Most of us have heard some version of “Social Media/Twitter is like a Cocktail Party” and while this is hardly a new meme, a party is not a party is not a party and social media is not community – even though it may share many of the same characteristics.  To me it is like saying a cocktail party is not a dinner party – most people would agree.  I like both as an individual but one represents my circle of acquaintances and the other represents people with whom I have more intimate relationships. For business, that is very similar to a marketing funnel – and depending on what type of business you are in, one may be more important than the other. In particular, if you are marketing to businesses rather than individuals, the deeper relationships engendered by “dinner parties” are critical to your marketing efforts.

There are a few characteristics of a good dinner party that make it special and different:

• The food and wine are typically more elaborate and sophisticated
• Your attention is focused on a small set of guests all evening
• The music is mellow to allow for in-depth conversations
• Guests are introduced to other people they are likely to enjoy meeting
• The host or hostess mixes things up, ensures the conversation keeps moving, and draws out their guests
• The host put out their best dinnerware

Done well, the host of a dinner party makes their guests feel welcome, comfortable, interesting, and desirable. It is a pretty good ‘tool’ for establishing closer relationships with people and making them want to stay friends with you.

What can businesses learn? Sure, throw a lot of cocktail parties (i.e. use social media tools), you have to get your name out and chat with the crowd… but make sure you also throw some fabulous dinner parties – or get invited to them – because those are the events that allow you to have a richer conversation. Niche communities are where people will trust each other, participate in deeper conversations about their needs, and really get to know you. Setting up a community to serve the same purpose as a dinner party requires:

• An appealing location (even if that location is virtual) that encourages conversation and connections
• Good content that will encourage the conversations you want the group to have
• A community manager who facilitates introductions, highlights content, and keeps the conversation going
• Participation of experts and thought leaders that people want to meet
• Something special that members can’t get anywhere else

You can throw the dinner party, which may cost more but you get to decide who gets invited, or you can work on being a sought-after guest – someone that helps hosts provide good content and/or energy. But beware: It is all to easy to provide an appealing location, invite people over and assume they will form a tight knit community. But think about throwing a dinner party, having people come over and then spending the evening in another room – maybe yelling out to them every once in a while. Awkward, no? People would chit chat a little but the conversation would be stilted because there they are, sitting in your living room… waiting for you and the food, eventually leaving in disappointment and annoyance.

Communities are a phenomenal way of developing relationships with prospects and customers… but don’t think they will effortlessly develop. Want to understand them a little better? Go home and plan a dinner party.

About Rachel

Rachel Happe (@rhappe) is a Co-Founder and Principal at The Community
Roundtable and has over fifteen years of experience working with emerging technologies including enterprise social networking, ecommerce, and enterprise software applications. Prior to The Community Roundtable, Rachel served as a product executive at Mzinga,
Bitpass, & IDe.  In addition, as a technology analyst, Rachel initiated IDC’s enterprise social software practice where she wrote groundbreaking research including The Power and Passion of Organic Communities: How Technology Can Be Used to Increase Discovery, Engagement, and Productivity;  The Social Enterprise: How Social Networking Changes Everything; and U.S. Social Networking Application 2008-2012 Forecast: Enterprise Social Networking Takes Hold. Rachel started her business career at PRTM as a Business Analyst focused on helping technology companies understand and improve their product development operations. She writes at The Social Organization.

You know social media is not a passing fad. The question facing your organization is not why we should listen and engage in social media, but how do we do this? Social media affects all areas of your business and different skill sets are necessary. The enterprise must socialize internally, but how do you determine who represents the organization externally?

Determine Capacity

To succeed, social media must be owned by the enterprise and not stashed in a silo or with a Gen Y intern. An organization may not have dedicated resources to communicating online (aka community response team). In this case, internal research may yield who in your organization is already using social media for business and personal efforts. Tap into their existing passion and voice. These folks may already feel comfortable in participating in social media and communicating on behalf of the company. Ensure all facets of your organization are represented on the social media frontlines or in the behind-the-scenes response workflow.

It is important to note, when a person becomes a voice for the organization, they are always on. Earlier this year, a customer service issue was elevated in Twitter to the Best Buy CMO, bringing to light that formal elevation of customer response does not necessarily exist in social media. Those who are representing your organization online must be prepared for this new reality and be able to field issues or know who to delegate issues to depending on the delicacy of the customer interaction.

