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Why Are You Wasting Time and Money with Radian6, Scout Labs, SM2, or Other Social Media Monitoring Tool?
By Steve Farnsworth (@Steveology)For the past several years I have been intrigued with the idea of using the information that search engines capture as a research tool of consumer’s preference and strategic marketing insight. All that data, all those opinions, and all those people make phone surveys and focus groups seem like a Dark Age’s best practice. As social media began to take over my communications consulting practice I was excited about getting involved with social media listening tools for that very potential.
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Dirty Little Secret
I talk to a lot of people in social media on a daily basis. I love to hear what and how people are using social media in the real world. I’ll ask about their social media listening tool and program. That’s how I discovered a dirty little secret. After most companies buy them, the tool becomes functionally the Software as a Service (SaaS) version of Shelfware. Shelfware-as-a-service?
I’ve spoken with a number of representatives from social media monitoring tool developers, who have been nothing but great to me, and several of them have confided that this is an industry-wide problem. Publicly vendors usually deny this or say that it does not apply to their tool. I get that. For the most part it’s not their fault, per se. While the tools have some shortcomings, the bulk of responsibility rests squarely on the users’ lack of vision, and understanding of smart practices around implementation and adaptation.
Some Monitoring. Some Integration.
I’m only slightly overstating about social media monitoring tools being Shelfware. Clients are often integrating the tools into customer service, and someone in marketing is usually making the blog/tweet version of a clip book for management–Wow, how underwhelming. However, the real potential to shape real-time strategic decision making for the C-level suite, product development, communications, and branding is going largely untapped.
It’s like having a state-of-the-art heavy tank in your arsenal, but you only use it to roll over and crush soda cans for recycling.
“We Have A Nice Kid In Marketing That Does That For Us.”
It is not uncommon for me to ask a company’s CMO, “Who is managing your social media listening?” Only to hear back that it is some lowly contributor in marketing. (No one ever really admits this, but a few questions into a conversation and the truth is easy to spot.)
You have no idea how genuinely heartbreaking this is, because 9 out of a 10 times this means that the smart, young individual contributor doing the day-to-day monitoring is also their advisor for companywide social media listening integration. In other words, no one with influence and understanding is really driving it. This is a heartbeat away from saying that your nephew designed your company logo.
Like social media itself, investing in a social media monitoring tool is a waste of staff, resources, management focus, and budget if you approach it as an action item to check off and move on.
Dominating Your Industry
However, if you include a representative from every key department on the team to help implement your social media monitoring program, build a strong mix of skills and points of view, constantly evaluate efforts and results, and set clear goals, you have a fighting chance at making social media monitoring a powerful asset to your organization.
That’s just for starters. Do you want to dominate your industry before your competitors realize what hit them? If the answer is yes, then appoint a project champion that has:
- Passion
- Responsibility
- Authority to execute
- Ability to translate listening data into actionable intelligence
It’s up to you. Are you a visionary or an empty suit?
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Steve Farnsworth's Old Blog 
ecairn
February 17, 2010
Your title clearly got my interest ;-)
I am all with you on the strategy and I wonder whether “monitoring” is an appropriate answer.
What we advocate (and have instrumented) is a very different approach.
1st: the client spends time in crafting a strategy for community marketing. (you may notice I’m not using social media – social media is not a target, communities are).
This means defining what value the client wants to provide to a specific community ( Mommies, Geeks, Gamers, Boomers or Cloud Computing experts, Wine lovers…)
2nd: The Client spends the time to identify, collect, map and understand “who matters”. This means listening to everything from the people that matter, not just when they mention its brand.
3rd: The client set specific targets like: coverage by the influencers, share of voice in that speciific community; share of a topic (yes this means positionning…)
4th : The client blends monitoring, buzz, outreach ….
The real paradigm shift is not “social media” but communities and brands can only benefit from this shift spending some quality time with people that matter (i.e max a few 1000’s people).
Best
steve_dodd
February 17, 2010
Absolutely, companies need to make this mainstream to really get the benefits. Those who do will not only survive but prosper. Those you don’t, well………have a debatable future. What will be interesting is when real mainstream applications arrive that leverage social media monitoring to drive crucial business decisions. If companies are not getting familiar with what is available now, when these new tools come on the market, they’ll scrambling to catch up (and many won’t).
