Social Scores: Know your handy tools from your cure-alls

According to the AdAge article “What’s your Brand’s Social Score?,” Razorfish is soon to introduce a social influence marketing (SIM) score to reflect the total share of consumer conversations and the degree to which consumers like or dislike the brand.

Related tools have been around for a while (see HubSpot’s wildly popular grader.com family), and they’re tempting because they seem to quantify something that can be overwhelming. But social media’s value is really in listening and conversations on an individual level. It’s most important to have a listening and engagement strategy that prepares you to listen to customers and let them know you’re listening by taking action on customer feedback. Customer support is a better paradigm for social media than PR. Each mention through social media outlets is an opportunity—and an obligation—to help a customer and learn from them. Over time, what you learn from those interactions will help you get better at the things that should move a score like a SIM in the right direction.

So think of this “social score” as another tool in your social media toolbox to help meet your objectives for engaging with customers and marketing effectively. You’ll need a complete listening and engagement strategy to know what to do with your score once you’ve got it.

This entry was posted in Marketing Musings and tagged , , by Eric Larson. Bookmark the permalink.

About Eric Larson

Eric has nearly 20 years of sales and marketing expertise in the technology sector. As a Senior Marketing Consultant, Eric manages customer reference and evidence programs for clients. He is also responsible for business and partner development, as well as Projectline’s new media strategy. Before joining Projectline in 2006, Eric was a product manager at InfoSpace, where he managed the Switchboard.com local search business and helped launch key mobile local search marketing programs. Before InfoSpace, he was a product manager at social network pioneer Classmates.com. Eric holds a bachelor’s degree in Business from the University of Puget Sound and an MBA from Seattle University. It's not all work: Eric spends his free time playing basketball, wakeboarding, and serving as a member of the Board of Directors for the Bellevue Boys & Girls Club. He has summited Mount Rainier, has visited 26 Major League Baseball stadiums, likes to play pinball at Shorty’s, and carries a Spider Man wallet.

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