We recently had a good reminder that social media monitoring still requires the human touch.
A quick search on our company name, GasPedal, used to give us all we needed to know.
Until Toyota’s gas pedal problem. Now there’s 99x the volume, and none of it is about us. (Although, after 11 years, people finally get the accelerator metaphor in our name.)
Now we have to carefully and personally sort through comments that are relevant.
It’s a good reminder that social media is a conversation between real humans, not some automated keyword blast campaign.
Come to BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media on February 16 in San Diego to hear Starbucks, Clorox, Intuit, Avery Dennison, USAA, Community Medical Centers, State Farm Insurance, and the U.S. Navy share case studies in corporate social media.
You’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal — and you’ll see some brilliant presentations like this one from BlogWell Atlanta:
Debbie Curtis-Magley’s big idea: “If you wait to participate in social media until an issue arises, it’s too late.”
Debbie’s case study is all about how her team used social media tools to defend their brand online and share their side of an issue. She shares her top 5 tips for social media defense, how her team determined which conversations to participate in and which ones to ignore, and how she kept executives informed on the issue.
Last week’s BlogWell in Atlanta was fantastic. The case studies were filled with great ideas – lots of stuff to take home, the venue at Newell Rubbermaid was perfect, and we had some great support from our sponsors and partners.
If you missed the event or are looking for a recap, be sure to check out our live blog coverage:
Want to get people to change their behavior? Take away the excuses.
When I bought a new cell phone from Amazon, it included this envelope to recycle my old one. If it hadn’t been for the envelope, I would have thrown the old phone in a drawer. HP does the same thing with used toner cartridges — they include a pre-paid UPS label in the box.
What do you want your customers to do? How can you make it super easy?
You should be tracking the word of mouth about your company. You should know what is being said about you in blogs, reviews, and social media.
If you’re a big company, you should hire one of the great monitoring firms out there. If you’re a small company, you can do it yourself.
Either way, it’s important to get a personal feel for what people are saying.
Debbie Curtis-Magley of UPS has come up with the best solution ever: Receptionists and admins in her department help follow the online word of mouth. Each one is assigned a topic, and keeps a sharp eye and human perspective on what is being said. I love how Debbie has taken the participatory nature of social media and extended it to the research side.
P.S. Favorite factoid: UPS started doing this because it’s really hard to use automation when your brand is a common word. They were flooded with information on push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and screw-ups.
Clorox: Using gaming strategies to grow community
BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media
