Page 190 - Social Media Marketing

c h a p t e r 7: ╇ F ive E ssential T ips╇ ■As an example, you may find little or no mention of your brand on the Social Web.
In this case, your objective may be to build a conversation, and your baseline is the low
background measure against which you can assess success. Or, there may be substantial
conversation, with some relative distribution between positive, neutral, and negative. Tools
like the Net Promoter Score factor in here: a score near zero indicates a roughly equal
balance between promoters and detractors, something you should be able to see (through
measurement) on the Social Web. In this case, your baseline is the relatively equal distri-
bution of promoters and detractors, and your response strategy may be directed toward
increasing the measured share of promoters. Whatever your specific starting point, it needs
to combine active listening and influencer identification with a marketplace performance
assessment such as the Net Promoter Score so that you can both tell what’s happening now
and be able to assess performance against business objectives as you progress.

That is, you need to begin with some data—what customers are saying, what
they are concerned with, etc. Later, through collaboration you’ll convert that to the
knowledge you’ll need to truly engage with your customers. At the outset, however,
168 what matters is extracting enough data to sort out exactly where you are right now.
Here’s the good news: Most of the commercial (meaning, “for fee”) listening services
provide historical information ranging from a few months of history to two years. You
can use these tools to construct conversational baselines immediately.

Conversational baselines are obviously handy when the desire to “act now” is
present (as if that’s ever not the case!). Historical data provides the context for many of
the programs that you’ll implement going forward. Using a basic listening platform—
whether a service like Google Alerts, a modestly priced DIY (Do It Yourself) tool
like Alterian | Techrigy’s SM2, Radian6 or Scout Labs, or the full-service offerings of
TNS | Cymfony or Neilsen’s Buzzmetrics, you can establish a conversational baseline.
Figure€7.1 shows such a baseline. The listening program was “turned on” on January
1st, and a social media effort to encourage conversation was started shortly after. The
listening platform provides historical data against which any change in conversational
levels can be measured. The practice of creating your own baselines and understanding
their significance—along with any changes that happen over time—is essential in mak-
ing sense of the conversations that you are interested in.

As an important side note, establishing a listening baseline can help you spot
and manage a crisis before it’s too late. Whether it’s a rumor about your brand, or
an actual (negative) event that takes place with your product or within your industry,
trying to sort out who is talking and how the conversation is connected to your orga-
nization after it has become widespread is too late. Instead of fighting the fire, you’ll be
swamped trying to figure out where it’s coming from, losing valuable time at a point in
the crisis management process where literally minutes count. With an effective baseline
program in place, and an understanding of who your influencers are, as soon as you
detect a rise in comments or the presence of a new and potentially damaging thread,
you can be ready with a response that is directed to those who can help you.