Steve Farnsworth
February 18, 2010
I feel that, too. I think we will see a shift in power. From larger, slow moving industry leaders to the innovative companies that embrace social media monitoring to inflict a death of a thousand cuts on their former competitors.
Sara Zimmer
February 17, 2010
You are right, no need to use Radian6, its way to expensive. Viralheat seems more powerful and way cheaper.
Luke Brynley-Jones
February 18, 2010
Apart from the overly dramatic title to this post, I agree with the overall sentiment, but to say ViralHeat compares to Radian6 is a bit silly. There are easy-to-use, light-touch tools and there are serious analytics tools. The two sets really are beyond comparison. Bottom line: get the tool that, as a user, you are capable of using.
Ashley Lim
February 17, 2010
Great article!
Tools are not the entire solution, they generate data. But data is useless if no one analyses and checks them.
Its more important to have professionals look at the data and provide analytical, actionable insights based on accurate and relevant data. Such feedback needs to be integrated into the corporate planning process.
Ashley
Social Media Consultant
Brandtology
Steve Farnsworth
February 18, 2010
To do that you need leadership. I think a lot of the foot soldiers will get it, but like branding if the C-Suite doesn’t get it, it will go nowhere.
Ashley Lim
February 18, 2010
Yup, I agree, thats why when we speak to our clients, we usually try to get their management involved, so that they see the ample opportunities of social media and buy in to the whole idea.
Given the strong growth in this area, I am sure many C-level bosses are already thinking about it, but are still looking for a starting point and a way to quantify the ROI on such expenditure.
Jennifer Zeszut
February 17, 2010
Hi Steve,
I actually agree wholeheartedly that companies are not leveraging social media as widely as they should be. But I just wanted to chime in and say that companies abandon Radian6 and others and migrate to Scout Labs when they’ve had the realization that you espouse. Social Media is NOT one person’s “job”. It’s a potentially powerful input into decision-making across the company. Our product, pricing and UI decisions all encourage widespread functional adoption. We actually have clients with dozens (hundreds in some cases) of users across multiple functional areas — Product, Customer Insights, Customer Support, Exec, Strategy, PR, Marketing, Sales — even Legal! We tech platforms are not the solution — we can only enable teams WHEN they make choose to make more customer-centric business decisions, across the board.
Thanks Steve.
Jennifer
(CEO Scout Labs)
Steve Farnsworth
February 18, 2010
Thanks for weighing in. Do you think that SM listening tool vendors will be able to collaborate to help promote smart companywide implementation and adoption practices? What would it take to make this happen? Is Scout Labs doing anything to help reach out to the other vendors to help make this happen, or is there too much competiveness to work together at this time?
Thanks,
Steve
Jennifer Zeszut
February 18, 2010
I would LOVE to do more side by side demos of and discussions with alternate vendors. I have invited many to join me, with no takers so far. Your help would be welcome. I think the analysts firms are functioning in this role right now (Dachis Group, Altimeter, etc.)
Maria Ogneva
February 18, 2010
Jennifer, I would be up for doing some collaboration / side by side demos :)
Feel free to ping me at mogneva (at) biz360 (dot) com
Cheers!
Maria Ogneva
Director of Social Media, Biz360
@themaria @biz360
Steve Farnsworth
February 18, 2010
I would be happy to help in any way I can. However, while side-by-side demos is intriguing, I think the greater threat to tool vendors, and the greatest need of the users, is collecting on smart practices around companywide social media listening tool integration and adoption. I would really like to work with several top SM monitoring companies to create a resource of non-tool-specific smart practices. Maybe we could brainstorm a few ideas of what that might look like.
Maria Ogneva
February 22, 2010
Would love to! Let’s take this offline to email – mogneva (at) biz360 (dot) com
Carlos Diaz
February 18, 2010
Hi, kudos for your article. When you plan to address professionals you need to provide them with a solution which answers the HOW TO question? Here the HOW TO question is not How to listen but how to turn conversations into real actions?
blueKiwi developped a solution to manage external voices and bring the best conversations internally to make better decisions about products, services, and business strategies
Joseph Fiore
February 18, 2010
I completely agree. And you hit one some important topics and themes about the parts which seem to be working and others which aren’t.
