Following & Listening
A post called ‘following & listening’… suggests any number of the great surveillance movies, like The Conversation…
Anyway, it’s not about that. It’s about this:
They concentrate on the take-out of the research being ‘over half of social network users in the US are following a company or brand’. Probably because ‘over half’ makes something seem big, worth considering and so on.
But ‘following’ is passive, low maintainence… it’s arguably a one-off click that you easily and readily forget. How many brands/companies do you think you follow on facebook, twitter etc? Can you name them all? I doubt it.
‘Following’ is just a slight step up from paying slightly more attention to ads from particular companies.
FAR more interesting in my opinion is the % of people who’ve said something good (46%) or bad (23%) about a brand/company.
Rather than just persuading people to follow you so you can start bothering them with ads, you should be listening to all the things thay’re saying about you.
Because they’re not ONLY telling you… they’re telling everyone in their network who’s listening to them. That could be tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people.
Every time someone mutters something bad about your company, lots of people are listening.
And if you’re too busy shouting at them because they ‘followed’ you, how are you going to hear what they’re saying?
Listen to people. If they’ve a problem, you can solve it. If they just like you and want to tell others, you can share and celebrate it.
Nothing bad will come of you listening to people.
Not like in ‘The Conversation’…
