The Value of Social Data to Storytelling

Thanks to Steve Olenski for tuning me into a recent white paper released by Bazaarvoice called “Chief customer advocate: How social data elevates CMOs”.

The paper focuses on how the mountain of data emanating from social networks empowers the CMO to become more strategic within the “consumer-obsessed C-suite.” Specifically, it highlights the value of social data as real-time insight into the voice of the customer by revealing “first person words and sentiments” about a brand.

It then presents data from a survey of 100 CMO’s from both B2C and B2B companies on how they are using social data for decision making on marketing programs.

Brand Management Leads

It’s not surpristing that social data is used more for brand management than other functions by such a wide margin. Specifically, 82.3% of CMO’s believe that social efforts have a measurable impact on brand awareness.

Don’t Lose the Social Data Connection to Storytelling

So much of brand awareness relies on storytelling and crafting the right messages that in particular allow media and bloggers to understand exactly what the companies and products they are pitched and briefed on do and why their readers would find them interesting.

Media and bloggers are thinking first and foremost about what their readers will find valuable, particularly as it relates to the issues and problems that they face. Good journalists have solid insight into this, increasingly through direct social interaction and real-time feedback on their stories and posts. The source of this insight — through social channels — is the same for marketers, and this is precisely where the intersection of social data and storytelling exists.

Unfortunately, this is where a disconnect still exists and it’s our job as good strategic communicators to also use this social data to ensure the messages are crafted correctly and the story is told in the right way.

It is still all too common for messages to be too vague and hyperbolic. A post yesterday on Techcrunch reminded me of this, where a stealth company pre-briefed Ryan Lawler on funding, and when he pressed about what its product does, here was the response:

Undeterred, I pressed on. What does this product actually do? “Our premise is is to allow anyone to watch anything, anytime, anywhere,”

Naturally, Lawler was frustrated, which was probably the reason for the snarky post. The company spokesperson would have been better served in framing the answer by paraphrasing what an early anonymous tester of the product has told the company about its unique value. It could have been articulated in a way that wouldn’t give away too much information about the product but still more valuable to Lawler.

So, during your next messaging exercise, ask yourself the question: how much of this story truly reflects the voice of the customer as we hear from our listening to conversation on social networks? This is data that will help ground the exercise in reality.

Are you using social data in this way?