Last week I presented ideas to some members of the Kuno Creative team regarding social media publication and social media monitoring tools. During my research, a big picture formed that helped me clarify the types of tools necessary to run a smooth and efficient campaign. Social Media activities fall into 3 major groups: those that can be purely automated, those that require critical thinking skills, and those that call upon us to let our humanity shine through.
Since the information is going in only one direction (as opposed to a two-way conversation) all broadcast activities would fall into this category including: posting ads for your product or blog, highlighting special offers or contests, sending coupons, spotlighting products, generating buzz around a special event, etc… Using automated tools are highly recommended for these activities because they are easy to use and add certain efficiencies into the equation. Even social media purists would agree there’s no reason NOT to automate broadcast messages.
You must have someone or something in place to help listen and respond to your stakeholders and competitors who ARE talking about you digitally - whether you want to acknowledge it or not. Some tools claim to measure Internet sentiment in an effort to automate social media listening and filtering activities. These cloud based tools scan the Internet for emotion words connected with your brand. The enormous amount of data then goes through a series of algorithms to generate reports indicating the sentiment of the digital dialogs surrounding your brand. Crimson Hexagon, for example, offers, "social media monitoring and analysis that distills meaning about brands, products, services, competitors or any important topic." These tools can be pricey and, IMO, they are not fully developed. I must claim a certain bias, however, because once critical thinking activities become reliably automated (it’s only a matter of time), it lessens the necessity for a human filter to process data and make decisions as to what is TIME WORTHY and what isn’t.
If you’ve ever attended a sales training, you’ve been exposed to the axiom, “people buy from people!” That’s how it’s always been, and that’s how it always will be. This truism is magnified in the Information Age because the Internet now allows people to buy from people NOT restricted by space or time. When launching a social media campaign this axiom must be a guiding principle, and never forget that SOCIAL is social media’s first name. Lots of organizations don’t understand this and use social media as just another broadcast tool. It’s preferable to let your humanity shine through all your activities.
With this Big Social Media picture in mind, I continued to review tools that could assist with these activities. Before I share those with you (my next blog post), I wondered if my peers agree with this big picture of activities? Did I miss the boat? Are there any social media purists who believe NOTHING should be automated?
