Most of you are saying “managing online dialogue? Are you nuts?”
No, I’m not. I’d like to introduce the idea of engagement and managing the reality of online dialogues. That reality is that positively engaged people are not pre-disposed to Tweet about their good meal/product/service. The expect it for the price they paid. This means that the loudest voices will always come from the inevitable bad experience.
That means that someone listening to the tweet landscape could take away “disaster” when “normal” is occurring.
That means two new and critical skills are required:
- Appropriate rewards for “frequent fans” – using the voice of the passionate few to simulate the “satisfied silent types”
- Fast response for the “chatty unhappy folks” so that there aren’t repeats of their concerns of better yet, public response that addresses the issues
I have seen some good examples of 2), and the rewards part is so uncomfortable for some of us because is smacks of paying for opinion. In fact, what I’m advocating is things like retweeting, or public thank yous – not rewards as in payment but rewards as in psychic rewards or recognition.
Take those marketing skills that you have, or that you need, and insure that they are applied towards “applying good thinking to the dialogue that is already occurring online”. Reward your advocates, insure any problems are publicly and quickly addressed.
