BW Communities

Are You Social Media Ready?

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[While social media has been around for a few years, it's role in the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt has highlighted the importance of paying attention to monitoring and learning from social media. Recently, a UK PR agency responsible for overseeing the launch of an infant milk formula across Europe contacted Fisheye Analytics, a social media monitoring company based in Paris, with an urgent request. They had picked up a German blog, written by an irate mother, claiming that the milk had caused her baby to develop extremely itchy, unsightly rashes. Such a claim no doubt alarmed their client, a large multi-brand conglomerate. Fisheye Analytics ran the blog through their proprietary social impact calculator, a tool that discovers and sizes any blog or article's digital footprint as it spreads through social sharing channels like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Google Buzz. In minutes, the extent of the threat was known: the blog had not had significant shares or clicks in social sharing channels. Monitoring the spread over a 4-week period, it became apparent that it was not going viral. While the client opted to engage directly with the irate mother, they ruled out the need to make a public statement on the matter. With the level of access to stakeholders that social media affords, the often neglected communications function, researching public attitudes, is taking centre stage once again. While media monitoring tools aid in distilling statistically-backed insights from online conversation, the volume of information and its potential relevance to multiple functions within the organization, means that the organization must configure frameworks and processes to tailor ‘listening' and engagement towards the requirements of disparate internal stakeholders,  marketing, sales, customer care, technology and R&D. A major component of any social media strategy is correctly combining content with platform and role, that is, knowing which networks or channels to engage on depending on the intended audience and knowing what to say and what your ‘right to play' in that area is.  For example, drug firms have to be cautious participants in online disease-specific communities because consumers do not necessarily see them as impartial experts. Tonality and engagement style are also important in creating a favorable brand experience for social media-based customers. Furthermore, in the borderless, crowded online space, content becomes truly strategic. In the new realm of social media, high quality, on-brand content helps to exert influence over the development of one's brand message. Are you social media ready?