Find your Voice(s)

The formal voice and legalese you may use in offline communications is not received well in social media. A more informal and approachable voice is better for response and relationship building. Remember, you are having a conversation. Would you rather have a conversation with a dry, faceless human or a person with identifiable characteristics and personality? No matter who is responding, don’t pretend to be anyone other than who you are. The human element can never be underestimated!

Develop Processes

The uncontrollability factor of social media gives the impression that the space is messy. Your action or response does not have to reflect the disorganized zig-zag of conversations across multiple channels. How can you ensure your organizational voice(s) convey the right information and messages, regardless of channel? Developing a listening grid is a step in the right direction, but to avoid visible disconnect, a comprehensive communication (to include social media) strategy is required. Mike Manuel outlines a six step plan to help develop engagement processes.

Avoid limiting yourself to a social media only strategy because you further a silo response. If social media requires enterprise wide support, an integrated strategy of on and offline engagement should be created and executed. Developing social media processes does not have to be like reinventing the wheel. Take a page from customer service and marketing communications…how are they already addressing customer response? What can you learn from their interactions? How can you incorporate social media response into an already existing CRM program so the customer profile reflects a true holistic experience?

Do you already have a team, voice and processes established? Please share how you implemented these listening and engagement necessities and the pros and cons upon execution.

Our Radian6 team is growing and we are able to participate in more exciting conferences like this one: Fuel for Thought-The Growth and Innovation Series, 5 November. The conference is complimentary to marketers. Our very own Craig Comeau will be speaking about why you should be listening to social media. Please join us at the conference if you can and be sure to say hello to Craig!

Have you heard the nursery rhyme, A Wise Old Owl? It goes something like this:

A wise old owl sat in an oak,

The more he heard, the less he spoke;

The less he spoke, the more he heard;

Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird?

Be the owl

First things first, you must identify, acknowledge and understand the why before you recognize the how or if of response. People do not engage in social media to connect with brands or organizations, but with each other. Why is your company being mentioned? Why not? Listening first will help you determine the sense needed to filter out relevant conversations and respond where appropriate.

Christina Kerley states, social media monitoring is not sexy, but a necessity. “You see, a key value proposition of social media is that the tools not only give people a way to express, share and connect around ideas, but the tools also give companies the ability to identify new markets, new opportunities, potential risks and needed improvements.” I think the wise old bird would agree.

Response is not a chore

There are no one-size fits all social media solutions; however, there are some general rules of thought and direction that maintain true no matter the size or amount of buzz around your organization. The real question is, why shouldn’t you respond to all relevant brand mentions?

Through response your organization has the opportunity to:

• Spark deeper conversations,
• Set a message straight,
• Perform online reputation management,
• Distinguish self from competitors, and
• Increase web presence by leaving a breadcrumb trail to company site and information with every response.

Don’t look at response as something you have to do (like a kid viewing chores), but as something that adds significant value to your organization.

Who gives a hoot?

As we discussed in last week’s post about responding to negative comments, embrace and allow your customers and fans to speak on your organization’s behalf so you don’t have to respond to EVERY brand mention. Credibility of peer recommendation speaks volumes.

In this same vein of thought, it is important to note, that when you do engage in response and open up a dialog, you hold the potential of creating a long term relationship. Don’t pretend to be anyone other than who you are and don’t try to change opinions or over hype your brand. Listen to what is being relayed to you. Build a conversation and build a relationship.

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we are tackling a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

UPDATE: We will be posting the slides and recap of Q&A here on the blog. Stay tuned!

We have spent this past month discussing the ins and outs of listening. Please join us next Thursday, October 29th at 2:00 PM (EST) as we discuss the different types of listening – brand, competitor, and opportunity – what types of conversations to listen for, and some simple tips for basic engagement and response in social media. Join Amber Naslund, Radian6′s director of community, as we talk best practices, examples and take your questions.

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://ww2.gotomeeting.com/register/675506547

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

We can’t wait to chat with you, so bring along all of your stories and questions about listening and engagement!

We’re still all a flutter with the concept of “social networks.”  Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr generally get the most attention.  They’re well known and are the household names that even your mom knows.  Last night I watched an episode of Numb3rs that referenced the famous Seti@Home project.  For those that don’t remember SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  It’s a volunteer based social computing project that launched in May 1999.

