Consumers continue to use social technologies to wrestle control of brands away from organizations. Marketers operating in this hyper-inclusive environment must go beyond simply tracking brand mentions and impressions and get at the root of the discussion. Enter listening platforms. Listening platforms are an emerging technology solution category — with origins in the brand monitoring market — that allows marketers to track discussions, understand sentiment, identify influencers, and use the resulting insights to improve market research, positioning, and overall marketing strategy.