Social Media Strategy: Are you “listening” to your customers?
March 12th, 2008Posted by: Chuck Fitzpatrick Posted in Blogs
Jeremiah Owyang of the always informative “Web Strategies by Jeremiah” blog had a great post recently titled “The 3 “Impossible” Conversations for Corporations.” Involvement with customers via social networking is quickly evolving from a possibility to a necessity (just ask Dell.) The part that stood out the most to me was his first point about corporations asking for feedback.
“#1: Asking for Feedback
It’s so hard for companies to ask for feedback. Take a look around, how many ‘corporate’ blogs ask for raw, unfiltered product feedback. It’s scary for a few reasons: 1) Most companies want to talk about how great they are, not expose themselves to weaknesses. 2) Most companies don’t have the appetite to listen to the feedback, then do anything with it. 3) Most companies don’t know how to respond to the feedback, they don’t want to promise it will happen, nor acknowledge a weakness.”
It may seem like a daunting task with no clear place to start, but there is a very simple way to start, the way that most good conversations begin. Start by listening.
Before jumping headfirst into a grand social networking strategy, the easiest thing to do is listen to what is already being said about you. Most likely you don’t have to ask for feedback, there’s already going to be some out there whether you like it or not. All of our ImpactWatch clients are currently monitoring Print and Online news for mentions about themselves and competitors. Those that are ahead of the curve are using ImpactWatch to do the same with Blogs.
Measurement needs metrics right? How do you determine what bloggers, blogs, and posts are more influential? Which is more important, a post with a hundred comments that started a heated conversation or a post that was read by 10,000 people who never made a comment? These are a few of the good questions, and the debates rage on, however I think the most important part of getting involved doesn’t require a magic metric, if there even is such a thing. Listen to what’s going on now, let that be the benchmark, and expand your strategy from there.
