At the WOMMA DC Summit a number of the big analytical firms were there showing/talking about their social media tracking tools. Among the big corporations, the dashboard seems be de rigeur. A number of marketing honchos talked about the power of looking at their dashboard and knowing immediately how their product/service/brand is tracking on 'the blogs'.
While dashboards and other metrics for social media can be great tools, you're taking away the core focus of social media, people and their conversations. Knowing that X% of blog posts are negative about a product/service only scratches the surface.
Now when an executive says, "I monitor blogs." I respond, "Great, what's that last one you read? Who wrote it?"
Visitor Comments
Great point, Social Media is about people
Posted by: Jeremiah Owyang | January 11, 2007 6:42 PM
I love it! Those same people are probably still working with "target" audiences rather than understanding psychographics, behaviors and lifestyles.
Posted by: Annie | January 11, 2007 11:53 PM
We're talking about two things here -- the need to track/quantify in order to be accountable to the board room, and the necessity of staying actively engaged and keeping it real. These days, those of us working in this environment have got to be bilingual.
But what I really want to know, Josh, is how the executives respond to your question.
Posted by: Andrea Weckerle | January 12, 2007 12:23 PM
nice one josh. social media is also about relationships and connections. Big companies trying to figure out how to make this scale quickly - it doesn'/t relationships take work and time.
Posted by: deb schultz | January 12, 2007 12:59 PM
Also, you can't turn negative perception by simply tracking it; you actually have to do something about the complaints. Measurement alone is pointless.
Posted by: Kami Huyse | January 12, 2007 2:35 PM