There are all these conversations taking place in space.  Some are simply noise, but some could be evidence of life beyond this planet.  Someone needs to make sense of the noise.  It takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to sift through and make sense of the information.  For years special large super computers were used to analyze very narrow band radio frequency from outer space. Relying on just the limited number of super computers was a slow time consuming approach.  The Seti@home project was designed to eliminate that problem.

By  downloading the Seti@home software any computer anywhere in the world could help make sense of the noise coming from space.  In essence the Seti@home project combines the power of all the computers participating in the program to decode the data from space faster.  The more people who download and participate, the faster we’ll discover life beyond Earth.  Talk about joining something for a higher order of reason.

I remember when Seti came on the scene.  I was working at Fallon and learned about it from a colleague.  He explained to me that every person who signed up for the program was helping to find Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  He demoed the software for me and I was hooked.  I downloaded the software and started trying to convince all my friends and family to do the same.

To date the Seti@home project has over 5 million members in more than 200 countries.  This is amazing considering the original goal for the program was between 50,000 and 100,000 members.  In total this community has contributed over 19 billion hours of computer processing time.  Unfortunately, the project hasn’t uncovered any Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, but it has identified several candidate targets (sky positions).  In 2004, the astronomer Seth Shostak indicated a conclusive signal from Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence would happen some time between 2020 and 2025.  That’s an amazing amount of progress for a program that’s only 10 years old.

Brining this back to social networking, the buzz topic du jour.  The Seti initiative has all the underpinnings of what a defines a great social network:

1. Limited barriers to join
2. Gender and age agnostic
3. A real reason for joining – a greater good
4. Sense of being and purpose
5. Like-minded individuals
6. Connected to a common goal
7. Constant feedback
8. Measurable results
9. Authenticity…
10. …and yes even Transparency
11. The ability to opt out easily

This isn’t to say that Seti@home is perfect. In truth, it’s a social network that’s showing its age. In today’s new and ever evolving landscape where we’re all hyper-connected to the internet it seems like they’ve passed on serious opportunity. For example, how hard would it be to have an iPhone app that leverages the 3G network to compute the information a Facebook/iGoogle widget that basically is the software? Given all the people we’re connected with and the ease/efficiency to grow networks today, why haven’t they invested in leveraging those connections?

As the web evolved the program remained virtually stagnant…trapped in 1999. If ever there were an initiative that could really harness the power of today’s social web this is it. Seti I want to help. Let’s talk.

About Adam

““Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda, Star Wars

(Pardon my geekiness for a minute…I always hear Yoda’s voice in my head when I am talking about social media angst.)

We can’t talk listening and engagement without addressing one of the biggest fears – negative comments. The worst nightmare for anyone managing a blog or community response is when (not if) negativity will strike. Do not let this fear paralyze you from not engaging the non-ego boosting commentary.

Control, control, you must learn control

Here is some tough love. I know you have heard everyone say you have no control of what happens in social media. That is not entirely true. You cannot control what others will say about your organization, but you can control your actions. Do not use the myriad of social media channels and conversations as an excuse to ignore the negativity. If you ignore, the ant hill may become a mountain before you can blink. I am not trying to use this as a scare tactic to get you to jump into social media conversations; welcome to the new reality of business-customer relationships.

Responding to a negative comment by thanking the person for their feedback or requesting more details and context offline can greatly change the tone and direction of an unfavorable comment that could quickly spiral out of control. YOU control the response. If you respond with hostility or act defensive, be prepared for your actions to be mirrored and replicated. Keep your cool.

Ignore or engage?

Olivia Hayes of Ignite Social Media, shares how to handle negative comments. I strongly agree with Hayes that “A few negative comments are not going to be the undoing of your company, and in fact, can be a strong opportunity to prove yourself.” This list of tips is great, but I would also add:

• Thank the responder - especially if the comment resides on your site, blog or community space. People no longer have to take their feedback to the organization…they can and are having the conversations elsewhere. Look at the situation from their perspective. If they took the time to comment about your company, they care. Care about the relationship you have and could have with them in the future if you just thanked them for their feedback and let them know they have been heard. Then, if possible, go one step further and act on their feedback. That will really speak volumes.
• Request additional feedback – don’t close the gates once they open. This is a brilliant opportunity for you to gather further insights into the context of the issue and if the issue is isolated versus widespread. Do not just say you have an open forum, demonstrate that you do.

