In 2000 the Cluetrain Manifesto made some predictions about how the Internet would change communication, behavior and, as a result, how we do business.
“Companies need to listen carefully to their employees and their market. Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It’s going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in.”
And they were so right. It’s taken us ten years to get the message that we should be listening to our customers and other stakeholders, but most PR practitioners are now using some form of social media monitoring, even if it is just Google alerts.
But what are we doing with this information? Listening alone is not enough. You have to learn from the conversations and respond appropriately, based on what you learned. That means you have to learn how to analyze the data you find and engage with the people who are interested enough to comment on your company or your products.
The 2010 adoption figures for social media are encouraging – according to the SNCR research more than 60% of companies are using some form of social media and 97% of nonprofits are on board. But the engagement factor is still sadly lacking. Let’s hope it doesn’t take us another ten years to get that part right.
Tearing those walls down completely and engaging in meaningful conversations with our stakeholders can be painful, but those who have done it recognize the truth of the Cluetrain prediction: the new conversation is definitely worth it. And I mean worth it in real revenue terms – the Engagement db study shows that the companies that are engaging with their audiences are reaping financial benefits, even through the recessionary period. On average these companies grew 18% in a year when most businesses were struggling to maintain revenues.
PR’s Biggest Challenge in 2011 is to extract social media intelligence from the fire hose of data in the online conversations.
Listening is one thing, analyzing the data and learning from the market is another. Data mining and analyzing social graphs is a new skill for PR, but it is one we absolutely have to master. There is no point in spending time and money listening to these conversations if we don’t dig in and figure out what it all means, and use the insights to help the company improve the bottom line.
Social media intelligence is going to become one of the most valuable skills PR can offer. We know how to listen. There are tools that can gather the data. Content analysis is something PR people have done for the past 100 years. Now we have to learn how to apply that skill to the wealth of data available online.
The road to success is to listen, learn and respond appropriately. Without the learn part in the middle you can’t respond appropriately. So it is the most vital part of the equation. It is something that PR can own. If we master this and offer the insights that lead to responding in ways that improve revenue, perhaps it will give us that seat at the table we’ve been after for so long.
Image credit: Marc_Smith Flickr
