At FlyingBinary, we have developed a service for a number of clients to add the value of the social networks to existing market intelligence channels and expand the information available to decision makers within the company. We call this service Social Measurement Optimisation (SMO).

With traditional marketing, advertising and PR communications, the focus is on the size, strength and quality of the message from the company to the market. With typical response rates around 1%, the pattern is one where significant cost and effort is expended with relatively little communication back from the consumers in the market.

However new Internet services and Web 2.0 capabilities allow consumers to express their views freely, both between themselves and broadcast to the wider public. This information is largely in the public domain, and we are therefore able to harvest this data at low cost. The net effect of harvesting this information is to amplify the strength of the communication from the market back to the company.