Value Chain in Social Media Monitoring According

Value Chain in Social Media Monitoring

According to the value chain construct developed by Michael Porter, value is created by an organization through a fairly straightforward yet many-part array of primary and support activities (VBM, 2011). In this model, firm infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, and procurement all provide support to the primary activities of an organization, which can generally be broken down into the constituent parts of inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services (VBM, 2011). In the fairly new industry of social media monitoring, the value chain can be somewhat difficult to pin down and may still be solidifying. By examining the value chain in two social media monitoring companies, an idea of how well the industry value chain matches the ideal value chain -- as well as how these two competitors are doing in terms of establishing and solidifying their value chains, and what these value chains look like -- can be achieved.

Support activities are relatively self-explanatory in most industries, and are so for Brandwatch and Radian 6, two popular companies in the social media monitoring industry. This industry provides services to other businesses and entities, reporting on what is being said about a brand or product on social media and thus affecting marketing strategy and potentially other operations. Things like human resource management and technology development are just as important in this industry and for these companies as in any other more traditional manufacturing models, and arguably more so in certain areas. From what can be seen, both Radian 6 and Brandwatch have similar levels of support services in place (Brandwatch 2012; Radian 6, 2012).

Ascertaining the specifics of these companies' primary activities is somewhat more difficult. Both Brandwatch and Radian 6 could call the gathering of information from social media their inbound logistics activity, but the specific operations in place at the companies used to aggregate and analyze data to produce useful information for their clients is highly proprietary and likely significantly differentiated (Brandwatch, 2012; Radian 6, 2012; VBM, 2012). Ouutbound logistics offerings seem to differ between the two companies slightly, with Radian 6 offering more integrated and immediate information retrieval by clients (this would be the "transportation of the product" that outbound logistics usually consists of and Brandwatch seeming to focus on higher-order business aspects and thus longer-term deliverables ((Brandwatch, 2012; Radian 6, 2012; VBM, 2011). Marketing and sales operations are also differentiated between the companies in a way that seems to directly reflect the different approaches to the industry and service provision these two companies have, with Radian 6's homepage abuzz with near-immediate news about the product from a variety of users, and with Brandwatch presenting a more stolid image ((Brandwatch, 2012; Radian 6, 2012). Service provision is difficult to ascertain without actual service experience.