Does Your Social Data Really Represent All Your Customers?

In re-capping Our Webinar with Frank Eliason, Lisa Keller and Katharine Mobley, CMO of WeCare Card, this week I'm left with more questions than answers.

One of the startling things that we learned is that at Nestle Purina, where Keller manages the social media community and edits the content for social, there is a new focus on what they call the "silent majority" within social who are not easily measured but who nevertheless represent an enormous amount of word-of-mouth, and more importantly, actual measurable results.

Keller believes that their listening platform only reaches 30% of their customers, and they are using new tools from Nielsen and others to "listen" to the remaining 70%.  But typically, listening tools are not able to access very active content creators, such as younger audiences who are using Snapchat, or closed communities like Reddit.

In a follow-up email, I asked Keller if this new focus was because of the limitation of the platforms or some new trend in social.  "There have also been many studies around the now oversaturation of networks and content and social fatigue setting in with average users, who may be moving to either more "dark social" channels or simply not creating/engaging like they used to when it was newer."

Mobley oversees the entire marketing initiative for WeCare Card, a leading innovator in the payments space, and in her role also has to determine which customers are driving business, not just content.   Because payments and finances are such sensitive issues to all humans, these need a nuanced approach that data alone can't support, and the company also uses personal interviews to reinforce – or refute – what the data tells them. 

Frank Eliason can be counted on for an original take on the value of companies and how they handle customers in social and across the board, having been at the cutting edge of social customer service, first and Comcast and later at Citi, before most of us were even on Twitter.  Frank believes that no amount of data can compensate for poor service, and no command center will be worth its weight in hardware if there is not sufficient cultural support from the top of the organization.

I invite you to listen to the entire, very revealing, discussion and ask your own questions.

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Original source: Does Your Social Data Really Represent All Your Customers?.
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