You were chosen to guide your company through the social media frontier or perhaps you are just following your own natural curiosity to learn more about social media, but one thing we have in common is that we have passion for what we do and the organization we represent. It is easy to let the adverse commentary offend or hit a bit too close to home that we become defensive. I ask you, again, keep your cool and take some time to reflect before response. In fact, if you don’t take the advice from me, take it from Jason Alba who wrote a guest post on this very topic on Chris Brogan’s blog.

May the force be with you

There are some battles you will never win. Over time, you will discover there are those commenters that are just in the space to stir the pot and are not seeking resolution or relationship. It will take time to identify these folks. They are few and far between in the larger scope of your community, but they do exist. Do not lock horns and engage in a battle of personalities. Address the issues and move on.

Do not forget that you are not alone in the social media space. In lieu of taking a defensive stance or addressing every issue, experiment by allowing your supporters to take up the flag and address the commenter or unreasonable negativity. These evangelists are a force to be reckoned with. Of course, this does not mean you can ignore and not engage all negative comments, but be aware that there are people who have got your back.

***

Do not allow fear to strike down your social media initiatives. Fear can fester and lead to a much less desirable environment than one where you control your actions and gain valuable feedback from your community. Look at negative comments as an opportunity to learn more, tell your story and build long lasting relationships.

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we are tackling a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

If you hung out on Twitter or the blogosphere over the weekend, or if you happened to be at BlogWorld you undoubtedly heard some of the buzz around the #beatcancer campaign throughout social media. It was great fun, and Radian6 was glad to be part of such an amazing event and cause.

The upshot: folks across the social web tagged their Tweets, comments, blog posts and such with #beatcancer to raise awareness and money for cancer research during a 24-hour period that coincided with the BlogWorld Expo, one of the biggest social media events of the year.

In collaboration with EVERYWHERE, a social media marketing and content development firm, Radian6 helped provide the tracking and analytics for the #beatcancer campaign, which took place from October 16th at 9AM to October 17th at 9AM. Sponsors eBay/PayPal and MillerCoors Brewing Company donated money for each post tracked during the 24-hour window, and Guinness World Record recorded the campaign volume to set a new, sign-of-the-times record for the most widespread social network message in a 24-hour period with over 209,000 posts.

The best part? The event raised over $70,000 to benefit cancer charities.

The money raised will be donated to four different non-profit cancer organizations including SU2C (Stand UP to Cancer), Alex’s Lemonade, Bright Pink, and Spirit Jump. For more info on the campaign, check out beatcancereverywhere.com, or see the press release here.

At Radian6, we’re super excited about the increasing demonstrations of using social media for social good. The very nature of social networking – rapid connections, gathering among common interests, and the unlimited geography – make it a beautiful and powerful fit for social causes of all kinds. As a company, we believe very much in giving back to the communities and causes that power the human networks around us. Stay tuned to hear more about how we’re hoping to harness and support social causes like the #beatcancer campaign in the near future.

Special thanks to EVERYWHERE, WhatGives, Slash7, Sarah Evans, the team at BlogWorld & New Media Expo, Guinness World Records, eBay/PayPal, and the MillerCoors Brewing Company folks for putting together an exciting and noteworthy event, and for allowing us to be part of it.

Social Media can be a bit spooky, even to those who have participated in the space for some time. Actively listening and engaging in social media is a necessity. We have all seen examples of businesses not responding to a negative issue with a resolution before the situation spiraled out of control and spread across the Web. Conversely, not identifying and amplifying praise amongst your fans can also damage your organization’s online relationships. There are a lot of conversations to juggle.

Social media is provoking the enterprise to evolve

In the Five Challenges Social Media Will Bring to Business, author, David Armano lists integration, governance, culture, human resources and measurement/ROI as being the top challenges every organization should be planning for right now. Indeed, all of the challenges Armano lists are opportunities for how an organization can proactively improve their listening and engagement.

Managing the conversations can be a bear if you do not have responsibilities, workflow and engagement guidelines firmly established throughout your organization. Only a fraction of conversations are visible. Organizations are being pulled into many dynamic conversations requiring the research and response of more than one department. Tools are only part of the solution. The enterprise must socialize.

Build an organization of proactive collaborators

Integration and governance can only take hold in an organization if the culture is ripe for evolution. How do you get your organization to that point? Education and literacy. Fear is what is holding many companies back from implementing social media outside of a silo. Empower those on the social media frontlines and those working diligently behind the scenes with the knowledge they need to actively monitor issues, frustrations and recommendations and be able to solve these issues in real time.

