The capabilities companies can obtain through using social media

Social media is costly as companies do it in addition to other activities in stead of using it as a replacement. But what about all the stuff a company can learn from using social media? What capabilities do they build?

Several people talk about what companies need to do to in order to succeed in adopting social media(Chris Brogan, the company Vignette,  John Jantsch and many others).  Firstly, they all mentions listening. Secondly, there is an element of producing content. Then there is a point on publishing it before interacting with the community around the company.

This is what companies can learn form this, the capabilities they build, Some of these capabilities are built without social media as well, but they are built differently when using social media. This is because the activities is performed differently. The thought here is that this "differently" can provide sustained competitive value to a start-up:

• Information gathering: using social media allows for listening to other people’s conversations in addition to what people (customers, competitors, vendors, etc.) are saying about your company
• Collaborating: information can more easily be shared between employees in the company using an internal social media  
• Informing: social media is changing this game with aspect to reach and targeting; a company can reach more people and chose to target specific individuals.
• Conversing social media allows a company to talk with its community in a better way
• Sourcing is used as a description for when an online community takes part in building the product or service the company is offering. BPO is being done to low-cost countries, this can now be done to online communities that have your product as a hobby (hobby does not apply for all products, but I think sourcing does)

Anything else we can learn from social media?