What is social media monitoring and why do companies need to do it?

Social media monitoring, also known as social listening, is the process of identifying and assessing what is being said about a company, individual, product, or brand on the Internet. Many firms are investing customer-support resources into programs that monitor social media. They seek to respond before complaints damage online reputations. Digital business guru Brian Solis suggests that the cost of reacting to experiences is far greater than the cost of proactively creating and defining those experiences from the onset: "[Customer] experience is everything. . . . Businesses must invest in defining not only a positive experience, but also a wonderfully shareable experience. Doing so influences others to join the fray while offsetting negative inquiries and the damaging viral effects of shared negative experiences."