The tool is not the platform for sharing information, it is the people. You can automate the tools and streamline the collaboration, but the intelligence of the organization is best provided by the individuals powering the enterprise. The tools may show the collaboration of the on and offline conversations, but give those speaking for your company the context around why they should listen and respond and how to engage.

Create a safe haven to learn about socializing

Here at Radian6, we have started hosting internal webinars focused around the same monthly topics we are discussing online with you. Not everyone has the same comfort level for participating in social media, so we are promoting a safe place to discuss the issues, impart knowledge and deliver context.

How are you breaking down the department barriers and learning to socialize for the improvement of answering external communication through internal channels? Perhaps start with a monthly brown bag lunch discussion or internal webinar like us? Tracking and responding to multiple conversations does not have to be a fright with the right tools and a confident team with varying skill sets. Share your ideas on how you can assist socializing and empowering the enterprise.

When you’re getting ready to listen to the social media stratosphere there are probably a few keywords that come immediately to mind. Your brand, your product your founder or CEO but that’s just the beginning. People don’t always search for what you might want them to. You need to get outside of the company for a moment and think about what someone who has no idea who you are or what you do would type into a search engine to find you.

What other names could be used to describe you? Is there a string (a short list of words or phrase ) that people might use to find you?

Some people will argue that they look at their analytics reports and see that people are already finding them with the company name and the name of the CEO and that means they are being effective. Let me just point out those people knew you so they knew what to type into the search field.  What about the ones who don’t already know something about you?

I’ve started using mind-mapping tools to sort out the keywords for a particular website to good effect. A mind map is a radial diagram of words, ideas or relationships linked around a central word or phrase. In this case it’s you. These can be drawn out on a whiteboard, a piece of paper or through software. They help you get focused and really think about what keywords pertain to you and whether or not your messaging is really delivering those keywords.  Think of this post as a how to listen and SEO lesson all wrapped up together.

Here’s how it works

I know this is going to sound silly, but do this off-site. Even being in the office can keep your head in the corporate box.

Try to put yourself into the position of someone who is looking for a product or service you provide and do a stream of consciousness download of those words onto a piece of paper or document.

Don’t think about it at all; just spew out everything you can think of.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense or if you’ve got bad grammar, sentence fragments or bad spelling. Nobody cares. Worry about that later.

When you get tired of that do the same thing with a clean slate about your competitor. Don’t be nasty. Really think about every positive attribute or search term anyone could use to find them.

If you still think you’re not getting far enough from the already entrenched keywords it can be hugely useful to call a client, a friend or do man on the street interviews and ask people what it is your company does, what the product is good for and how they would use it.

Now comes the fun part Take the entire list and compile them in one document. See where the duplicates are and put them at the top of your list. Don’t think about the rest yet. That’s in the next step.

Create a mind-map

I use a site called Mindmeister for this, but there are several tools you can use online or purchased software that can quickly create mindmaps. If you don’t want to do that draw it out on a whiteboard or piece of paper, but be warned to do it in pencil. You’ll be moving things around a LOT!

Start with your company in the center of the map.

Now create nodes for all of the keywords you came up with in the first step. Throw them up any old way around the center of your universe–your business.

As you go you’ll start to naturally group things together.

Once you have all your keywords up connect the ones that go together into clusters. Make sub clusters if necessary.

When all the clusters have formed then you can link them to each other and to your business in the center.

Voila! Your prime keywords will reveal themselves.

This is an over-simplification of course and there should be lots of discussion over which words would really be used, which you’d like to avoid etc. That’s the point. Thin them out through discussion and distill your key message down until you have 10 or 15 words that are the main focus.

You may find you need to make separate maps for a product line or division of the company, and that’s fine too. All are useful before you start doing anything like search engine optimization or setting up listening tools.

Go ahead, give it a try, and be sure to let us know how it worked for you, or if you developed and even better way to suss out the right keywords to listen for.

About Janet

Janet Fouts is a social media coach, helping individuals and corporations make sense of social media tools and create an effective social media strategy that meets their needs. She shares her advice on her blog- Social Media Coach, on Twitter as @jfouts and in her new book, Social Media Success!

Simple answer…one person cannot manage it all. Take that back-you can do this alone, but not well. Social media is not an add-on to any one department and requires commitment and responsibility across the organization.

