In his recent blog post, Are Businesses Invading Consumer Privacy By Listening to Social Media Conversations? Brian Solis explains that consumers need to make up their mind whether they want companies to ‘listen in’ on their social media conversations or just leave them alone. Solis goes into explaining how many of the consumers have double standards – they don’t want companies to read their conversations, yet they want companies to respond to their negative comments!

Personally I believe that companies following, or listening in on social media conversations is not an invasion of privacy at all. If a consumer is willing to put his/her opinion on the internet for everyone to see, why should the company not be allowed to look at it? By following what consumers say on social media it allows companies to greatly influence how they market their products; knowing exactly how consumers feel in the moment is a major benefit to companies.

Social media users have the ability to set their privacy settings to whatever they would like; making them in full control of who can see their opinions and who can’t. If these consumers do not prevent companies from reading their conversations I believe it is the companies responsibility to read these good and/or bad opinions as it has potential to improve not just the overall marketing environment but the entire product market as well.

People have allowed social media to transform how they interact with their friends, family, and even personal relationships… why should they be able to stop it from making an impact on how a company markets it’s product?