The venue was packed (literally standing room only) the speakers excellent and the vibe businesslike rather than echo-chamberesque.
Luke (one of our collaborators at 90:10, by way of disclosure) asked me to chair a panel on the ROI of social media monitoring, on which I was ably assisted by Chris Quigley (co-founder Rubber Republic), Matt Atkinson, CEO EHS Brann, Tomi Leitonen, CEO Whitevector and Jon Moody, Market Engineer (nice title Jon) at ASOMO.
I threw in a thought, without much consideration for how it could be answered. It is this; that social media monitoring is, in its current incarnation, somewhat behind the curve of the real-time web.
I think of it like this: we are becoming increasingly good at taking photographs of the web, but can't workout how to view its streaming video.
Perhaps it is that we are only able to make sense of it as still photographs - snapshots which we can pour over with a magnifying glass and make pronouncements upon?
Most of those of us who go in for this kind of monitoring and measurement have long understood that one set of tools is far from enough. We adapt and compile, create our best set of tools to give us the deepest and broadest understanding of the landscape. But it is for the most part a landscape in which nothing is moving.
It is helpful for broad strategy, to identify where the conversations are happening and whom they involve.
But how much more valuable could the right-now monitoring of live interaction be.
For example, it is useful to know where the conversation has happened, but it is much more useful to know where the conversation is happening right now, how it is moving, at what speed and in what direction.
It's becoming increasingly important as we understand the value of the connections over the node, of interaction, of the things people do with each other together (network), compared to the things we would have them do at our bidding (broadcast).
In other words, wouldn't it be wonderful to monitor and understand the flow of the flock.
Of course wonderful is one thing, useful another.
Not only do we need a new set of tools to understand, to even see the flow, we need a new set of tactical responses and processes to give that knowledge value.
Like I say, lots of questions. Not so many answers.
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Interesting analogy and poignant for me as I have just seen the flock of Starlings display on the Scottish border. A static photo or video still of the flock shows you something that looks like a cloud, or wisp of smoke, in motion you can see how truly special it is.
ReplyDeleteFor many people new to SM they would be most surprised by the speed and spread of a discussion, rather than the overall volume. I think the issue is that traditional monitoring is focussed towards volume and hits, not the fervour with which a new conversation is embraced. Showing a conversation spreading like wildfire is probably a far more powerful message than the number of people or volume of conversation.
The experiment that was Tweeted yesterday with a tag to demonstrate how far it could go to someone was a perfect example of this. Also your live demonstration to us "what do you think of Honda" was an eye opener even for the already converted!
Gareth Dean
Honda Motor Europe
Thank you for writing this article. Very interesting.
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