I recently finished reading Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimise your Marketing Investment by Jim Sterne and it’s a thoroughly cracking read. It’s full of useful resources and case studies and observations on companies who have attempted to maximise their marketing potential by using social media (or soshal meedja, as we’d say in Ireland).
Chapters like “Getting the Message – Hearing the Conversation” may be especially important for those who are using social media because they think it’s the budget airline of marketing. I.e. you get the message out and you use the general public as sales reps and support teams (assuming you’re getting it right).
I indulge in some mild-mannered brand analysis and social “listening” regarding the product I work with (Yahoo! Web Analytics) and I have indeed found that being “heard” will assuage the fears or furies of most users of social media. For example, I can recall one Twitter exchange in which a customer was complaining about the user interface being down. Because I was looking out for tweets, comments etc, I was able to reach out and direct them to our status page and explain that we knew about the problem. The customer was delighted – which is great, considering that the problem still existed. But merely being heard and having the frustration answered made that customer feel better supported and less stabby-stabby.
I’ve also noticed that some people react to such reaching out with complete silence. I’m not entirely sure how to take that one. For example, if someone asks a general question and I answer it (in an official capacity from an official account) – it’s sometimes ignored. Is that “Don’t stalk me” or “I only speak to ‘real’ people” or “Well, I shouldn’t have had to ask in the first place”? It doesn’t give me sleepless nights, but I suppose it is human nature to look for a response in a conversation. Any theories?
This book also set me thinking about reputation management where social media is involved. I recently blogged about how much about “you” can be found in a simple search engine search, but what about having your profile hijacked? I’m not talking about having your account hacked and messages being sent out from your email account. Nor am I talking about your Facebook status being updated by someone else – I’m talking about the freedom that exists for others to use your name for a purpose you didn’t intend. For example, what’s to stop someone tweeting “RT @myname I’m not working right now” (or something more damaging)? What’s to stop one of my Facebook “friends” tagging a picture of someone blurry doing drugs with my name and having that appear on the newsfeed of all my “friends” and their 3,000 “friends”? And this can be extended to your company, so if you have a social media strategy, it needs to include vigilance.
Once I finished Social Media Metrics, I was hungry for more and I’m currently reading “Reading Virtual Minds, Volume 1: Science & History” by Joseph Carrabis which has caused me to miss my stop on the bus home twice so far, as I crossly informed the author. This is an unusual and fascinating book in that it discusses the investigation of human behaviour online (with the assertion that online behaviour is not offline behaviour online) and human communication in a technical context. This book had me from the beginning when, in the author’s forward, he discusses presenting to a crowded room from a laptop provided by the organisers. Ascending to the podium, he looks at the laptop and says “Oh-oh. Not Joseph’s laptop. Joseph not familiar. Very scary. Ooh”.
How could you resist reading further?
This book is full of “That’s it EXACTLY!” moments. For example, when describing the ways in which social media communities are created, the question of out-sourced support desks is raised. We’ve all heard the stories about call centres in India being staffed with help technicians who have been taught localised slang and cultural norms. The reason behind this is that even if you are being helped efficiently, your faith in the system and the process will be weakened if you cannot identify in some way with the person on the other end of the line. You send out Signal X, you expect Response Y. If you get Response A, you’re all at sea.
This reminded me of a recent call to my Visa providers when my card had been suspended for unusual online activity (which, funnily enough, was my membership payment to the Web Analytics Association from Hungary!). I’m not a phone person as I like to either engage people face-to-face or via textual exchanges (yes, I’m one of THOSE). However, because I live in Hungary and have limited contact with Irish folk, I happily spent 5 or 10 minutes on the phone to the Irish call center with many’s the merry “begorrah and begosh” because I was so comfortable in what I perceived to be a familiar environment. The rest of my day was spent loving Visa because of that chat with Mary in Dublin.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of enthralling insights in “Reading Virtual Minds”.
So, understand this, your bookshelf is naked without ”Social Media Metrics” and “Reading Virtual Minds”. Cover it up, for goodness sake. Will no-one think of the children?
