are very valuable.
While marketers continue to struggle to find ways to enter consumer conversations in an authentic, meaningful way, there is a vast amount of rich information that is seemingly being ignored. Bloggers are willingly posting their personal stories for the online community to see and if one looks or better yet, listens in the right way, much of what is being said bears relevance to marketing strategy, Instead of trying to find ways to pry brand specific information from their consumers, perhaps it’s time for marketers to start acting like a “good friend”, and sit back and listen to what the consumer really has to say; it will be then that companies and in turn, brands will be able to find the real value in social media.