For as much as I advocate staying focused on the present, the social media world is one that lends itself well to thinking about what's next. Quite often the answer is, "I don't know," but that doesn't stop us from talking about it. It's no different with social analytics. What are the next great listening tools to hit the market? How do we bring together data we're pulling from the social web with our more traditional offline market research activities? And, for the record, while I agree with the folks at P&G that the value of traditional market research activities is waning, we're still a long ways from outright replacement. We're also curious about the interplay between the engagement professional and the analytics professional. Are the lines blurring? Yes. Are we experiencing a democratization of data across the enterprise? Sure. Is everyone an analyst within an organization? Absolutely not. Should they be? HELL NO! Should they be comfortable with data? Yes, absolutely.

These, among other questions are ones we social analytics dorks consider all of the time. There aren't any answers, yet, but we do have some smart people thinking and talking about it. Next week (Saturday, 4/30, at 1pm EST), I have the good fortune of taking part in an FIR Live show with Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz where we'll no doubt be discussing this and many other things within the social analytics realm. Joining me for the session are Ken Burbary, Katie Paine and Aaron Weber. I'm assuming you know all of these people, but if you don't, shame on you. All incredibly brilliant people within this field.

I'm hoping during the session we have an opportunity to discuss what each of us thinks is next for social measurement and analytics. It's a pretty fascinating topic (at least for nerds like me), with widespread enterprise implications. For example, what happens if I'm wrong about everybody being an analyst within an organization? Do those not comfortable with data get shoved aside even if they are brilliant content creators? Honestly, I have no idea. Before the session next Saturday, I thought it might be interesting to jot down some of the thoughts I've had over the last few months on where I think social analytics might be going

  1. Democratization of data will continue - More data available to the enterprise is a good thing, at least in my view. However, because we're going to see more data spread throughout the organization, there will be greater pressure placed on the "modern day" market research professional to be able to adapt. Can they train people to interpret information from a social listening tool if they've never done it before? Can they work with parts of the organization they've never worked with before? Again, democratization is good, if the market research pro can simultaneously adapt.
  2. The trend toward more data isn't going ot be slowing down - For as much belly aching as some people do about there being "too much data" available to brands, I don't see that trend slowing down. Interactions on the social web create way too many data points of interest to companies to just ignore. Ahh, this brings us to #3 in this list.
  3. Crossing the "insights chasm" - I was having a discussion with an old colleague, Andy Boothe (smart as hell), the other day and I dropped this term in relation to getting people across the (GREAT) divide between data and insights. If we're going to be accessing more data in more spots throughout the enterprise, we need to be making it more actionable than we currently are. That's the chasm, and let me tell you...it's a GIANT one.
  4. Future listening tools will look more like BI tools - Whether it's in partnership with companies like Clarabridge, or it is a standalone product, the future listening tools will find a way to incorporate all media and OFFLINE market research data into one powerful dashboard. I'm not talking about Microsoft's Looking Glass here that hasn't been able to gain serious traction because of costs. No, this is embedded into a tool you already are using for a marginal increase in costs. Trust me, if you've ever seen data pulled together from disparate sources to deliver insights it's pretty powerful stuff.
  5. Listening teams will become more pervasive - There are a handful of companies who already have such teams (Kodak and Dell being two), but the reason they established them in the first place is that the value proposition of listening in real-time to customers (or just key stakeholders more generally) was painfully obvious. As more companies are exposed to the value of listening, we'll start to see dedicated listening teams cropping up all over the place. And, before you get any crazy ideas, I don't mean 23 year olds you've plucked from their parent's bedrooms.
  6. The one stop shop model - Anyone that's done more traditional research in other disciplines, particularly investor relations, knows that these tools go through violent consolidation cycles. In IR, specifically, we've reached the point where public companies are using IR management tools like ThomsonReuters or Shareholder.com and very little else. The social listening tool that brings together CRM, social listening, offline data and anything else you can think of into one spot will win. Trust me, brands don't want to have to hunt through hundreds of different providers. Chaotic buying environments make them nervous.

Anyway, these are just a few thoughts I had in anticipation of next week's discussion. Hopefully you'll be able to tune in.