To a large extent, IMHO the misfiring on how to “use”, “guage” and formulate “best practices” within the enterprise can be derived from a mix of poor counsel and overselling.
Whether this is an in-house, “expert” driven or crowd-sourced firehose spraying misinformation in an out-of-control manner, both consultants and vendors in this space share a similar responsibility to inform and make users aware of any/all shortcomings of their services and/or tools.
On your point about convergence, we have had significant success in rolling out across the enterprise – partly because an integrated, online dashboard and easy-to-use UI becomes a daily practice (habit) – an evolve of practice made amenable through convergence and the need to scale across to other departments (Marketing, PR, CS, Security, Sales, Legal) to better service online interests and needs.
I think most vendors know there is still room for improvement – it is great when the discourse starts and has an opportunity to advance with well thought out posts like this one.
Joseph
@RepuTrack
RepuMetrix Inc.
Steve Farnsworth
February 18, 2010
You are right about poor counsel and overselling. However, I think the lack of vision by senior management is key here. In conversations with company leaders I get the strong impression that there is still a misperception among them that social media is a “tech” that is interesting, but not really on their radar. Akin to needing to add mobile compatibility to their web site, and someone in marketing is handling that.
Mark W. Schaefer
February 18, 2010
This is a red-hot topic. I think the tool you use may depend on the company culture. A large enterprise with a lot of money may use Radian6 to be “safe.” Companies who “get it” may be able to patch together a much less expensive yet effective solution. The subject is going to get a lot more complicated with Google and Microsoft in the arena and the growing need for really accurate and cost-effective sentiment analysis (really it has to be done manually today).
Thanks for the great post, Steve.
Steve Farnsworth
February 18, 2010
Amen to that, brother. It’s going to be interesting to see how and when Google and Microsoft jump into the fray. I think SM tool vendors could make a lot of hay by really owning the strategic platform angle before that happens.
Laurel Bowen
February 18, 2010
It is also important for companies to realize that internet chatter is only a slice of real world chatter. There is still a need for large companies to do well-designed surveys to capture a wider picture about public perception of their company and their products.
Brett Serjeantson
February 18, 2010
Shelfware is unacceptable and should never happen. The reason why it is happening, is because there is no needs analysis being done for the client and post support and services are viewed as a ‘loss leader’.
Believe me, no one would be building these products if there was no commercial value. The problem is how companies view their clients. Our job is to provide them value and not just improve our bottom-line.
Brett Serjeantson
MediaMiser CEO/CTO
leyla
February 18, 2010
Everyone who works in (or closely related to) Social Media emphasizes the importance of SM and how “sad” or “disappointing” or what a great mistake it is for senior level marketing executives to overlook Social Media monitoring.
I think CMOs are generally pretty smart and on top of their own business. Can someone give an example of a CMO who has embraced SM monitoring and given it the same level importance that all the SM experts have?
Marcel LeBrun
February 18, 2010
Leyla… see my comment below. I provided some examples of companies whose CMOs embrace SM.
Cheers,
Marcel
Ujwal Arkalgud
February 18, 2010
Great post. I personally believe that the lack of passionate execution on the part of most organizations comes due to a cultural perspective on social media. While management in organizations take notice and understand that social media is an important part of their marketing mix, I don’t think they consider it worthy enough of making it a full time, well paying job….sort of like hiring a marketing manager who handles your programs/communications, you need a community manager!
Once such roles become more common and accepted, I think we’ll start seeing a sea of positive change. Until then, its up to the visionaries to continue leading and changing the landscape!
jon b
February 18, 2010
I think you’re getting almost everything right, but your opening line.
The reality that very few people in the industry know how to/care/pay attention to or properly activate the conversation has nothing to do with the tool or the shelfware.
None of the tools are perfect. Most are far from it.
But a poorly built home isn’t the fault of the tool manufacturer. It’s the fault of the contractor who didn’t know (a) what tools to use when, and (b) how to use these tools.
I have found incredible value in listening across both Fortune 100 brands and small start ups. The value is incredible.
It’s time we stopped asking “Are we listening” and starting asking “What are you doing for my business”.
Jen Zingsheim
February 18, 2010
This would apply to just about any aspect in business, wouldn’t it? Example, why have a PR department if you don’t listen to them in a crisis situation, why have a lawyer if you don’t take their advice, etc.
