(In an effort to provide a place for the Social Media Curious to dip their first toe, Ike continues a series of articles aimed at those who are looking for very basic context.)
You’re Listening. NOW What?
At the most basic level, your participation in Social Media needs to include monitoring and listening. If you don’t know what’s being said about you, you’ll never have a chance to correct misperceptions or outright lies. Being functionally deaf makes you blind in targeting future efforts.
For those organizations that fail to even listen, the top hesitation is the fear of finding “bad news,” and not knowing how to deal with it. Given the flood of information that you might find about yourself, it’s easier to play the ostrich and pretend it doesn’t exist. While that might make you sleep a little easier, your shareholders and stakeholders might see things differently. So how exactly do you prioritize these potential “reputation threats” as they circulate?
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you use monitoring tools to find a knock against your company in a blog or public forum. Aside from simple traffic statistics and site popularity, here are a few measures of “viral-ness” you can use to determine which ones are capable of becoming a big problem down the road.
Viral Triggers, A through G
- Authority/assertion
The message must give you the feeling that you now know something important that will truly affect future decisions. - Brevity
No one wants to read a manifesto, Dr. Kaczynski. If the negative message is too long, the average reader won’t want to be the one to foist it upon his whole network. - Clarity
A well-crafted message, to go viral, must be unambiguous. There can be no question about where the author stands. - Detail
The position must be rooted in incontrovertible fact. A random message that “Dell sucks” doesn’t carry the weight of “Having used your product for 9 years…”. - Emotion
How well-written is the message? Does it make you feel as though you could be just as passionate for simply passing it along? - Focus
The message must be about one thing, and one thing only. If it makes a reader mentally wander he’ll be less likely to feel compelled to pass it along. - Gossip
One reason people like to pass on juicy little tidbits is the rush of knowing that you knew something before (almost) any of your friends did. This places you in a position of esteem and authority within your circle.
A quick glance can usually knock a couple of these factors out for a particular instance, and you can move on. If you see a message that hits six out of seven flags, you may want to do an internet search for an unusual string within the message, to see if this is already moving and where.
If you see one that hits all seven warning triggers, you probably need to put it in the hands of whomever would handle your reactive messaging. A direct response might be in order, unless it comes off looking like an attack. But you need to be prepared for the likelihood that many people will see this attack on your brand and reputation.
As with all things in Social Media, your mileage will always vary. This tool is not scientific — but will empower you to concentrate your time on the messages that matter. It beats getting caught in the paralysis of analysis, or wasting resources on issues that will never materialize as real reputational threats.
(Ike Pigott regularly writes at Occam’s RazR)
