No. No. And no again.

We couldn’t live without it. Skipping aside all the communications necessities – like, how can you participate in the conversation if you aren’t aware of it? There are vital business requirements.

Take customer service and support. Without the monitoring, how would our customer service and support teams understand where a customer is troubled or in need? The assumption they are going to phone is flawed in a world where they are recording their lifestream in minutes if not seconds.

If the statement is: “some of the technology that is used for social media monitoring is snake oil”, then there might be an element of truth to that. We use a range of providers – ranging from high-end apps through Google. In between sit hundreds of folks looking to hitch their wagon to social media.

One critical delineator is “monitoring” vs. “measurement”. Big difference. We monitor the stream surrounding Dell and our brands. We also seek to measure the impact of our programs and activity. Those without monitoring will loose competitive advantage as much as they loose insight. Those without measurement run the risk of misguided strategy and lack of business relevance.

Thanks to Ed for the tweet…