There is now however, potentially valuable business intelligence in Microblogs. One has to know what they are looking for however. We also speculate that as it is a young service and people tend to speak very freely,  there is the chance someone may reveal confidential information for a public company. So in what ways can you gather insights for business intelligence via Microblogs?

People Indicators: People may Twit (write) about job openings or lay-offs. Valuable indicators to competitors, including the ability to anticipate upcoming financial results for public companies. You might also find potential new hires.

Positioning: With TwitUps and PlurkShops (a type of real-time conference) taking place, you can gain valuable insights into how and where your competitor is positioning themselves. Additionally, you can gather leads of attendees for your marketing database.

Market Moves: Perhaps employees from your competition are traveling to trade shows or new markets pursuing business. Their Twits about this can tip you off to what they’re up to.

Brand Strategy: You can gather a trend in a branding strategy over a period of time, understand the thought leadership plan quicker than other methods and monitor the markets response to a company brand.

Product Feedback: You can monitor the reception of your competitors product/service through Microblogging posts. You’ll also gather your own.

There are other uses, but these outline what we feel are the main ones. Perhaps you can think of others? It is important to remember though, that it’s harder to lurk in Microblogs, especially one like Purk where participation is key to learning more.

Like Social Media monitoring as a whole, you want to have a strategy in place and someone who can sift through the information to pull out the useful nuggets and direct them to the appropriate place. Giving a Business Analyst on your team access to such tools is an advantage.