A few weeks ago in this space I wrote about the importance ofprotecting your brand through monitoring of social media. I pointedto a case involving Progressive Insurance and their chairman, PeterLewis.

Within 15 minutes of posting the blog on the PC360.com Website,I received an email from someone in the Progressive publicrelations department. She agreed with the substance of what I wroteand the challenges carriers face in monitoring a brand.

What struck me, though, was the speed of the reaction. I'm moreused to print journalism than electronic. When you write somethingfor print it can be a week or more between when you finish thepiece and the point where you start to get some reaction. (And bythat time I've usually forgotten what I wrote about.)

But that's not the case anymore, particularly when you writeabout a major company such as Progressive. Celent's MikeFitzgerald, who recently wrote a report on this subject:“Mining the Chatter: Optimizing Social Media Monitoring” wasn'tsurprised by the speed of Progressive's reaction when I told him mystory. In fact, he says he would have been surprised if a responsehad been delayed.

The task of monitoring the social media space for companies ismassive, particularly when you have customers and partners—bothfriendly and otherwise—making posts on Facebook, starting adiscussion page on LinkedIn, uploading a video on YouTube, orletting off some steam via their Twitter account.

Fortunately, companies can employ monitoring tools that informthem when something is said or posted about their business. That'sjust the start, though. Knowing what was said or written is onething, determining how to react to—or ignore—the information isquite another.

Fitzgerald reports the software for monitoring social mediaworks well. But selling the need for monitoring tools, particularlyto the mid-tier and lower-tier insurance carriers is not an easyproposition.

Social media has exploded in the business community in the lasttwo years and one of the reasons it has taken off is because it ischeap and easy to do. Sounds simple, right?

But nothing in life is ever as simple as it looks. It may notbother an individual if embarrassing or inappropriate behavior isposted in social media, but obviously it would bother an insurancecarrier if someone posted that they were cheated on a claim.

At a time when carriers are fighting to retain their customersand attract new ones to the fold, they need to use all the weaponsat hand.

As Fitzgerald writes: “First mover insurance companies can usethe information concerning what is possible in social mediamonitoring to invest in discrete skills and build specificcompetencies for competitive advantage. Those that are adoptingsocial media at a slower rate can use this information as abenchmark for what their more progressive competitors may bepursuing. All insurers should watch the opportunities with thesetools and adjust their approach as the automation and processesmature.”