I just got done with a conference with many of my colleagues; folks who do Social Media for large brands. I'm always amazed and comforted by how similar our experiences and challenges are. It's been a year since I last saw them, but here's what I take away from this check-in:
1. We're wearing too many hats. It's a wierd thing. Those who show initiative and seize the social media roadmap for a company, tend to take on many disciplines: Recruiting, PR, Marketing, Customer Service and psuedo-brand spokesperson. We're much too far along for this to be the case. By now we should have more of the owners of the recruiting/PR/customer service function taking on the social aspects. You just can't have a social media expert playing the role of customer service extension even if somewhat familiar with the role.
2. Please stop promoting "Listening". It's such a broad, fluffy term. Agencies, vendors and snake-oil salesman sold this concept "Listening" as the starting point. It's not that listening to the consumer is wrong, it's that we need to be more specific. Are we listening only to engage in customer service in the public realm? Or are we listening to co-create with users to adapt our product/service selection? Anyone who has "Listened" knows that if you don't act on the customer service end it does no good to just "listen". It's like if my wife says "honey, please rinse out your dishes before putting in the dishwasher", and I don't act on it and said "I heard you". Not effective. Or if you have great expectations that the public chatter reveals a large vein of insight, I just don't see it. At least nothing beyond a good Google Alerts can offer.
3. We need to accept the web is "social" and that it's imperative for every dept to understand and incorporate the social web into their business-as-usual processes. Less platform specific and more broad digital.
I'd be remiss if I didn't vent my own pet peeve. I still think brands overvalue Twitter. Especially for customer service. Twitter is still a 13% web user penetration platform. It's not a social network, it's an information distribution technology. If you choose to address this market, please do it after you think of the more broadly used Facebook. And worry about Google+ later when they prove it's not Buzz or Wave.
Finally, I'm on my second hotel-bar cabernet, so factor that into any of my snap judgements. I still feel pretty solid about my analysis, but like to leave an "out" for when I run into you folks.
