The Conversation Happens With or Without You

When we are in the planning stages of creating a social media plan for our clients, one of our talking points is to allow comments or not to allow comments. If the company is just beginning their social media presence, a look of concern clouds their representatives’ eyes and someone inevitably utters, “But what if the comment is something we don’t want to hear?”

This simple question represents a significant change in marketing practices (discussed in more detail in an earlier post). Companies can no longer hide behind artfully crafted marketing pieces and not be willing to engage in a conversation with their customers. Your company’s not providing a forum won’t stop the conversation.  Ask Dell.

For those of you who don’t know the story…. Dell had a few unhappy customers and didn’t provide the customer support they expected, and even worse, refused to acknowledge the unhappy folks. One of the unhappy ones decided to launch a forum at www.ihatedell.com where other unhappy folks came to bash Dell and help each other quickly solve their issues. It didn’t take Dell long to realize that their clinging to business as usual didn’t exactly work so well for the bottom line.

Dell’s solution? They began engaging in a conversation with their customers. They set up their own support forums and blogs and invited their users to ask questions. They in turn answered the questions, posted alerts, and engaged in a conversation with their users. While there are still some unhappy Dell users out there, Dell has made incredible strides in their customer support.

While this story has a happy ending, we can all learn a lesson from it. If  Dell had engaged in the conversation from the get-go, the sites bashing their company and customer service likely would not have gained as much popularity.

I encourage my clients not to approach their marketing efforts with armadillo syndrome (For you non-Texans out there, if an armadillo can’t see you it thinks you don’t exist. Predators sneak up from the sides and behind.). I tell my clients that whether or not they want to listen, people are going to want their voices heard in one venue or another. That conversation is going to happen with or without you.  At least when you have them engaging in your blogs and forums, you have the home turf advantage.

If you’d like to avoid the armadillo approach, you can use Google Reader to monitor what others are saying about any topic. Here’s how you do it:

1. Sign up for a free Gmail account at www.google.com if you haven’t already.
2. Go to www.google.com/reader.
3. Do a search for your name, company, product, competitors, whatever you want (be sure to put multiple words in quotes!).
4. Subscribe to the feed.
   1. Right-click on the RSS feed button and select Copy-Link
   2. Go back to Google Reader, click the add button and then paste in the url.

or

1. Click the RSS feed button
2. Click the Add to Google Reader button as shown in the following graphic.

You’ll want to go to other areas in which you’ll be found to look for mentions of you, your company, or your terms. Some such places could include

• http://blogsearch.google.com
• http://search.twitter.com
• YouTube
• Slideshare

I learned a long time ago that there are often many ways to reach a desired goal. How do you monitor what others are saying about you and your company?