Tracking conversations across blogs, forums, review sites and other user generated media has spawned a new industry. We are apart of this and use tools to quantify these conversations for brands. Brands take this seriously now as they see that they often cede control of how they are discussed. Forrester do a nice piece on how previously companies could control what was said in the small number of TV channels, news publications and other media that existed 10 years ago. Today a fractured media and new forums arriving every day has blown this control away.
It is interesting but there is an over emphasis on how if companies engage with social media they can prevent the negatives happening i.e. Dell Hell, L’Oreal Flog, and Kryptonite fiasco (?). The message seems to be if you monitor and measure this area or generally get involved bad things won’t happen quite as much…
What about the positives? Frankly they are commonplace. I think perhaps it is just not as “selling” to talk to companies about how Microsoft have softened their image and increased customer advocacy by engaging with bloggers. Loic LeMeur was pretty much unknown before becoming a commentator on blogs and actually creating content for the blogosphere, this benefits him but also his employer, Six Apart. Would Youtube have been as successful without the millions of conversations on the web? Personally, (obviously) I am sold on this and the examples impact not only key individuals but companies too.
It may not matter what entices companies to get engaged with these media but it is clear the benefits are more than just preventing an avalanche of customer criticism! Of course then the question is, how best to engage, I will do a follow up post on this and reference a webinar that we recorded with ZN and Bulldog which talks goes through this topic area.