Last updated on June 22nd, 2016 at 01:24 pm
Social listening has undergone enormous evolution. Today’s social intelligence — as it is now widely known — is involved with multiple parts of marcom and used in everything from early warning systems on public issues to identifying customer trends and topics.
Jenny Cheng is chief product officer of Inside View, a market intelligence platform that creates market intelligence and delivers it through a variety of products, services, and APIs to address a range of sales, marketing, and other business needs.
A technology platform for sales, marketing and business leaders and their operations teams, InsideView gives demand generation and revenue teams one source of consistent, authoritative data, optimizing performance across sales and marketing applications, removing friction between handoffs, and fostering sales and marketing alignment.
Cheng, who has been developing innovative B2B and cloud-based technology for 20 years, was a cofounder and technology leader for gnana and vice-president technology and products program management at salesforce.com.
With social intelligence built right into its own platform, InsideView leverages social insights for competitive intelligence, for marketing and for sales.
“Social intelligence can give you a pulse on what’s most engaging for your target market,” said Cheng. “You can follow trends on what’s hot or not before spending time and resources on creating content.”
According to Cheng, social listening has both personal and professional components. “Most professionals think of social media as a 1:1 relationship and follow individuals, but ignore the professional aspect,” she said. “If you want to be knowledgeable about a sales target or even if you’re simply networking, understanding a person’s business and the industry news is crucial.”
Cheng recommends following companies on social media for two important reasons: it’s a great way to learn about a company or contact prior to a customer meeting, and it helps professionals stay current on news and industry and geographic trends.
“This is a key reason why we built company and people insights into our own product at InsideView,” Cheng said. InsideView, she said, scours online news and social media for business changes and brings them directly to clients’ inboxes, allowing for more relevant and timely conversations with customers and prospects.
“When you’re marketing or selling to businesses, what’s going on with that business or its industry is just as important as what customers are saying about your brand. It’s important to look outside your own brand and listen for theirs.”
Image credit: Jon Evans
