Brian Solis (see link below) has come up with some interesting examples of what social media conversations look like. On his blog he's put forward some visual ideas. I think there are a lot of companies out there who are struggling to visualise the world of social media and the more they are presented with charts showing the influence all the various networks have, the better. I think companies need to understand that people are buying now after they have talked online with peers, read reviews etc. And they are forming views of brands based on what they are hearing and seeing through social media networks.
Companies who don't get their heads around social media and in particular peer to peer reviews are going to be in trouble. We recently booked a holiday to Croatia. All the official blurb for the hotels was of course over-the-top positive. Reading the customer reviews was a different story. We looked at places in Greece and you get glowing official versions and then on another site customers are complaining the sheets were never changed etc. Those hotels are going to suffer and they will not know why unless they actually monitor what is being said and respond. Similarly companies who fail to listen and visualise what is going on through social media networks will lose an understanding of the trends in their market and their brand and organisation could lose its appeal and relevance quickly. And just because busy corporate communications executives don't have time to read blogs doesn't mean that their customers don't have time. Nor does it mean those blogs don't have influence.
http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html
www.itsopen.co.uk
