Last week, a new era of social media measurement began as it was announced that First Direct, HSBC’s online bank, would include public-facing social media monitoring dashboards on its Web site. And it does! They’re already live, and it’s pretty darn cool.
Whether or not this fad catches on, this is a huge step in social media monitoring. This is an important step toward monitoring becoming universally accepted and expected. By making dashboards public, First Direct is endorsing their importance and showing (in real-time) why social media monitoring matters.
But is this really the way of the future? Will Web sites and companies all over the world embrace the idea of transparent monitoring?
I really don’t think so. I can’t imagine a big brand like Microsoft or Coca-Cola being willing to open up their monitoring to the public this way. True, it’s not necessary to show all of your metrics or measurements, but a public-facing dashboard does require an amount of transparency that big companies and brands just aren’t ready to accept.
During a crisis, would any company or brand want to have a dashboard on their own Web site broadcasting to the world that they suck? Disabling the dashboards in a time of crisis would only be more disastrous as fans would cry foul and amplify the original situation. So what’s a big brand to do?
For those companies and brands that are brave enough to venture into the social media world at all, allowing consumers to see a dashboard is just not in the realm of possibilities yet.
And while it is easy enough for us to do our own research and track social media sentiment for any given brand or company, putting a dashboard on a corporate Web site would be completely different. Aggregating and presenting that data for your consumers is a step most companies will not take because it will reveal just as much bad as good.
We all know how much we complain about brands and products online. Would we be less apt to buy a product or a brand because we notice their dashboard shows a lot of negative sentiment? I think so! I know that all brands have negative chatter online, but if I were to go to a Web site to buy a product, seeing it blatantly in front of me would probably change my opinion and remind me about all that negative chatter.
What do you think? Should more companies use public-facing dashboards? Is it likely to happen?
Tags: Measurement, Social Media