Any monitoring–social media or traditional media–is simply data collection. There will be some who “check the box” and others who really get that there is real intelligence there. (Disclosure, CustomScoop is an online media monitoring company). Making sure your clients understand not only what they are getting in the form of data, but what they can then do with it is key. The more they know about what the data can show, the more valuable the tool is–and the more likely they are to stick with you when budgets get squeezed.
Good post, and great for people to noodle on.
chriskovac
February 18, 2010
Hi Steve!
Great, thought-provoking article on social monitoring. We (as an “ad agency”) have been immersed in this for the past 18 months or so. It has been an interesting ride. I think the major issue with the monitoring companies (I have worked with more than 3) is setting the right expectations. I think often times, it is over-promise and under-deliver, which can put marketing agencies in a very tough position.
With that said, I am a huge proponent of social monitoring for nearly all companies. We also look beyond a client’s company or brand name. To us, conversations about certain marketplace issues (aerospace, ag, etc) talk a lot about how to solve specific issues. They are not necessarily mentioning brands. I think a lot of marketers are missing the boat on that. Of course, brands (especially in B2B) are being mentioned with increasing frequency.
You have a new fan of your blog, thanks a ton!
Chris Kovac
Social Influence guy for an ad agency
Eric Melin
February 18, 2010
The important thing with social media is that its one set of a number of metrics that you need to correlate to get actionable insight. It’s about what you do with the information. Do you have the right analyst? Are you using the data correctly? A hammer is still a hammer in the hands of a three year old or a master carpenter. I’m not sure when locating, categorizing, and visualizing this valuable data over the entirety of the Internet became something that people didn’t think was worth paying for. Could it be that people don’t have the time or know-how to do anything with it all?
Eric Melin
@Spiral16
Marcel LeBrun
February 18, 2010
Hi Steve,
Your post is reminiscent of the kind of observations people were making about CRM in its early days. Some early adopters got it right while others just had to “get CRM” without having much thought around how it supports their business goal of providing a great customer experience.
The heightened awareness around social media has every company beginning to recognize that isn’t a medium they can just ignore, and that’s a good thing. Yes, as you note, there are companies who – at first – are just “checking the box”, or at least they think they are. However, there are many companies, like Dell, Comcast, Microsoft, Pepsi, UPS, SouthWest Airlines, AMD, Kodak, AAA, etc. (disclosure: all Radian6 clients) who absolutely get it. They are leading the way in incorporating the social web, community building, listening & engagement throughout their enterprises. None of these companies have assigned the task to a “kid in marketing” – quite the contrary, it has become core to their strategy and implemented across multiple functional areas in the business. At Radian6, we like to talk about social media as the “social phone” since it really is a multi-purpose communications medium and the opportunity is there to have the entire enterprise engaged.
To your point, purchasing a tool alone does not transform how your company listens & interacts with customers, especially if you assign it to the kid in marketing. Nor does the “get on twitter, get on facebook, get a blog” type of advice help either.
I do think it is a natural phenomenon when something hits the mainstream and transitions from the early adopters. We are seeing this space absolutely explode; some will be thought leaders while others will take more time to get it – that’s natural.
That’s why we are all investing in education, case studies, training, etc. and why the work that you are doing (@ Jolt) with clients is so critical: starting with an overall social media strategy. But it’s all good… more companies are listening, right?
Cheers,
Marcel
CEO, Radian6
Mark
February 18, 2010
Hi Steve,
I agree with you wholeheartedly and my experience in this space mirrors yours. Early adopters are excited about the potential of this space, but do not grasp the effort needed to actually achieve this potential. Most haven’t clearly thought out the resources necessary to pour through the amount of data available, or the skill set necessary. I always caution companies that unless they have dedicated a TEAM to work in this space they are going to be disappointed. I see isolated incidences of success as a forward thinking individual finds a use for the information, but the handicap is always time. They have a day job and they glean what they can in a quick way and move on. The state of the industry right now is not surprising though. Looking at the growth of other industry changing technologies (websites, CRM, ERP) this is the normally maturation process. Ask your Fortune 500 C-Level executives about their ERP implementations in the 90s and you will hear a similar (but much more expensive story). Only through trial and error do companies learn. The Million Dollar question is will vendors learn from the mistakes of other emerging industries? The industry is at critical inflection point. Will vendors realize developing a social monitoring software is not enough? A thought leader needs to emerge and wrap services around the software to deliver the insights companies need, but don’t have the time to develop themselves. If they don’t, companies will either develop it themselves, or the industry will be relegated to the likes of IM and geolocation services…a consumer product that individual employees utilize on their own…and not elevate itself to a strategic corporate resource that drives revenue and efficiencies like email, CRM, ERP, and web portals.
