But that’s not the only company with an F.
Two weeks ago, I challenged six social media evangelists at a wide range of organizations to add a blog comment as proof whether or not they or their colleagues were actively monitoring blogs.
Many social media consultants and community managers routinely search for their names, their corporate executives’ names, and their competitors’ names. At least, that’s my theory!
Let’s test the theory with Amber Naslund of Radian6, Marla Erwin of Whole Foods, Andrew Nystrom of the Los Angeles Times, Wendy Harman of the American Red Cross, Morgan Johnston of JetBlue, and Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research.
If you are one of the six named individuals, or are a colleague at said organizations, do you mind adding a comment below and indicating how you came here?
My post was a prime example of linkbait, but if you scroll through the comments, you can see replies by Amber, Andrew, and Morgan, and others I mentioned, including Aaron Strout, Marc Meyer, Christopher Gabriel, and David Bradley.
Where are Marla, Wendy, or Jeremiah? This tells me either the linkbait wasn’t scented or corporate responses are different.
On a hunch whether they visited but chose not to comment, I ran some searches with Google Analytics and discovered, sadly, there were zero visits by wholefoods.com or forrester.com. I presume the same would be true of the third.
Considering numerous business executives and new media directors read my blog on a daily basis, a 50% response ratio is a telling statistic. Unfortunately, those three organizations are frustrating the mantra that listening is crucial to succeed online. Moreover, let’s suppose Forrester Research is listening and not engaging; how is mom-and-pop XYZ Associates supposed to respond?
Let’s have it, folks. Why is JetBlue responding but Whole Foods isn’t? Should I name drop anyone else, such as AirTran and Trader Joe’s for spite?
Photo credit: wolfmix
UPDATE: Please read my follow-up where I explain that pobody is nerfect.
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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I think you hit the nail on the head with the whole “corporate responses” phrase, Ari.
No matter the size of the business, I feel a lot of it comes down to family-oriented mentality. The biggest business can still be the most family-minded and treat every single customer as its only one.
While you may not have been a customer (in the traditional sense) of those that didn’t respond, you are talking about them – which immediately makes you a customer, if only from the consumer marketer point if view. Of course, you could say that if you donate to Red Cross you’re a customer, or take Jeremy’s advice, or shop at Whole Foods.
Yet these brands should be responding, and particularly when it’s to test their monitoring level. If, for whatever reason, they don’t want to participate in the comments, then contact you via email to mention “job done” – show that they’re practising what a lot of them preach.
With regards Forrester, might make for an interesting review – “How the Analyzers Were Analyzed”.
Danny Brown´s last blog post..Do You Know What Your Social Mention Factor Is?
Indeed. If one doesn’t want to add a public comment to this blog, I blatantly advertise my email address to the side here; and anyone reading by RSS sees my Twitter username at the bottom. I frequently receive emails and tweets from folks who for this reason or that opt not to add a blog comment.
This is an interesting idea — the value of your name versus your brand.
I don’t monitor “Andrea Hill” because there are sooo many of us, including several that run marathons (as I do), at least one who just graduated from the high school I went to, and another who works in strategic consulting.
My online brand is around “afhill”, which is what I monitor for. Very very rarely does that turn up any false positives
I do understand the point: you can’t force someone to use the exact reference to your brand that you’d like, but I think we all need to weigh the costs and benefits to swinging the net too wide.
Andrea Hill´s last blog post..Incase Power Slider iPhone Case a Must-Have for Power Users
I’ve read your blog numerous times, Andrea, but aside from your Twitter name, I wouldn’t associate you as “afhill;” but if writing about you, I’d mention Andrea Hill.
Something to think about. Maybe you can run Google Alerts for links to your blog, twitter account, etc, e.g. if I linked to here, you would then be notified.
I DO monitor afhill, so I get alerted when anyone links to my twitter account or my blog (housed at afhill.com).
Andrea Hill´s last blog post..What’s the deal with “Crowdsourcing”?
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RT @dannybrown: Why did Forrester Research get an “F” in brand monitoring? @ariherzog explains [link to post]
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Ari
You may have confused me.
