July 2009 Archives

Do you monitor social media for mentions of your brand? Is that all you're looking for? If so, you're just getting started. You'll get more out of your listening activities if you cast a wider net.

If you've heard me talk about listening in social media, you know that I apply an expansive definition to the metaphor. It starts with basic monitoring to detect items that need a response, but the really interesting part is when you start to think of listening for its intelligence-gathering value. Given all of this public sharing of fact and opinion, what can you discover that will help your business?

1. Customers talking to you
   Call it Social CRM, customer service, or just meeting the customer where she is—if your customers are trying to reach you through social media, you want to be there. As for metrics and analysis, consider rolling the data from these contacts into a broader voice of the customer activity for a comprehensive view of what customers are telling you directly.

2. People talking about you
   Everyone in social media preaches this point. If people (not just customers) are talking about you and making it easy for you by using your brand names, you should be paying attention.

3. People talking about your competitors
   This one's easy to figure out, too. You might find immediate opportunities or longer-term insights, but you will find something useful in what people have to say about the competition.

4. People talking about your customers, suppliers and partners
   No business exists in a vacuum—who's critical to your success? If your customers are businesses, what can you learn by listening to their customers? What issues in your supply chain may affect you?

5. People talking about your market without mentioning names
   Tom O'Brien likes to point out that most conversations don't mention brands. Lots of conversations about your market are probably happening without mentioning brand names. If you're looking for insights—and not just complaints that need a response—you'll want to follow these conversations, even if that makes the queries harder to set up.

Update: Here's a twist: how about a category for what your employees are saying? Not necessarily as a Big Brother, monitoring the employees thing, but as a management of company communications thing?

• Corporate Social Media Policy: Top 10 Guidelines
  A social media policy written by a company and its agency, vetted by legal, and now free for your use. At a minimum, this is a good starting point, much easier to work with than a blank screen.
  (tags: socialmedia corporate policy msm)

• Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man
  Every time there's coverage of autonomous killing machines, we wonder if the scientists, engineers, and military people have seen any of the Terminator movies. As the science advances, we need to start reminding them of Asimov, too. In his fiction, he explored important, philosophical issues related to intelligent machines and the consequences of ignoring them. Start with the three laws of robotics, and ask what happens when you apply Murphy's Law to a robot that lacks them.
  (tags: science robotics ethics military)
• The broken guitar had no effect on United Airlines
  There's a lot of enthusiasm in social media circles. Let's not lose credibility by making extravagant claims about causation where it isn't. In this case, the broken guitar served mostly to confirm the reputation United (and most airlines) already had, and there are more plausible explanations of their stock price moves.
  (tags: reputation socialmedia)

• 10 Ways Universities Are Engaging Alumni Using Social Media
  Good ideas to get the brainstorming started. Some of these will work for non-profits that have an existing community with a strong attachment to the cause.
  (tags: socialmedia socialnetworking msm)
• 5 ways to try social media without your boss’ permission.
  I don't think "ask forgiveness rather than permission" is a good approach this year. David has some no-risk ideas on how you can make your point, without permission and without risking your job.
  (tags: socialmedia msm)

• The Five-Second Challenge: Why are you posting that?
  In a medium without editors, we have to edit ourselves, usually with mixed results. Here's a good list of questions to have rattling around in your head before you click on Post. Equally useful for business and personal blogs.
  (tags: blogging privacy msm)

• State of the Union: social media monitoring market - Vendors & strategies
  It's not exactly from a disinterested observer, but this BuzzGain post makes solid observations on the social media analysis platform market. I'd add another point of differentiation: focusing on different applications within the enterprise.
  (tags: socialmediaanalysis companies)
• Help us write the Job Description – Sr Manager, Emerging Media Marketing
  In crowdsourcing the job description, Best Buy is opening a public discussion of what the social media job is. If you're considering creating (or seeking) one of these positions, you'll want to follow the discussion.
  (tags: socialmedia msm)
• Social Media Monitoring Tools for Asia
  Trouble finding tools for monitoring social media in Asia (multiple countries).
  (tags: socialmediaanalysis asia)

• What a Social Media Policy Looks Like From Corporate Communications...
  Interesting example (anonymized) of a corporate social media policy designed to throttle initiative and preserve control by the central authority. I wonder if HR likes to tell job candidates about their great culture and empowered employees?
  (tags: socialmedia policy corporate msm)

• Seven Deadly Sins of Social Networking Security
  Not to yell "fire" in a crowded social networking site, but this article has some good points about risks to company (and personal) security in social media.
  (tags: socialmedia msm security)
• Is your Social Media Director qualified?
  If you're hiring someone to run social media, make sure they can do the job (easier said than done, since the company presumably doesn't already have someone who understands the job). Excellent discussion of the issue and tradeoffs involved.
  (tags: msm socialmedia career)

• Measurement Strategies For 5 Social Media Goals
  Helpful thoughts for starting to think about appropriate metrics for specific objectives.
  (tags: socialmedia analytics socialmediaanalysis metrics)