Think Social Media is Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel? Prepare to Go Over the Falls in that Barrel

Observe, Plan, Execute

Yesterday I was reminded of why organizations need to at least monitor their brand in the social media space, even if they choose not to participate in it.  I received a following notice on Twitter from an Id that was representing themselves as a directory resource for a particular city that relies on tourism and honeymoons.  Not a bad idea from a social media perspective.

So I go to check it out – especially since they had a large number of followers and numerous tweets.  My Oh My… what a surprise… 600 plus tweets of what appeared to be randomly generated tweets which every once in a while created some images of questionable activities with Bollywood movies.  I joke not… “committed the sin of Onan with ostensible Hindi movies” and “remembers the halcyon days of grotesque nightclubs” were actual tweets.  OK,  probably not as racy as you were expecting, BUT how would you feel if these tweets were coming from an account representing your company or posing as your company?  Twitter has a new service for “verifying” accounts, however you need to justify your need for these types of accounts right now.

So it gets a bit worse.  In Twitter, you can have a web URL in your profile.  There was one in this case, so I clicked on it.  Nothing racy on the other end, but it was an incomplete website.  It looks like someone is attempting to build a directory of businesses in this tourist town.  Again, not a bad idea, but what if you are the local government or the chamber of commerce for this town and already have an official site?
This case study gives us two lessons to consider…

First, what is at stake here is the town’s brand.  Regardless of your participation in social media, if you have a brand to protect, you should at least establish a program of “monitoring” your brand.  This program could range from using Google Alerts to a more robust tool such as those produced by Techrigy or Scoutlabs.  All options essentially let you start for free.  If you have limited volume, the “free” version of Techrigy or Scoutlabs may be all you need.  I personally use a combination of Google Alerts and a paid version of ScoutLabs.  I love the graphing capability of Techrigy, but for where my business volume is, Scoutlabs is the better fiscal choice.

The next step of your “monitoring” initiative is to define how you or your company will respond to events that occur.   These don’t necessarily need to be “bad” events.  You could reward those people who really promote your business.  Or you can intervene when needed.  Its better to be informed than blind.  I call these reactions “Engagement Scripts” and they should be shared with everyone who communicates on behalf of your company.  In severe cases, you may need legal counsel.

You may be thinking that I am blowing this case study out of proportion.  Maybe the city in question was  “alpha testing” some new social media initiatives and they just didn’t have the content completed yet.  I can go along with that hypothesis, and I would encourage the company (city in this case) to test things privately.  There is no reason to flood Twitter with 600 worthless messages – it still reflects poorly on the brand.

That leads us to lesson two…  Plan your social media initiatives.  By doing something as described in this case study, you are taking a shot-gun approach to social media programs.  What are you trying to accomplish?  Who are you trying to engage?  Take the time to conduct an assessment to learn where your respective ecosystem is. The Four Quadrant Assessment Methodology (as defined by the Social Media Academy, and my personal preference) looks at where people are in the social web, sentiment analysis, key interests and reflections in the following areas:

• Customer mapping and field assessment
• Brand analysis
• Partner and alliance analysis
• Competition analysis

I’m not suggesting you get paralyzed by analysis.  Think of it as clarifying the conversations you want to have and making them meaningful.  Shooting fish in a barrel may be easy, but shooting the falls in a barrel is not one of my recommended actions.  Do a little homework and planning, then go catch your trophy fish.  I look forward to hearing about it.