Social media monitoring needs human insight
By Molly FlattWe’re always banging on about ongoing listening being the key to word of mouth marketing, so I read ReadWriteWeb’s post on The Future of Social Media Monitoring with interest, in which Marshall Fitzpatrick looks at the host of affordable tools available to track online conversations, but also considers their limitations and what needs to emerge in the future to make this monitoring of genuine use to brands.
Thing is, we’re already there. Our ‘listening’ team combine the proprietary software we’ve developed over the past 10 years with a thorough process of human tagging, interpreting and insight to give a seriously thorough picture of a brand’s current conversational landscape. It helps us fulfill all the elements on Fitzpatrick’s wish-list: wider source coverage (we cover the full spectrum of blogs, forums, microblogs, social networks, media sharing sites and more, not just Twitter or Facebook, say); source analysis (our dedicated voices and venues team know what spread and resonance each voice and conversation has – the context, sentiment, triggers and implications behind the WOM); conversation discovery (we prioritise which existing conversations and individuals brands should be engaging with, but also where they’re not being talked about and should be) and real-time threshold management (we call it reactive listening – we’ll ping across any conversations gaining particular ground or urgent issues and help brands develop a mechanism for engaging with them as well as developing internally in response to the feedback).
This isn’t just intended as a Monday morning back-slapping session – well, OK, maybe a bit – it’s also a good opportunity to reiterate our belief that listening to conversations takes time, effort and yes, maybe more then a few dollars thrown at a machine to crank out a pretty graph, something that’s ever more important to keep in mind as monitoring start-ups vie for marketing budget. The human insight integral to our listening mechanism is essential to mine the motivations and opportunities behind WOM: people know people. It’s as simple (and complex!) as that.
