Cx3: Social media heads are round, is yours?

“Our heads are round so thoughts can change direction”
This profound quote from French artist and poet Francis Picabia (1879-1953) is an accurate philosophical musing that emphasises how today’s businesses should embrace emerging media and the social media conversation.

The conversation
The conversation vehicles are well known now:

- Micro-blogging
- Blog posting and comments
- Image/Video/Slide sharing
- Social Networking
- Bookmarking

The conversation is a wild and rampant beast, and erstwhile “life is for sharing”, the conversation risks turning into Chinese whispers. If the conversation generated by social media mentions your business, then you need to be involved. Reputation management goes hand-in-hand with the organic nature of the social media conversation – if your company or brand is being talked about, the conversation needs to be listened to, learned from and if necessary acted upon accordingly.

Media monitoring and listening
Media monitoring has been established for well over a century – Durrants was providing press cuttings to the aristocracy as far back as 1880. We live in a different age now, but the same monitoring goals apply, but to a much wider communications universe.

Purposeful campaign marketing and event-based communications will naturally tie into carefully prioritised key messages. Social media monitoring and measurement tools allow these key messages to be ‘listened for’ in the conversation. Companies can evaluate how influential the speaker is and assess the tone of what is being said. The volume of the conversation and the share of voice across the conversation vehicles can be identified and the timeliness mapped against a communications plan.

Learning and acting-upon the conversation
Our heads are round not stuck in the sand. The social media conversational evidence can be humbling when set against business expertise, however, this bitter pill must be swallowed for the greater educational good of understanding people, focusing on preferred communication channels and closer monitoring of a competitive marketplace.

Acting upon and taking part in the conversation as part of reputation management sustains the positive key messages, however, transparency and relevancy are of utmost importance – lie and you’ll be found out and the conversation could work against you. Ultimately, long-term insight generated by the conversation will lead directional change in business thinking and its interactions.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: How social is your conversation?
Cx3 blog entry: Social Networking World Forum
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and halibut
Cx3 blog entry: The growth of Twitter
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face