The Growing Importance of a Data-driven Social Strategy
Posted on Tue, May 03, 2011
By now, most companies are at least beginning to understand the value of social media. Once seen as an employee time-waster, wise firms are acknowledging that there are valuable nuggets of customer information buried in the fire hose of social media streams. The hard part is understanding how to get at that data and make use of it, but if you can, you can begin to build a data-driven social strategy.
In fact, Ness just released a new white paper called: The New Social Etiquette for Capturing the Online Consumer (.pdf). The paper focuses primarily on financial institutions, but the lessons could apply to virtually any company trying to build an analytical social strategy. And what you'll likely find is that this isn't a whole lot different from other types of marketing analysis. Only the data source is different. The fact is that your customers are out there discussing your products whether you're engaged online or not. If you haven't already, it's time to let go of the notion that you still control your own marketing message because you don't. Unlike in the old days when you carefully crafted a message and presented it to consumers, the conversation is now more out of your control. Of course, you can still present marketing messages in the traditional fashion, but you also have to be prepared for a two-way conversation, and even conversations happening outside of your control -- in an influential blog for instance. If you doubt this, look at what happened to Apple recently when word leaked out that they were keeping a file on the iPhone that supposedly tracked your location. It was a situation that quickly spiraled out of control for Apple, and that's partly their fault for not responding. A week after the incident first surfaced, Apple finally released an FAQ on the matter, but a quicker response could have nipped it in the bud instead of allowing the matter to fester. Apple, more than any other company can probably get away with this without hurting sales. Your company might not be so fortunate. So what you need to do is begin to use tools that help you monitor that traffic then start to look at trends. If you don't know where to start, the Ness white paper referenced earlier could help. Once you have the data though, you need to find a way to work with it, process it, segment it, understand key influencers and build an effective social marketing campaign. But it all starts with your information gathering. It can get overwhelming choosing tools, analyzing data, looking for the right information and building an effective campaign, but don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. At this point, the worst thing you could do is to do nothing because you'll be ignoring a golden opportunity to talk directly with your customers and understand their needs and wants in a way that just wasn't possible before.
Photo by quinn.anya on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.
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