Last week Seth Godin made waves by introducing his Brands in Public Social Media Engagement Platform. Brands in Public (BiP) allows brands to see what's being said about them. For the low, low price of $400/month, brands can 'own' their BiP page. After some, um, "feedback," Seth made some adjustments.
Earlier this summer, the Altimeter Group unveiled the Engagement db, which not only takes a look at how top brands are doing at Commitment Marketing, but also gives you a chance to see how your brand does against their metrics.
Now, these platforms aren't going to replace Radian6 or Collective Intellect, but for a brand manager who is not particlarly savvy, these probably seem like inexpensive tools that provide some intelligence. I think we have to be careful here. I'm not suggesting that the Altimeter Group or Godin are trying to trick anyone, or sell them something beyond what the product actually offers, but monitoring and/or evaluation without analysis can offer a false sense of understanding.
The Engagement db ranks Starbucks as the #1 social brand but doesn't provide much in the way of individual detail beyond four brands highlighted in their very good Engagement db report. And even that may not be enough when you consider the quickly changing nature of Social Media.
Rankings and overviews can provide a top level sketch of the landscape, but actionable data requires more. This is where the expertise of a trusted agency partner comes in. A marketing communications agency that really understands not just Social Media, but also their client partner (the brand) can provide the POV and intelligence that can turn mere numbers into insight that informs decisions.
Rankings also tend to put the focus on the wrong thing - quantitativef figures. Are you tweeting more than someone else? Using more platforms, gathering more friends? Nor does it take into account where a brand is in its Social Media development. A more useful rankings system would measure brands based on the the outcomes of their engagements, not the outputs.
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