Jeff Jarvis this week devotes his Guardian column to a subject we have been following and which is guaranteed to be a dominant theme of discussion at our upcoming Social Media Influence Conference. The topic is how companies are incorporating the feedback and criticism of their customers into their own decision-making through the use of group forums and company social networks.

No company has taken more of a beating in the Blogosphere than Dell Inc. In recent years angry bloggers have swarmed en masse against Dell for unresponsive customer service. Starbucks has 14,000 videos – many of them lampooning its ubiquitous presence or criticising its ethical stance – that have been posted to YouTube, (nearly one for every store on the planet). Then there’s GM, the grand old car company that is struggling in a consumer market dominated by high-oil and environmental concerns.

What did these major corporations, with a combined annual sales of nearly a quarter-trillion dollars, do to address the consumer backlash? They launched online forums and social networks, asking their most vocal critics, customers and would-be customers to direct their concerns, snipes and kudos in a single place for all the world to read and join in. This is the brave new world of social media corporate communications where customer relations management is as important as traditional press relations.

Today, Starbucks employs 40 in-house experts to mine its new social forum, My Starbucks Idea, for new ways to conduct business, from instituting recyclable cups to loyalty cards and free Wifi. Similarly, General Motors has launched GMNext, a network of blogs and podcasts written by some of GM’s most knowledgeable employees discussing upcoming models and eco innovations. The automaker even launched a wiki asking customers to help write GM’s corporate history. And what about Dell? Fresh off their "Dell Hell" fiasco the PC maker launched Ideastorm where customers can lob suggestions (not always in the friendliest tone) about features they’d like to see in upcoming models, be it standardised power cables that could be used for different models to back-lit keyboards.

In each case, these companies have a stated goal of implementing customer feedback into their future business planning.

It’s not just these three. Telecoms, media and the big accounting firms all are monitoring social media platforms daily to identify the influencers among their consumer base. This is not simply a defensive measure; they are looking for customers and brand advocates who have smart ideas about how companies can better conduct their business.