By Orlaith Finnegan

A recent survey of Market Intelligence decision-makers, conducted by Digimind, reveals that the vast majority (79.2%) monitor social media sites to extract information relating to competitors, industry developments, consumer trends and more. The survey shows that 62.5% of companies monitor Twitter and 69.4% monitor LinkedIn as part of their day-to-day intelligence activities. However, Facebook and Google+ are not regarded as essential sources to monitor, with just 47.2% and 35.2% of companies monitoring these sites regularly.

In an era of near-constant hype about the value of information to be gleaned from social media, it’s interesting to note that 21% of companies are not harnessing the benefits of social media as a source of valuable insight and intelligence. This despite the fact that two thirds (60.6%) of respondents are currently in the process of planning intelligence projects.

Commenting on the results, Digimind’s Associate Director, Patrice Francois said. “A small proportion of companies remain cautious about the potential value of social media monitoring but the vast majority see it as a complement to the full spectrum of intelligence gathering. There is a tendency for some people to view social media monitoring as something which solely benefits B2C environments but it’s fast being adopted by a wide range of businesses and organisations for unearthing valuable intelligence insights.”

The survey also revealed a few surprises about how the market intelligence industry is performing against the backdrop of challenging economic conditions. An overwhelming amount of respondents (84.2%) said the economic situation had not caused their intelligence team to be downsized. The staffing levels in intelligence departments tends to be quite moderate so this might explain why the sector has been so immune to staff cutbacks. However three quarters of respondents indicated that they would not be recruiting within their intelligence team in 2012, while over a quarter (28%) admitted that their budget had been decreased in the last 2 years.

Other Top-line trends which are covered in the survey include, budgets of intelligence departments, average salary of market intelligence practitioners, the hiring intentions of intelligence departments and much more. <>The majority of respondents to Digimind’s 'State of Market Intelligence 2012' survey were those responsible for Competitive or Market Intelligence as well as Marketing Directors, Strategy Planners and Business Development Managers. Most main sectors were represented in the survey, with the majority of respondents belonging to the services industry (28.2%). There was also a representative number of respondents from the IT & telecoms sector (10.7%), manufacturing (10.7%) and pharmaceutical & healthcare industries (11.7%).

About the author

Orlaith Finnegan works at Digimind, a company which develops competitive intelligence software that helps organizations to automate the process of collecting, analysing and publishing critical information. Digimind is essential to any organisation that seeks to enhance its market position and corporate reputation, through ongoing monitoring of market trends, customer requirements and the competitive landscape. Digimind has an international presence to serve the needs of its global client base with offices in Boston, Paris, Singapore and Rabat.

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