Elyse DeVries
February 18, 2010
“It’s like having a state-of-the-art heavy tank in your arsenal, but you only use it to roll over and crush soda cans for recycling.”
This problem is not unique to Social Media Monitoring – it occurs within many of the business solution categories (CRM, ERP etc). The difference, as Steve addresses in this article, is that Social Media in many organizations has been relegated to the back burner, “whatever resources we have left-over in the marketing department”,” the intern”, or “whenever we can get to it” etc. This makes it highly unlikely that organizations will have an implementation and training plan when they buy Social Media Monitoring software.
If you are monitoring social media and you have a suspicion that you are not getting the most out of your software, talk to your vendor. It is in both of your best interests that you get the most out of the tools you are paying for. Chances are there are training resources available to you that you may not know about. Find out about the live training webinars your vendor presents. What Online Courses are available? Does your business need additional services and support? Does the vendor need to fill any holes in the training resources they provide? Let them know, so they can respond to your needs.
Are you looking into social media monitoring software? Talk to your vendor and find out what type of support they offer for implementation and make this a part of the decision process.
Elyse DeVries
Marketing Specialist
Alterian SM2
ListenLogic
February 18, 2010
Great post and great insight. The title really got my attentions, also, the comments have been great so far.
Indeed, data is useless if you’re not looking at it or doing something with it.
This is one of the reasons OUR solution is a managed solution. Each client has an in-house analyst that monitors your account everyday fine-tuning, providing insights, and alerting you of any emerging problems.
Great post, will certainly be subscribing.
http://www.listenlogic.com
Maria Ogneva
February 18, 2010
Steve, very well written post, and an important discussion that is happening in the comments section. You hit the nail on the head: a tool is just a tool, and will remain shelfware until it becomes part of a *cross-functional* strategy and execution. Tools don’t engage, people do.
I think we all have a pretty good handle on listening as an industry, which is great: now our clients can take pulse and figure out who is saying what, and how to prioritize blogs and tweets in terms of influence and impacts. Where I think we could all do a little more work is in the area of actionability. What do you actually do with these people who tweet and blog about you, your industry and your competitors? How do you link these conversations to non-financial and financial impact? How do you involve all the pertinent people in the organization in the process? How do you get this all to be part of the larger organizational plan? Once a solution answers these questions and executes on this well, their product will cease being shelfware.
Maria Ogneva
Biz360 http://ci.biz360.com
@themaria @biz360
andy
February 19, 2010
yup you’re right a tool just an alternatif to support us. But we can find and use other method to keep up the information. And i prefer to choose a manual ways than have to rely in a premium tool to monitor our program. Thank for your share and information. I like the title so much
tomob
February 19, 2010
Steve:
Great post – and I have a different perspective on brand monitoring vs. brand strategy. Here is (for me) the most salient quote in the article:
“However, the real potential to shape real-time strategic decision making for the C-level suite, product development, communications, and branding is going largely untapped.”
Brand monitoring has NOTHING to do with product development, branding and communications planning and execution. It has everything to do with PR and CRM.
Brand monitoring is not a research tool. It just provides an endless, overwhelming stream of data. (Does not mean it isn’t useful, b/c it is – for PR and CRM. BTW, it isn’t even useful for that if you don’t actually use it across departments.)
Research requires goals, hypotheses, analysis, understanding, ideas, insight and recommendations. None of these things are output from SM monitoring tools. None.
I think this is a common problem – people are mixing up apples (CRM/PR/Brand Protection) with oranges (consumer insight research) when trying to use SM monitoring for research.
We have lot of clients who now (after 2 years of flailing) understand this and use us for research/insight and monitoring tools for PR/CRM.
