The Oscars and Social Media Chatter…and What it Means for Your Business
- 36.4 million Twitter messages were sent during the Academy Awards.
- 63,737 mentions alone were for the show’s host, @JamesFranco.
While the massive virtual conversation was tracked diligently, an overwhelmingly apparent trend appeared: the real conversation was happening on Twitter (mainly with the hashtag #oscarsfail).
And so it is with your business. Conversations are happening with or without you. You must decide what to do about it. Certainly, the online buzz and chatter present opportunities for growth, evolution, and improvement.
In light of the Oscars, a great article on the trending criticism within social media presented an interesting opinion: producers should tune into social media chatter in real-time to make on-the-fly changes to shows. Richard Robbins, director of Social Innovation at AT&T, tweeted that the show’s producers might consider monitoring Twitter and other sites in the future to gauge how the show is playing, making necessary changes if needed:
“In the future, live show producers should have contingency plans to make on-the-fly changes when social media chatter shows trainwrecks.”
Here’s what this means for your business: you can make adjustments to your products, services, etc, based on the online commentary happening. And you can do so immediately. It’s only a matter of listening.
Some key questions to ask yourself:
- Are you monitoring your reputation online? If not, why?
- Are you tracking what’s being said about you online?
- Based on the findings from reputation management, what changes can you make?
- Are you responding in real-time to negative chatter?
These are questions every organization needs to answer honestly; then plan next steps from there.
