Social Media bingo

Hands up who's played social media bingo? You know the game, sitting in a meeting crossing off your sheet every time the phrase 'tapping into social media' is referenced or hearing the echoed belief that it's time to 'get to know our customers'. The thing that everyone expects from social media (largely because this message has been preached to every sales team everywhere) is that the platform will act as a silver bullet that will provide effortless access deep inside the hub of a company and shed endless hidden secrets that you wouldn't see in the usual press circles.

This though, in reality, is not the case. Yes, perhaps you might get lucky with an aggravated employee venting their feelings publicly on their feed. We've all seen the cases of sportsman doing just that. But largely, people rather like being paid and so will not try and anger the company they work for by telling the world their boss is an enormous sell out etc etc... This might happen once in a blue moon but it's not the real reason for 'tapping' into social media (tick your scorecards now).

The real value in social media comes from identifying target areas for a company and establishing a knowledge base of what key people you're monitoring think about things. With hashtagging becoming more and more prominent on Twitter it's a genuinely intriguing tool to discover what areas companies are looking to target and it's also a really useful way of engaging people in key areas of conversation that can play into your hands. I've yet to conduct a survey but I'd be almost 100% positive that people are more likely to respond to a Twitter message opposed to an email. Of course, there are many, many more uses (selfless plug here, but concepts we cover in our newsletter) but the point I'm making is don't expect social media to be your answer to absolutely everything. Build it into an overall monitoring strategy. It'll certainly play it's part in delivering priceless insight, but it won't play every part going.