Example of SM research here – could NOT be done with a monitoring tool.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yhapqod
Anyway, your provocative title is right on – few organizations get the PR and CRM benefits they should get from SM monitoring – and I would wager that almost none of them getting useful information for brand and communication planning and execution or new product development.
Tom O’Brien
MotiveQuest LLC
@tomob
ecairn
February 19, 2010
@tomob Excellent response !
Erin Korogodsky
February 21, 2010
At Scout Labs, we love when clients take action – the data helps build the road map but engagement is about connecting with people.
For more great tips about “Listening” and how it leads to engagement, check out Jeff Sass’ (@jeffsass) video blog from the Social Media Jungle at the Consumer Electronics Show – really great tips in here. I saw it in person and it was really worth seeing again. Jeff is over at Myxer.
Steve Farnsworth
February 21, 2010
Hey Erin,
Normally, I am grateful when people leave comments since responding takes time and energy. However, this response seems a little generic and doesn’t really address the post. Also, wasn’t this the same comment (http://snipr.com/ugjjb) that you posted at Brains on Fire? I was little surprised that someone from Scout Labs would cut and paste a comment.
Olivier Riviere
February 22, 2010
Excellent discussion! Thanks to Steve for inspiring it via his great article.
I believe that the fundamental question for each organization – commercial or not – is not about the role of social media. It is about the capacity to engage with its overall business ecosystem and to take a holistic approach to marketing. Some companies have it (SAP, Apple, and some less known); but most companies don’t really. Then buying all the fancy tools on earth (CRM, SM, or any type of research) will get them (almost) nowhere.
From my own experience, I believe that using web analytic tools (cheap or expensive) makes sense if you have a clear business goal (even if tactical only) and if there is some cross-functional collaboration among various internal stakeholders that brings: 1/ some collective intelligence to better understand the business environment and the finding of the web analytics, 2/ a clear and pragmatic plan to use the results of the analysis and take coordinated actions.
In reality; how often are web analytics tools (or more classic researches) used in such a collaborative and coordinated context?
Doug DeSimone
February 23, 2010
PR and Marketing may be making a mistake based on the previous use of “monitoring” tools, e.g. tracking broadcast TV or Print, where it’s perfectly fine to have and junior employee (or even an intern) tracking what was said on the 5 o’clock news. Since it’s the company / brand who pitched the story to the media in the first place, they’re just looking to see if *their* story aired and how the story was covered. When a crisis comes along, some more senior members of the PR team might take over at the helm but then hand over the controls to the intern when things calm down. So the problem originates from 1) how things have been done in the past and 2) *still* not understanding that Social Media is nothing like TV, Radio or Print — the old unidirectional models. So while Social Media is officially on the radar now but old habits die hard. A new communication medium like Social Media needs a correspondingly new Business Process Design and Org Design. As part of the solution, if the organization can drop the word “monitoring” and adopt the word “listening”, the need for a new approach should be self evident.
Bill Rice
February 24, 2010
Steve,
Great post. We were obviously on the same wave-length. I just posted http://bit.ly/98i1Eh, and I’m one of those tools.
I like your idea above:
“I think the greater threat to tool vendors, and the greatest need of the users, is collecting on smart practices around companywide social media listening tool integration and adoption. I would really like to work with several top SM monitoring companies to create a resource of non-tool-specific smart practices.”
Let me know if you have put any more thought to it–or I can help.
Bill Rice
@billrice
Karen Gutierrez
March 4, 2010
Great discussion.
As someone who monitors social media for mentions of a brand, I’ve found that for some platforms (eg. Twitter) it’s more effective to go straight to the source – the fire hose vs. the garden hose.
Appreciate Tom O’Brien’s comments but not sure I agree that consumer insights cannot be gleaned from listening to what’s being said in social media. I use a monitoring tool, in addition to going straight to source, and I believe I’m gaining insights. The challenge is understanding how to quantify those insights and present them to management. This is what the monitoring companies don’t make readily apparent. I suspect consultants who specialize in interpreting the data gathered through monitoring tools are doing well these days.
Catherine van Zuylen
March 4, 2010
Companies need to have an effective program and thought process around what we call LARA:
LISTEN: Where are your customers “talking” today? Surveys? Communities? Social Media? Call Center Notes? You need to have a comprehensive listening program that encompasses them all.
