Social Media + Monitoring + Answering = Observing before moving

Every day tons of information, personal thoughts, ideas, feedbacks, and content generated by consumers are spread, discussed, linked, digged, and commented. Stories become mainstream because of quality, innovative approach, but mainly because it’s about brands, brand customer relationship management, and ultimately about brand infinite ability not to respond users questions and cut down communication when asked to join the conversation. In that status lies an interesting opportunity to generate a competitive advantage. By observing social media users you can quickly learn how to address relevant answers to social media users, how to use the right channel according to the user’s request, and how to efficiently monitor social media channels/ users.

As a foreword and if you need reasons monitoring and quickly answering/ leading the conversation, read the following post listing examples of brands not monitoring or joining the conversation:

• A chronology of brands that got punked by social media shared by Jeremiah Owyang
• Social media disaster (or how not having a social media strategy can hurt) shared by August Ray

The learnings from those examples are brands have to be aware of how exponentially social media can spread the word (for the worst in above cases but also for the best like for Dove Evolution or Coke + Mentos videos). And to be aware of, brands have to learn from social media what are the implicit rules that lead the “show” and how to take advantage of these rules to deploy a useful social media strategy.

First step is then to closely observe what is being said about your brand, your most famous coworkers (because of being bloggers or media personalities), your products/ services and customer service (one of the most interesting part for consumers who are looking for information about that topic when it fails helping them, and that often happens, be honest). And for these previous points, check who’s writing about, on which kind of platform (blogs, forums, social bookmarks, conversation platforms, …). Check also on Google who’s linking to your corporate website as well as company employees blogs, that’s a good way to run a quick brand image status.

That “simple” first step is your first day along with social media. And it won’t be the last, but for your pleasure (you’ll see it’s quite interesting in fact, there’s more consumers goodwill than you may think, more fans and people willing to help you become better and grow faster). Indeed when you’d know who’s speaking of you, you’ll be able to use your knowledge to create and leverage easily your community.

Second step is to keep notified when people are writing about you. Use tools like Google Alert, Blogpulse, Technorati, Google Blog search, Radian6, Summize, and other dedicated tools. You also have to subscribe to bloggers feeds speaking about your business and frequently check social bookmark sites on tags related to your activity.

After having done that, you’ll get a useful snapshot of your whole brand image (including employees and products) before moving and creating a social media presence. That’s the first step of your social media story: Observe - Feedback - Involve - Lead - Engage with consumers.

For more information on how to enter the social media game read the Essential Guide to Social Media provided by Brian Solis and the P.O.S.T method suggested by Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research at Groundswell blog.

To read more on that topic:

• ROI + Blog + Social Media = joining the conversation as competitive advantage
• Facebook + Campaign + Success = Tips to achieve a successful Facebook campaign
• Web 2.0 + Best Practices = Connecting and creating value
• GM + Social Media = Creating a fan base
• Ideas + Social Media = Free Marketing leading to engagement and product purchase