Social media takes a village

A village cannot exist without the skills of the butcher, baker and candlestick maker and various other contributors to the village wellbeing. Social media is comprised of several online villages, each made up of numerous communities. A butcher may be able to bake, but he will not do so with the expertise and finesse of the baker. Just like the butcher/baker example, your social media listening, engagement and measurement will require the expertise of several departments across the organization.

One of those village communities is your organization. How do you bridge your organization from being a hermit to being an active member of the village? Your organization exists because of the skills of those in customer service, communications, human resources and a plethora of other departments. Take advantage of those skill sets and personalities. Bring them into the fold of social media and see the expertise and finesse spread across your organization and permeate into your listening and engagement strategy.

Think and execute beyond a linear process

You may only have one individual on the social media frontline and not a team for listening and engagement, but that set-up does not prohibit streamlined, behind-the-scenes collaboration with those of vital skill sets throughout the organization. Not only are you being able to process and answer questions you could not have done so within a silo, but you are building social media buy-in enterprise-wide with the collaboration and creditability of social media sharing.

Listening is much more than monitoring, but about processing the data you receive into actionable insights and enabling the right connectors in your organization to engage in relevant conversations. We recommend developing a listening grid – a system of gathering information, categorizing and segmenting it based on your needs, communicating internally about responses and engagement, and having up-to-the-minute notification of happenings in social media that are relevant to you.

Twenty reasons you cannot do this alone

Take it from someone who has gone down this path as the sole person responsible for listening/monitoring and engagement, you cannot do this alone. Case in point, take a look at the presentation below outlining the Top 20 Reasons to Listen. Would you be able to handle the monitoring and response for every situation listed? True, not all twenty will happen at one time (hopefully not), but several will happen concurrently and your organization must be prepared to retrieve and act on all for the betterment of your company/customer relationship.

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we are tackling a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

One of the first questions we encounter when organizations decide to invest in monitoring (listening) and engagement in the social media space is, how much time should we spend listening?

As we discussed recently, there are different types of listening and each require various amounts of energy and resources. Passive listening is monitoring for mentions of your brand, competitors and industry. Active listening is participating in the conversations surrounding your brand, competitors and industry. Many organizations begin by monitoring the conversations as they build a knowledge and comfort level for engagement.

Listening is not an option, but a necessity. Don’t be discouraged, but there is no one answer to the time question. Sometimes, to answer a question, you must begin by answering additional questions.

What are your organization’s objectives and strategies?

To get where you are going, you must first know how to get there. Jumping into the stream of online chatter can be extremely overwhelming for any organization. There is a lot of noise. Monitoring and engaging with all aspects of your brand, competitors and industry is a lot to digest. Whether you are passively or actively listening, you must filter the conversations to those relevant to your objectives and strategies.

What is your organization’s experience with listening?

Let’s face it…if you aren’t doing such a swell job of listening offline, no matter how spectacular your online efforts may be, they may not be enough to salvage the customer relationships with your organization. Take note of how your company is currently listening, recording and engaging in conversations. What can you learn and do different to bridge the offline and online conversations to strengthen the overall customer relationship?

Check out this wicked new animation about our friend King Brand who spent all his time shouting and not enough time listening to his people. This tale is a lesson in listening. Which kingdom are you a part of?

So, the real question is…how much time are you willing to invest to ensure the growth and prosperity of your organization?

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we are tackling a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

Social Media monitoring is a terrific tool for marketers, allowing them to listen in as consumer’s chat, debate and discuss their brands. A recent study by Penn State University determined that approximately 20% of Twitter activity is linked to brands.

A key element of Social Media monitoring is parsing out the sentiment, or tone, being shared by consumers. Now, not only do you know that people are talking about your brand, you know if they are speaking about it positively or negatively.  The benefits of being able to identify this level of detail are as obvious as they are potentially impactful.  Now brands can pinpoint with laser accuracy those consumers who are brand evangelists, quickly mobilizing to harness the goodwill, enthusiasm and credibility of these people, looking to turn them into brand ambassadors.

On the other end of the spectrum, Social Media monitoring also can work as an early warning detection system, sussing out negative sentiment and enabling a brand to identify the source of a potential problem and take action before it gains traction. The examples here – Motrin Moms, Dominos Pizza – are all well documented.

While highlighting these extremes puts sentiment monitoring in sharp relief, it doesn’t necessarily provide the clearest lens through which to view Social Media monitoring.  Looking only at very positive and negative comments frames the conversation like a barbell, with two heavy ends and little in-between. This creates a false dichotomy that overlooks what you aren’t hearing – the neutral majority.

