Social media is fueled by measurement. In chapter 14 Blanchard stresses the importance of successful measurement. Through monitoring, measuring, analyzing, and reporting, a social media campaign will thrive.
Social media professionals must monitor, or listen, to their followers. They are being told how the public responds to the company, and the professional is required to listen to identify what is or is not working for the company. From there, they must make specific measurements that will correlate with the program’s objective. Once the data intake is complete, the professional must analyze it. They need to ask questions about the data to determine what types of changes to make to enhance the company’s relationship with the consumer. The final step is to report the findings. Reporting can keep the program from being cut from the budget. It proves that social media is necessary.
Though measurement seems like an easy task, Blanchard makes a point to explain that things are constantly changing daily. New software might come along, causing you to measure in an entirely different way than you have in the past. You might be able to go into more detail with new software, so as a professional, you must keep up to date on all of the changes.
With the increase of social media usage, professionals are able to engage customers in new ways: through velocity and specificity.
Velocity
Before social media, for consumers to voice their opinions and make a change in the product, they had to send in their comments by mail, e-mail, or by calling the company’s customer service. This is what my mom still does. Usually, she only receives a 20% coupon in return. With social media, many people can address a situation, publicly, and successfully change a product. Velocity, in Blanchard’s description, is the speed with which intelligence reaches a decision maker, which will impact the speed at which the decision maker can respond to a marketing opportunity.
When emoji’s first became popular, iPhone users had to download the emoji keyboard from a third party developer in the app store. Once Apple realized how popular the keyboard was, the company decided to include it directly into its software. Now, the emoji keyboard automatically comes with Apple products, making emojis distinctive to Apple. In this situation, Apple’s decision makers quickly noticed the popularity of the emojis, decided to incorporate them in their own software, and utilized it as a marketing opportunity.
Taking it one step further, many celebrities and public personalities are making their own emoji keyboards. People like Kim Kardashian and Demi Lovato have released their own emoji keyboards, or “stickers,” featuring their own cartoon emoticons. These people realized how popluar emojis are and used that as a marketing opportunity.
Specificity
Though they are still used but not as common, Marketers relied on surveys to measure user satisfaction with the company and its products. These surveys often included bias because the marketers were forced to guess the questions to ask, did not allow for specific comments due to a 1-10 satisfaction scale format, and focused on what the company wanted to know rather than what the consumer wanted to talk about. Now, social media allows consumers to engage with the company to provide specific comments about the company and its product. The consumers can voice their concerns directly to the company, rather than waiting for them to figure it out on their own.
Recently, legging retailer Lularoe has been facing some backlash for low quality construction. The brand took off with many people hosting parties to sell leggings to their friends, family members, and even random people that they’re friends with on Facebook. They appealed to many because, apparently, they are the softest leggings anyone could find (I’m going off of what I’ve been told…I don’t own a pair). However, now many are coming forward saying that their leggings rip or fall apart at random after only one or two wears. There is a Facebook group of about 10,000 customers arguing that their leggings are defective, meanwhile, Lularoe claims that only a small amount are actually defective. If the brand were forced to obtain data based on customer satisfaction through surveys, they would not know about the defectiveness because they would not be asking whether or not their products ripped. More likely, they would be asking about the softness and price. This controversy only came to light because consumers are able to take to social media to voice their relevant and specific concerns.
Works Cited
“Lularoe Facing Criticism For Flimsy Leggings”. Fox News. N.p., 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.
Blanchard, Oliver. Social Media R01: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. Pearson Education. 2011.
Carney, Austin. “The History Of Emoji | Citymac”. Citymac.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.
Sizzle,. Basically Me You. 2016. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.
Professional Uses of Social Media 