ANALYZE: How are you analyzing those “conversations”? Are you just basically searching for keywords? That’s not enough to keep up.
RELATE: How does the information you’re collecting relate to other information that already exists within your organization?
ACT: What do you want to *do* with your social media listening program? Mine and report on buzz, top issues, suggestions, sentiment? Route at-risk customers or customers ready-to-buy to the right people? Use information in “expert” forums to drive self-service?
Right now, these activities are often siloed by source and by department. At a bare minimum, you need to get everyone in marketing and customer service communicating with each other about it.
40deuce
August 19, 2010
I’ve been away from the internet a bit today, but just had time to sit down and read your article Steve.
I’m going to have to admit that a lot of my competitors that have left comments here have hit the nail on the head. There are a lot of companies that do it just to do it, but there are also a lot companies that are doing it right.
I think that once some of these companies that are doing it right let others see how it’s really done, the rest will catch on.
I think Marcel from Radian6’s allusion to the early days of CRM is a fantastic example. Now that people get it, they use it more. Social media is still new and it may take some time before everyone is doing it right, but I think it will happen.
Have a little faith.
Cheers,
Sheldon, community manager for Sysomos
Steve Farnsworth
August 20, 2010
I do understand your point, and think the smart practices will catch on more than they are now, as you say, but I have not seen that, “there are also a lot companies that are doing it right.” I know of only a handful of CMOs and CEOs who understand the complexity, subtlety, and value of social media. They are a small group at this time. My point was not that social media monitoring is forever doomed by a bunch of idiots, but that like many new opportunities of the past, it takes visionaries to realize the game changing power and use it to their unfair advantage. I have great faith in them. The rest who want to wait and see I have no time for. I throw my lot in with the test, test, test some more and move forward folks!
howiespm
June 19, 2011
my big concern with all of these tools is that only a micro-fragment of our day to day conversations are being listened in on. Mostly twitter. And with only 6-10mil in the US active using twitter each day and even for a heavy tweeter like me it still represents so little. 70% of all Facebook profiles are 100% private. For every facebook status update there are 182 SMS text messages sent. Never mind, email, face to face and phone etc.
So while it is a tool all businesses have to be careful. What if you get 100 complaints on Twitter each day but never see the 10,000 compliments that occur in private. And since Twitter and Blogs are public people often aren’t as open and free with their speech as they are in private.
A great example from the past was Henry Blodget pumping up internet companies during the dot.com and thrashing them in emails. A listening tool would of had to buying stock that was doomed.
I tell clients to use the tools to get some sentiment but they will not replace talking directly with your customers and your competitors customers. It is really easy to be lazy and think a Radian6 can replace the hard work that needs to be done. That doesn’t mean I don’t find value in these tools. Obviously any data out there you can get is great. But perspective is very important.
Steve Farnsworth
June 20, 2011
In high school I worked in a bowling ally. My old boss would tell me to embrace and listen carefully to customers who complained because they were, to your excellent point, a small percentage of the real number of customers who were unhappy. My boss explained that they were important to learn and improve from because it was they only way to help reduce that other group of silent unhappy customers told their friends instead of telling us, and just never came back. While you have to take all feedback in with a grain of salt, it’s a lesson I never forgot.
Sergei Dolukhanov (@sdolukhanov)
August 18, 2011
It all comes down to one fundamental question if you’re an executive:
“What is going to make me money and maximize my return”? I can tell you one thing, Social monitoring sure isn’t going to do that. Sure charts and graphs are cool to look at, and oh wow, ‘my brand is being mentioned online’. Well guess what? Your brand is being mentioned in a corner store when someone purchases a coke.
The money is in applying business key performance indicators to conversations online. The social research that digs deep and tries to understand the fundamental roots and motivations of people’s conversations. It requires both top-notch software and industry leading expertise to actually apply business principles to making money with Social Media.
Social media monitoring is just the tip of the iceberg. Social media business intelligence is where the money is; understanding your customers, leading (not following) the conversation about your company online, and fixing the small issues before they blow up in your face. You need the deep analytics to actually understand how you can pull a return on your investment in social media. Take my word for it.
Great post. I challenge anyone to find me a company that made a nickel from Social Monitoring that they couldn’t make with sound inbound marketing principles.