Certainly some products tend to polarize, with many consumers have a strong opinion one way or the other. Certain beer brands, electronics, music groups all quickly come to mind.  But the majority of products are more likely to produce a classic bell curve rather than a barbell, with most consumers neither loving nor hating the product, but certainly aware of its existence.

This, to me, is where Social Media monitoring really earns its keep. Before the web, consumers still had ways of voicing their displeasure with a brand – boycotts, picketing, letters to the Editor, etc.  And those who loved your brand made themselves identifiable as well – branded apparel, fan clubs, love letters to HQ, etc.

But how could you identify those who knew of your brand, but would give their patronage to a competitor who made them a better offer? In other words, those people in the middle of the bell curve. That’s’ a group well worth spending time, money and effort against, and now you have the ability to more easily identify them.

Sure, you want to reward loyal consumers, and yes you want to avoid major PR nightmares, but think about the ROI and effort involved. A consumer who is already a fan will be hard pressed to spend more, even with your increased efforts, and turning a consumer who has antipathy for your brand into a neutral, let alone a fan, is time consuming work with no guarantees.

But doing something as simple as acknowledging a consumer who has mentioned your brand can help slide her from the middle of the bell curve towards the positive end. Now, that won’t happen magically, you have to embrace the notion of Commitment Marketing and keep the engagement going.

Social Media monitoring shouldn’t be merely wielded like a blunt instrument. Take the time and care to study the nuances of the conversation as well as the hyperbole and vitriol.

About Rick

My name is Rick Liebling, I’m the Global Director, Client Management, for Taylor, a marketing communications agency with offices in NY, LA, London, Chicago and Charlotte. I’ve worked with brands such as MasterCard, Gillette, Yahoo!, Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Allstate and Xbox, helping them leverage their sponsorships across such properties as the Olympics, FIFA World Cup and Formula One. In addition, I act as the Head of our Digital & Emerging Media Group, advising our clients on the best way to engage consumers via Social Media (hint – it starts with listening).

Company: Taylor (http://www.taylorpr.com)

Blog: http://www.rickliebling.com

Does everyone have on their listening ears? Remember when your parent or teacher would ask this question before announcing important information? Listening and monitoring across the web is the foundation for any solid, scalable social media strategy.

When we communicate with another person, we do so to fulfill an emotional need. When the other person receives the message, the process of decoding or interpreting it into understanding and meaning begins. Effective communication only exists when both the sender and receiver interprets and understands the message in the way intended. Easier said than done; especially in an online environment where verbal and non-verbal signals are often crossed.

“Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.” – Frank Tyger

There is a time and place for both active and passive listening, but staying passive in the online communities talking about your company or brand does not assist in verifying information, guarantee understanding, assist building relationships or any produce empathy with the sender. When you are ready to engage in the conversation, start off on the right foot by actively listening to members of the community. Active listening requires interaction with the sender, seeking clarification to ensure both sender and receiver fully understand what is being said.

“Opportunities are often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be listening.” – Anonymous

Active listening is a powerful, complex process and learned skill. Recognize the importance of this skill and revitalize your community participation. Listening requires work, desire and self-discipline. The words “hear” and “listen” cannot be used interchangeably. To actively listen is to understand what is being communicated. So, how do you begin to actively listen?

Conduct a Reality Check

Prove your understanding by asking for clarification or restatement. Failure to retain information is not the problem; it’s failure to comprehend.

Common summarizing phrases include:

“Help me understand…”

“I hear you saying…”

“It sounds like you think…”

Focus

What is the speaker really saying? Invest time to become thoroughly familiar with the topic and speaker. Separate a speaker’s primary ideas from supporting material. Not every tweet or blog post is of equal importance. Identifying the intent and motive helps reveal the implicit. Listen to the cadence of the words and observe tale-telling body language for additional insights.

Take Notes

Do not be a stenographer. Regurgitating a speaker’s words is not the act of comprehending. Paraphrase and reword notes so you understand.

Resist Distractions

In an effort to increase efficiency, convenience, and mobility, are you sacrificing intelligent listening? Are you doing all the talking? Spend more time listening for information and solutions. Do not blame freedom of technology for shortchanging our memory and learning abilities.

