Page 236 - Social Media Marketing

c h a p t e r 8 : ╇ E ngagement on the S ocial W eb╇ ■will rest entirely on the willingness and capability of your employed or retained work-
force. All other things equal, better people will produce a better outcome.

Respond to Engaged Customers

The Social Web—combined with more specific engagement programs that encourage
transparent and visible collaboration—is the central to the conversations happening
through social media in a business context. Understanding and collaboration in response
to the conversation often matter more than the conversation itself: The conversation and
what is learned from it via social media analytics is more often than not a statement
or reflection of something that has already happened. Simply put, it’s less about what’s
already happened and more about what you do next as a result of knowing about it.

For example, when a constituent or potential customer conveys a favorable rec-
ommendation, it is usually built around a prior experience. Further, that experience
was created by a business process that is currently in place within your organization.
This means that a social media analytics program—by itself, independent of support
214 and ideation programs—is reporting on artifacts of history, not on indications of what
direction the future should take.

What does this mean for social business and the design of processes built around
social technology? It means that your real work begins after the initial analytics are
collected, after sentiment and trend patterns have been reviewed and charted. This is
a particular “watch out” point when implementing a dashboard-style social analyt-
ics program. A screen full of charts and graphs can make it feel like real work is being
done: The reality is closer to reading yesterday’s newspaper. The game is, after all,
in getting a fix on what’s next and not so much what was. Listening, analyzing, and
responding are, of course, on-going activities: But at the same time, actually addressing
process issues that are driving negative conversations or implementing suggested inno-
vations to further strengthen brand loyalty or enhance competitive advantage create the
real payoff following the adoption of social technology in business.

Given these factors, albeit a simplification, the real work begins with the devel-
opment of the response to whatever it is that is being talked about and passed around
with regard to a brand, product, or service. The biggest challenge of running a social-
technology-based business can, in this view, be clearly seen: The challenge is setting up
your team internally to collect, analyze, and respond to what is learned or observed on
the Social Web. This is what participation is all about and what engagement feels like.

The challenge of social business, therefore, comes down to balancing what you
need to do—recall the point about regulatory issues driving some aspects of customer
policy development—with what your constituents or customers are asking you to do.
A great example of this is the promulgation of the 3-hour rule governing airline flight
delays, implemented in 2010. The new legislation requires that airlines limit tarmac