This Tea Company Steeps Its Business in Social MediaAdagio Teas integrates customer feedback into its product development as well as other aspects of its business.

Selling tea over the internet isn't the simplest proposition. There's no way for online consumers to smell or taste a delicate chocolate chai or a bold pi lo chun green before they place an order. "A fair amount of guesswork is involved," admits Ilya Kreymerman, chief technology officer atAdagio Teas.

But the folks at the 13-year-old company, which operates online and from three stores in the Chicago area, don't like to leave their internet customers guessing. Instead, Adagio's patrons are encouraged to offer recommendations through Facebook, Twitter and Google+. And the conversation doesn't end there. Adagio is on the leading edge of a movement toward extracting actionable data from the social media stream, cultivating insights about products and trends from its robust customer community.