How to Create a Social Media Monitoring Strategy
So I was talking with a peer recently about his online community work, and in that conversation I asked him what his company’s social media monitoring and response strategy entailed. His reply:
“Oh, you know, we’re using Radian6….”
Frankly, his reply didn’t surprise me. Radian6 *is* a kick-butt service that a lot of companies are using, ours included, however, the more I think about his response and continue talking with other folks about conversation discovery, tracking, analysis, and the like, the more gaps I find….
And, well, the more it seems that very few companies actually have a fully baked social media monitoring and “engagement” strategy.
I think part of the problem is that for too long now, too many companies, like my colleague’s above, have just wanted to get their arms around the conversation discovery challenge, and things like analyzing, acting, and archiving those conversations were secondary concerns. And, you know, that’s fair enough, but by no means is that a complete plan.
It’s with this in mind, that I thought it might be interesting to outline, at a really basic level, what a social media monitoring and engagement program looks like in its entirety (if you take a sec and extend it past the obvious tasks). And note, I’m looking at this more from a general internal infrastructure perspective, so yeah, beware, your mileage may vary.
Step 1: Conversation Discovery
This is pretty easy: How are you discovering conversations? Are you using brand monitoring services like Radian6, Nielsen, Cymfony, and the like? Also, are you using keyword watch lists and alerts; at very least, doing persistent searches? Typically, for larger brands, it takes a combination of the paid services and select DIY search hacks to generate a healthy river of news.
Step 2: Conversation Aggregation
Again, easy stuff. What are you using to gather up all your data sources; all your inputs? Is it a commercial feed reader, like Google Reader, Netvibes, My Yahoo!? Or perhaps some sort of proprietary dashboard, like TruCast? For some, well, actually a lot of folks, their email inbox continues to be the preferred repository for all this information — for better or worse.
Step 3: Conversation Escalation
This is the step where a program transitions from passive watching tactics, to analysis, response planning and ultimately, to participation. To get this job done right, there needs to be some sort of logical escalation path for getting front line issues to behind-the-line experts who can provide the best information and value — the fastest. I’ve seen big, bulky ticketing and delegation systems used for this, as well as simple group email aliases. At Voce, we’ve custom built our own lightweight system. The important thing here is to establish some sort of process/place to rely on and record activity.
Step 4: Conversation Participation
What’s the best way to participate? Do you prioritize and pursue direct methods, like comments, posts, tweets, emails, etc? Or do you explore indirect methods of participation like social bookmarks, tagging, favoriting, err, “likes,” etc? Lastly, at what point is participation more effective offline? I’m a big believer that participation takes a variety of shapes and forms, picking which form is right for a given context takes, well, takes some experience and skill, but mostly patience.
Step 5: Conversation Tracking
How do you keep track of all the posts, tweets, comments, links, and otherwise, where you’re participating in conversations? Do you use an industrial strength CRM or maybe one of the many comment management systems on the market, like co.comment. Or worst case, do you simply rely on email strings to help track important conversations?
Step 6: Conversation Archival
Hands down, one of the biggest challenges of any social media monitoring and response program is recording or archiving actions taken, opportunities lost, and most importantly, outcomes achieved. Likewise, capturing and recording conversation patterns, identifying gateway topics, keyword mentions and the frequency/sentiment of sources, perhaps for more targeted influencer outreach work at some point, are all important.
Again, this is just a very basic breakdown here, but I think (I hope) it shows that conversation discovery is really just a small slice if what you need to round out a larger social media monitoring and response strategy.
17 Comments, Comment or Ping
Mike Spataro
Mike,
Great advice. Some people seem to think all you need is a tech vendor and you have a “strategy.” There is a huge difference between short-term monitoring and long-term business intelligence. One of the real values of social media is what a brand can learn over months and years and how to apply those insights to make their products and services even better. Thanks for the post and mention.
Mike
Jul 17th, 2008
Rich Reader
This post is essential reading for those of us who are responsible for effective, objective, and productive social media program design, development, and management. It is a quick, high-level primer and mind-opener into how the process can and should work.
When one operates the conversation process continuously, a secure datastream can be mined and refined for actionable business intelligence. Any social media strategy worth its’ salt should embrace this process.
Thanks, Mike!
Jul 17th, 2008
Todd Defren
A must-read. Thank you Mike.
Jul 17th, 2008
Marcel LeBrun
Hi Mike,
You are right on the pin with this post. While I love to hear, “you know, we use Radian6″, I prefer to hear a comprehensive strategy and you have laid out a nice progression path in your post. As companies start with effective online listening, they begin to recognize and expand the many types of conversations they can listen to and then get a better sense of the opportunities to participate, add value and ultimately build community.
I really appreciate your comment about Radian6. We are privileged to be working with you and team at Voce (who also kick-butt, btw).
Marcel
CEO, Radian6
[comment cross-posted to Voce Nation]
Jul 17th, 2008
Brian Ellefritz
Hi Mike,
Bill Robb tipped me off to this excellent post. Great step=by-step progression for us brands to follow. For us at Cisco, tools have been the easy step to take and while they’re not a solution they do get the engagement started. Roles are the tough part. Getting the processes and responsibilities sorted out for doing conversation and engagement efforts takes management commitment and lots of elbow grease, but the rewards are very much there. Thanks again for your insight.
Brian Ellefritz
Social Media, Cisco Systems
Jul 17th, 2008
Mike Manuel
@Marcel, thank *you*, i really think your team has brought a product to market that’s providing folks like me with a practical fix to the discovery and analysis challenge; and doing so at a price point that’s allowing companies of all sizes to reconsider the paid services…
@Brian, i agree, you can remove both the procedural and technical barriers to participation for any company, but ultimately, it comes down to motivation and whether or not a team behind a model, like that outlined here, has, you know, what it takes….
Jul 17th, 2008
Brian E
Excellent information here. Thanks for putting this together.
Jul 18th, 2008
Dean Westervelt
Nice post, Mike.
Your general steps are a fine outline to creating a strategy. At the risk of sounding too basic, in working with clients I begin by simply asking what they’re trying to achieve at the outset - that answer would also help contextualize the rest of the conversation and set natural (testable?) limits on the strategy that emerges.
Dean
Jul 21st, 2008
Sarah Wurrey
Great post, Mike!
Whenever I hear “101″ advice for engaging in social media, “listen before you jump in” is always one of the first things said. It’s nice to see such a terrific analysis of this step!
I agree with Dean, finding out the client’s objectives before even beginning a monitoring and analysis program is a must. Our clients at CustomScoop have diverse goals, but by providing the analysis that puts the conversation into the appropriate context for their business, we’re able to help them see the value in social media (and the value in keeping a close eye on it).
Jul 21st, 2008
Mat Morrison
Mike — thanks for this - have you seen Brendan’s post over at PNeo? It covers off a bit more detail on Step 2 (Aggregation) - for people who don’t want to be putting a lot of budget into clever software.
I’ve also pulled together a list of feeds for DIY search hacks. Hope it’s of use.
Jul 24th, 2008
matteo
Thank you so much for your post! it’s an extreamly worth reading!
Jul 28th, 2008
Marc Meyer
Mike, good stuff, I talk about this all the time; simply put, that there is a big disconnect between measurement, expectations, evaluation and implementation. Makes you wonder who’s steering the ship and who’s calling the shots? There’s a disconnect right there that I have to think exists in a lot more places than we suspect.
marc
Jul 28th, 2008
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