How does Customer Respect work with Social Media?

Online customer respect has traditionally been based upon a pre-determined relationship. The website owner writes content and invites the customer to research and buy, possibly allowing for a question through email or more lately chat. It is easy to understand how best to show respect to the customer; that does not mean best practice is always applied, but it is clear what should be done. With social media, the user can turn the tables so how should they be treated and regarded? If blogs and tweets are responded to, are they given too high an importance? Is it even possible to respond to this mass of disperate commentary? And who in the organization has both the time and authority to answer on behalf of the company. Social media creates major issues for large companies that have carefully built heirarchy and internal talking points.

Is social media just a forum for a small percentage of people that have finally found a medium for their strongly held opinions or is it a tsunami of populace opinions, the like never seen before that can destroy brand reputations in a heartbeat?

Right now we are in the peak of uncertainty, the reality is that social media will likely be tamed, and managed but not without some damage and major casualties on the way. Clever minds will work out how to use social media (which is essentially the same as that elusive word of mouth) to help build a good reputation. I am sure Apple will be one of the first to crack the code and have thousands of bloggers and twitterers waxing lyrical about the next iPhone. Microsoft will undoubtedly be on the end of an equally large number of negative social media - so what changes?

The challenge now? Measurement - what is going on, how much is out there, how big is the problem (or opportunity) and how can trends be viewed over time.