Be Respectful

Keep an open mind. Harness intense emotions to avoid arguing with a speaker. Avoid anticipating next words and interjecting your thoughts. Think before you speak. Hear out the speaker then prepare your response.

Life is so much more interesting because each of us have our own opinions and beliefs. Foster trust, honesty and intimacy by following the Golden Rule of Listening: “Listen unto others as you would have others listen to you.”

Value Check

Make the speaker feel heard. In addition to asking questions, give feedback beginning with positive observations then constructive criticism, if necessary. Look for positive and negative aspects in every verbal exchange. In the words of Plutarch the Greek writer, “Know how to listen and you will profit even from those who talk badly.”

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we will tackle a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

We’re so excited to announce that Microsoft has selected Radian6 as a social media monitoring tool supporting their Central Marketing Group. As a brand that is mentioned in 6% of all online postings per month, Microsoft has been paying close attention to user generated content for several years. Particularly to listening to and understanding buzz around their company and their products as well as engaging with customers for support, events, and product launches.

And at Radian6, we’re poised to help take them to the next level, delivering some broader and deeper listening capabilities to their core marketing and product teams.

Why Social Media?

Aaron Lilly, a Sr. Marcom Architect at Microsoft, explained that Microsoft sees immense value in the social space, because it helps the company connect more deeply with customers, prospects and enthusiasts on their terms and wherever they are online. This improved connection allows Microsoft to share the news and information on the company or products that their customers are asking for, where they are asking for it.

“Radian6 helps us discover where important conversations are happening online, so we can be part of them,” Lilly explains. “There’s a huge value in being able to have a rich, real-time dialog with customers across our diverse businesses.”

Lilly says Microsoft’s involvement in social media is both proactive and reactive. They’re proactively contributing to the dialogue about Microsoft by sharing information and providing access to the company through social channels like Facebook and Twitter. But they can also be responsive to the issues and conversations that happen around and about the company and their products, often helping to clarify a misunderstanding or offer quick and valid direction from the source.

Whether it be questions around the Bing search engine, or chatter about how Office is impacting the way people work, those discussions give Microsoft lots of opportunity to better understand how their community views their brand, products, and business, and lets them use those insights to inform future strategy.

Why Radian6?

Given the breadth and diversity of Microsoft’s businesses, and the volume of online conversations, the central marketing team needed a tool that could work alongside their existing tools and processes and that could not only handle the volume of buzz but also make sense of it all in a business context. As Microsoft builds out internal capabilities in social media through tools like Looking Glass, Radian6 provides global scale and depth capabilities today and integration opportunities for the future.

“For brands like Bing, Office or Zune, we have large inter-connected marketing and product teams,” says Lilly. “It’s really important that we’re all looking at the social conversations through the same lens. Radian6 provides both breadth of coverage and the depth to analyze and respond.”

We at Radian6 are excited about the possibilities working with the teams at Microsoft, and helping them make the most out of their social media strategies. Thanks to the Microsoft crew for bringing us on, and stay tuned as we share more about our work together in the future.

We’re so excited to relaunch our website, chock full of goodness on social media listening, engaging, and measurement. You’re here, which means you’ve found us, but let me point out a few places you should check out while you’re here.

1. If you’ve always wanted to know a little more about the ways to listen and measure with Radian6 and how it applies to your business, we’ve put together a few examples here in our Product Applications section.
2. Want some case studies? Head over to our customers page, and check out the links on the left, and read about how some of our customers are making the most of their listening strategies.
3. We’re building a big resource library, called The Engaged Brand. It’s all about education, information, and helpful stuff around social media and getting your brand or your clients’ brands more engaged with the community. We’ll have videos, webinars, podcasts, whitepapers, slide decks…you name it. Each month, we’ll focus on a new topic. And if you’ve got ideas for subjects you’d like us to tackle, drop us a line and let us know.
4. Ready to cut to the chase and get started? Sign up for our live, web-based product demo and get the grand tour with one of our awesome team members.

We’ll also be posting lots more stuff here on the Radian6 PowerShift blog, including guest posts from our incredible community, posts from our staff and community team on lots of different topics, and content on the social media subjects you’ve asked us about. Please take a moment to subscribe via RSS so you don’t miss a post!

Thanks to all of you for being a part of the Radian6 community, whether you’ve been with us for a while, or whether you’ve just found us for the first time. We’re looking forward to being a resource to you, and learning how we can help you make the most of your listening and social media engagement strategy.