Social Media Assessments

Social media research is largely “what customers are saying” research. See Mindshare Report. This type of research can help you know for a fact where your customers are in the social web. The students (I'm part of this group) of the Social Media Academy Leadership Class and coauthors of the Mindshare Report Social Media Enterprise Assessment, only touched the surface of what can be discovered in a more thorough social media assessment and what could be found following some of the work and methodologies that were uncovered and fine-tuned by the group during the class.

The social media study conducted and the resulting report contains social media assessments of six global enterprises including Dow Chemical, John Deere, NetApp, New York Life, Toyota, and Vodafone. The study was conducted without any people from the companies participating and with publically available information and sources.

To do this right for a company initiative, a more thorough assessment would involve customers from the very beginning and people with the company headed by a social media consultant team. After a complete assessment and after a comprehensive review of the assessment; the customers and people with the company can then choose on how best to move forward with a social media strategy and execution.

Questions like these can be answered in an assessment:

• Do you know where your customers are in the social web?
• Do you know what spaces are important to your customers?
• Do you know what your customers' issues are?
• Do you have a technique to listen to your customers?
• Do you know where your partners are within the social web?
• Do you have a strategy for socializing with your partners?
• Do you know where your brand is?
• Do you trust that your brand is well reflected in the market?
• Do you know what people say about your competitors?
• Do you have an idea how your competitors are using the social web?

What I noticed while doing this study is an assessment like this will get you quite a ways down the listing and learning path. So I’m saying start or re-start here with your social media social media initiatives.

Starting with an enterprise social media assessment can help you figure-out if using the social web to build relationships, adding value online, and building community might help you make a positive impact to your businesses bottom line.

What do you think? Is a thorough enterprise social media assessment a good starting point for your company or the company [or companies] you represent?