First of all, I get multiple reports on people mentioning my name (jeremiah owyang), it’s more than I can respond to. I have alerts from Radian 6, Scout labs, Google Alerts, and other tools. I didn’t see your other post, or I read it but didn’t see that you were trying to get me to leave a comment.
As I write this, it’s 2am, I’m in a hotel thousands of miles from home, and just saw my name appear on an alert and have come here to respond. I’m not sure how much more real time you want me to get, but I’m certainly doing my best.
Also, since I’m rarely in the office, you can’t be certain whether or not I visited. This visit (this comment) won’t show up from a Forrester IP address.
Lastly, The title of this blog post is completely a red herring. It should read “Jeremiah Owyang didn’t respond to my blog post’. Rather than “Forrester Research gets an F in listening”.
What do you think? Was this a bit much? I get the point you’re trying to do, but I’m doing the best I can to listen and respond as a single individual. Love to hear your thoughts…
Thanks for the reply and your candor, Jeremiah. However, I don’t think the blog title is a red herring; you’re a Forrester employee and you state that fact numerous times in your blogging and tweeting.
But to the point of my linkbaiting perspective, suppose I didn’t single you out and suppose I mentioned Forrester alone, either praising something or complaining about something else. From the customer service perspective, one would think someone at Forrester would see an alert, e.g. Forrester AND complain, and rush to figure out whether a blog comment is worthwhile or not.
See my point? I’m glad you took the time to reply, but is that enough? What if I wasn’t linkbaiting but complaining about an analytical report? What if I was a Fortune 500 CEO blogging?
You know, Ari (and Jeremiah) – I’ve been thinking about this all day.
Ari – I think you’re being too tough on the guy. Think about how much he has on his plate – which he states above – and then give him a frickin’ break. Could he have a staff that handles this so that things don’t get missed? Sure. But then everyone would berate him like they did Guy Kawasaki when it was revealed that his staff was tweeting for him.
I loved reading that there he was, like me, working at 2 a.m. – getting to you as fast as he could.
Also – and I say this with all due respect – who decided that responding to YOUR blog was the most important thing du jour. It’s wonderful and full of fantastic information, but it’s not like Obama himself asked folks to report to duty and then Jeremiah didn’t show up.
And. When he did show up here…he did it so well. With humility, facts, questions and answers.
I think he gets an A.
Julie Roads´s last blog post..Funny. Life is Still the Same. Ish.
How is replying two weeks after the fact considered “as soon as he could,” Julie?
Yes, I’m being hard on him. I admit that–because he works for a firm that analyzes the internet and runs metrics. If he worked for a 10-person operation, I’d have a much different response. See my point?
Let’s see…because he has client work that takes priority. I have over 100 twitter follows sitting in my inbox that I haven’t gotten to b/c I’m doing my paid work. I’ll get to those as soon as I can – doesn’t mean I don’t care about connection with those people.
And, you didn’t go after Forrester really – you went after Jeremiah, you’re going after him now.
Julie Roads´s last blog post..Funny. Life is Still the Same. Ish.
Doesn’t change anything. Take a look at a blog post I wrote last December about the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I didn’t ask anyone to comment, and I didn’t mention any names, yet the museum commented; moreover, it called out another museum who further commented.
If you scroll back to the initial post two weeks ago, I asked for the six individuals or their colleagues to respond. Three did–err, now, four did. Which begs the question if I didn’t mention anyone’s names whether anyone would respond, like the museum did. Hmm.
Geez Ari give me a break. Ya, it’s link bait and then you have the nerve to go for another dip by calling out Forrester and Jeremiah on this. You’ve got to be kidding me. Do you honestly think that all these people do all day long is read their name and respond to silly experiments like this. Me thinks you’re a bit full of yourself Dude and I’m with Julie on this. Jeremiah gets points for responding at all. If I were him, I would have simply ignored you.
Ron Miller´s last blog post..Time for the News Business to Get Its Head Out of the 20th Century
Ignorance can also be claimed as a customer response.
But I hear what you’re saying. Thanks.
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