Year 2018: why – among different market research tools – is Social Media Monitoring still rarely used?

For many years now, the web has been the place where we spend a great deal of our time for a variety of reasons. We keep informed, exchange opinions about TV shows or artists, engage in heated political discussions, write and read product reviews, buy things or do our grocery shopping. All of these digital tracks we are constantly leaving behind us are now so numerous and complex that Marketing Research cannot pass on the opportunity to take advantage of them. However, although there are many tools to collect and catalogue these tracks, very few companies approach this information with the aim of collecting rich data and conducting research, as opposed to just monitoring/listening. Why is it that Social Media Monitoring has still not boomed in market research as an insight generation approach? As for other now increasingly widespread approaches (e.g. digital qualitative), I believe that one of the barriers is not having a clear idea of what kind of questions SMM can provide an answer to and what kind of output it can produce. My speech will present some case histories (Media, Banking, FMCG, Mass-Market Retail) and will explain in a simple, practical way how an innovative approach to understanding and using digital information can bring a valuable contribution to the generation of insights and the optimization of corporate decision-making.