• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, May 3, 2011

Amidst all the chatter in the last 36 hours about the role of Twitter in spreading the news about the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, a larger truth is evident: Even as the impact of social media grows exponentially, it is not "replacing" anything. It is another cog in the machine that inundates us with information. We are merely watching it come of age. And, if we're smart, we're listening.

Business Insider may have declared Sunday night's events "Twitter's CNN moment" and there may be some truth to the fact that "Twitter is our Times Square on this victory day," as Jeff Jarvis tweeted and Financial Timesreported, but there were still a lot of people gathering physically in spots like the Ground Zero and the White House. There are still newspapers with headlines ("Rot in Hell") that tapped into our rage for retribution. Folks still turned to TV networks to hear President Obama make the announcement that made the rumors of bin Laden's demise official. Magazine packages are being assembled even as we type and book editors are on the (digital) prowl for authors with a voice, platform and angle on the subject.

In a piece titled "Why All the Hyperventilating About Twitter 'Breaking' Bin Laden's Death Is Total Nonsense," Ad Age's media columnist Simon Dumenco makes the point that Twitter was merely the convenient conduit for news that was actually first reported by insiders in the TV news business. Amidst the flurry of pro-and-con comments, one Shelley Noeldechen writes: "Our modern era of integration is just that ... integrated!! We don't need to take down one medium to make room for another. We can use them conjunctly for each one's inherent strength."

The lesson that Resource Nation blogger Dave Thomas draws from social media's role in reporting bin Laden's death is "as a business, don't ever underestimate the power to reach out to the world through social media. When all is said and done, you may actually be surprised how many people are listening."

So, yes, while marketers have had to learn over the last 15 years so that shouting "Ring Around the Collar" is passé and two-way communication is their future, they are only recently coming to grips with the fact that listening well to other people is 50% of an effective conversation. As children come of age, we stop treating them as cute and clever and start taking what they are telling us on an entirely different level. In fact, we realize their ideas will soon drive the world we inhabit.

You need only look as far as Ad Age's coverage of Coca-Cola's 125th anniversary to realize that savvy marketers are already listening as raptly as they rap. Natalie Zmuda writes that, for example, it has embraced the owners of a Coke fan page rather than "playing hardball" as it might have done in the past.

Coke's chief marketing and commercial officer Joe Tripodi tells Zmuda that as recently as five years ago, the company struggled with the idea that the consumer, not the company, owns the brand. "When you're managing and stewarding the most valuable brand in the world, it's a challenge," he says.

The same goes for the competition. Joshua Karpf, Pepsi's senior manager of digital media communications, tells Laurie Petersen in an eConsultancy Q&A: "Our point of view is that all brands need social listening." Why? "We understand that our consumers are younger and for them digital is a valuable part of their day-to-day lives. As tools and platforms like mobile and tablets become more mainstream, we're asking what can we do that is simple, but drives the business?"

Some other questions you might ask yourself as a marketing organization were articulated by social media consultant Pam Moore on LinkedIn seven months ago as she was developing a blog post about the topic. "I think this is a topic many avoid and/or are not fully executing," she wrote. "I also think many avoid [it] as they aren't prepared to handle."

That may be because "listening" in social media is different from the listening you've done before, writes Stephanie Miller in "Listening Is Not a CRM Exercise" on ClickZ. "Using social sentiment data in direct marketing outreach requires an adjustment in practices," she writes, "...because it's not tied to an individual, and may not even be tied to an audience profile." Miller offers five ways to deal with the problem.

That said, there's always one in the crowd. And if you let him or her get going without responding, you'll have the digital equivalent of a wailing-toddler-in-Walmart-on-Black-Friday type of situation on your hands.

Pradeep Chopra, CEO of Indian digital marketing training company Digital Vidya, blogs in the Wall Street Journal that "while it's important to acknowledge and encourage your delighted customers, it's even more critical to take care of your dissatisfied customers. In the world of social media, nothing works better than making a public apology and taking responsibility for your mistakes."