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Three reasons a social media monitoring assessment makes business sense

T hursday, July 11, 2013 . posted by Walter Adamson T he use of social media monitoring is now widespread, and investments are increasing. In f act the use of social media monitoring has reached a certain stage of maturity - but what is that level of maturity, how can companies assess it, and what can they learn f rom assessing where they are at? Fundamentally an assessment of social media monitoring is a continuous improvement exercise, with some added benef its. We'll clarif y these in this post. T he key requirement to be able to conduct such an assessment is to have a Social Media Monitoring Maturity Model which is robust and complete.

Three quest ions answered by a social media monit oring mat urit y assessment
T here are three prime business questions organisations can answer by an assessment of their social media monitoring maturity: 1. How efficiently are we monitoring social media - is there over or under investment? 2. How effectively are we doing it - are we getting the best organisational benef it? 3. What are the most ef f ective next steps we should take to improve our ROI? T here are three additional outcomes which can also be highly benef icial: 1. T he process and the results provide a platf orm f or discussion between executives and decision-makers about the role and benef its of social media monitoring and how it might be used more widely to support various f unctions and capabilities. T his can be important in an organisation where the advocates of the wider use of monitoring are looking for ways to engage the decision-makers. 2. T he model allows an assessment of an organisation's capability and readiness to be able to move to the next level of maturity in the deployment of social media monitoring. T here may be roadblocks which could be cultural, managerial, operational, or to do with security or regulations. 3. T he process of f ers a benchmarking capability whereby organisations can compare their stage of maturity with their peers (once a usef ul number of participants in each sector have completed an assessment).

T he Social Media Monitoring Maturity Model is used to research those answers within a consistent framework, and it provides the basis to make the recommendations f or improvement.

What is a Social Media Monit oring Mat urit y Model?

A maturity model is a roadmap of the progression of an organisation's levels of integration and sophistication in utilising the benef its of a technique or technology - in our case social media monitoring. T heref ore a model has a number of levels each with associated criteria which can be measured. T here should also be some mandatory requirements f or entry into each level. T his means that while an organisation might be using social media monitoring in an advanced sense at one level it may not met the entry criteria f or a higher level. T his is a necessary f eature of this model because an organisation may not necessarily be getting more "organisationally mature" just by getting better at some isolated aspects of monitoring. We were not able to f ind an existing Social Media Monitoring Maturity Model (although there are several Social Business Maturity Models) and so we designed our own . It comprises 5 Levels, and 8 Categories of measurement, with tollgates between each level blocking entry unless specif ic conditions are met. T he application of this Model is appropriate right now f or all organisations who have made investments in social media monitoring and wish to step back and assess their perf ormance and their most profitable future steps.

Levels of mat urit y - social media monit oring assessment model

To f ill in a little more detail, here we outline the 5 levels of maturity in our assessment model. Level 1 is the lowest level, and Level 5 the highest stage of maturity. We know that companies can reach Level 5 because we see them out there, and we work with some.

We also know that most organisations are usually at Level 1-2 when they undertake a review. T he strategy and roadmap ensures rapid progress to a minimum of Level 3 maturity capabilities. Here are the Levels: Level 1 - f ree tools, ad-hoc, inconsistent and of ten untimely data, high risk of brand or reputation

damage. Tactical, with poor alignment with business objectives. Level 2 pro tools deployed on distributed chaos basis, reporting of basic data and limited governance, coordination and escalation, risk of brand and reputation damage. Level 3 - organizations take the content part of engagement seriously, invest more in staf f , training and platf orms. Roles of monitoring and engagement become coordinated, but not coordinated across the organization. Level 4 - management recognizes the risks & rewards of social media and begins to put the resources and governance in place to create consistency across the organization. Many enterprises implement a social media competency center to share expertise and improve consistency f or specif ic applications or uses of social media inf ormation. At Level 5 maturity, organizations have not only coordinated their use of social media inf ormation but are f ocused on optimizing their social media activities f rom improved processes to more advanced metrics to integration with other key business activities and integration with company big data. T he levels as assessed across 8 capabilities spanning cultural & attitudinal to operational & security.

How t o get st art ed on an social media monit oring assessment

You can get started with 3 easy steps, as f ollows, by clarif ying the scope , resources and expectations.

Summary
If you are keen f or your organisation to know the answers to these types of questions then get in contact with us now to discuss a Social Media Monitoring Assessment and how it can specifically benefit you . Are you getting the best ROI on your social media monitoring investment? Are you capable of moving to the next level of use of monitoring to improve business perf ormance and improve ROI? Where do you stand compared to others? What specific steps do you need to take to move to the next level? What is your roadmap f or social media monitoring in relation to your business objectives? Download the Presentation f rom Slideshare Social Media Maturity Model Assessment Overview

Walter Adamson Join me on Google+ My Social Presence http://xeeme.com/walter

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