One of the most famous reactions to an Oscar win was Sally Fields’ “You like me! You really like me!” For Fields, in the days before social media, there was no way to measure public sentiment or target and “score” the consumers of her product or films. The number of loyal customers, or in this case fans, were difficult to conclude.
The box office results were the only way to determine an actor’s popularity, and ultimately, their next salary bump. Today, studios can take a closer look at an actor’s legion of fans on Twitter and Facebook, as well as their social mentions, to create predictive analytics of their specific success in an entertainment project.
In some situations, customers are forced into a relationship with you — perhaps you’re the only cable company with services in their area, or you’re the nearest convenience store within a 20 mile radius; so they’re obliged to buy from your aging deli counter — which means the force may not be with you when it comes to public sentiment.
Many companies fail to realize that just because they have customers does not mean their customers are loyal to them. They assume that money equals loyalty, and that if a new competitor enters the picture, no one will make the switch. You only have to read the complaints board of your local cable company, or look at the unsubscribe patterns at said cable provider when a new option comes to town.
That’s why it’s important to monitor what your customers are saying about you through social media utilization. There are numerous systems out there to administer reputation management, as well as your social mentions and public sentiment analytics.
Through online analysis, you can determine the demographics and geographic concentration of your mentions, the positive and negative sentiment over time, and even which words and phrases are most commonplace in discussing your organization’s products or services. Monitoring and understanding your public sentiment can help you pinpoint areas in which you are lacking with your customers (as well as excelling).
If you want to identify trends, and the likelihood of retaining your customers while increasing their future spends with your company, you need to become a “socially intelligent organization” that tracks these key performance indicators. As they say, “the customer’s perception is your reality.”
